The king, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt
From envious malice of thy swelling heart.
WIN. Gloster, I do defy thee.-Lords, vouchsafe
To give me hearing what I shall reply.
If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse,
As he will have me, how am I so poor?
Or how haps it, I seek not to advance
Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling?
And for dissension, who preferreth peace
More than I do, except I be provok'd?
No, my good lords, it is not that offends;
It is not that, that hath incens'd the duke:
It is, because no one should sway but he;
No one but he should be about the king;
And that engenders thunder in his breast,
And makes him roar these accusations forth.
But he shall know I am as good-

GLO.

Thou bastard of my grandfather!

As good!

WIN. Ay, lordly sir; for what are you, I pray,
But one imperious in another's throne?
GLO. Am I not Protector, saucy priest?
WIN. And am I not a prelate of the church?
GLO. Yes, as an outlaw in a castle keeps
And useth it to patronage his theft.

WIN. Unreverent Gloster!'

The personal characteristics of the two young poets, Marlowe and Shakespeare, are set forth in the discourses of their puppets. Gloucester is full of pity for the poor and oppressed, and is scornful of priestly claims; Winchester upholds the rights of princes and the pomp and circumstance of rank. The one, so alien to his exalted position, is full of free thought and radical theory; the other courtly and tenacious of the power incidental to his position. It is characteristic of Marlowe, when writing in the

earlier period of this drama, to be a defender of

the Maid of Orleans,' la Pucelle. Alas, that other hands had to work out her degradation!

In this Henry the Sixth it is interesting to note that Kentish men, quite ignored in Shakespeare's other plays, are, from time to time, spoken of with admiration and respect. Shakespeare's workmanship, his early workmanship, before he had learned to keep control over his pen, and restraint upon the idiosyncrasies of his youth, may be readily detected by well-marked characteristics: by his word-quibbles, his puns, his conceits, his proverbial philosophy, his constant flood of similes, and, in fine, by his complete subjugation to the 'euphuisms' of the time. Eventually Shakespeare shook himself free of this fashionable foible, only to fall under the influence of Marlowe; this latter submission to the style of the brother bard, of whom for a time he was a most devoted follower, took place during that early portion of his career whilst he was engaged in the reconstruction or revision of the early historical or chronicle plays. Eventually the tables were turned, and Marlowe, from being the admired master, became in his last completed drama, Edward the Second, the admiring comrade.

How'strongly Marlowe subjugated his mind and style to Shakespeare's is shown in Edward the Second, wherein he is seen restraining and curbing his glowing and impetuous language; and, in place of impassioned soliloquies, uttered in and out of

season by all sorts and conditions of men, he makes his several dramatic personages utter words more suited to their separate and respective characters and conditions. In Henry the Sixth, Marlowe's puppets are merely pegs on which to hang his own thoughts and theories: Gloucester, not only a royal prince next in rank to the king, but, as Lord Protector, legally and practically ruler of the realm, is made to utter all kinds of radical expressions and free thought speeches, not only out of character with his exalted position, but far in advance of the age he lived in.

Unlike Shakespeare's characters, whose talk generally accords with their rank and condition, Marlowe's personages all speak in the same poetic, often farfetched, strain. How incongruous it sounds to hear the crafty, villainous Richard, afterwards the third of that name, discourse like a lovelorn lad, even in the heat of battle, and, when he should be con cerned about his father's fate, in such a style as this:

'See how the morning opes her golden gates,

And takes her farewell of the glorious sun!

How well resembles it the prime of youth,

Trimm'd like a younker, prancing to his love!'

Little less out of place is Edward the Fourth's address to Queen Margaret :

'Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou,
Although thy husband may be Menelaus;
And ne'er was Agamemnon's brother wrong'd
By that false woman, as this king by thee.

ATAT. SVA L.A. CHR.

Lux Hareshulla tibi Warunci calls tenebris
Ante tuas Cunas, obsita Prima frut.
Ama, Viros, Veneres. Pairam modulamine dists;
Je Patna resonant Azma Vin l'eneres..

MICHAEL DRAYTON

From an old engraving.

PLATE XXI.