need not disclaim the absurd heresy of exalting Kit Marlowe to the most remote approximation of rivalry with Eschylus-in his nobler moods neither surpassed, nor approached, nor approachable even by Sophocles himself. He also, indeed, endeavoured to raise tragedy upon the cothurnus;-but, with the Grecian, her tread, though bold and irregular, was still firm and majestic : with him she made some few noble and stately steps-but, from over exertion, perpetually stumbled, fell, and grovelled on the earth. His mind, however, seemed to be perpetually yearning after those vast and gigantic, and sometimes vague and mysterious, conceptions which crowded on the daring imagination of the Greek as the fine lines of Drayton express it : 'Our Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs, Which rightly should possess a poet's brain : and if his vaulting ambition did overleap itself, and fall on the other side,' the contemporaries of Eschylus considered that his somewhat Oriental mind ventured on images and on language which the severer Attic taste proscribed as swollen and turgid. If the rant of Tamburlaine, addressed to the subject kings who drew his chariot as he entered the stage Holla! ye pamper'd hordes of Asia, What can ye draw but twenty miles a-day!" became the proverbial extravagance which the poets of his day delighted to quote on the other hand, the wicked wit of Aristophanes was as little inclined to spare the more than sesquipedal compounds and lawless metaphors of the Persae. There is likewise something of singular coincidence in the lives and fates of these two poets, though here too it must be acknowledged that the comparison is as much to the disadvantage of Marlowe as that on the score of genius. Eschylus was arraigned on a charge of irreligion; his daring mind was supposed to have penetrated into the most awful mysteries of his faith, and profanely divulged them to the public:-Marlowe was accused of tampering with forbidden thoughts, of having admitted dark doubts, if not of having treated the Christian revelation with open scorn. And if, when the useful and patriotic life of Eschylus was untimely closed by a destiny which is said to have been prophetically foreshown, his more orthodox countrymen beheld in his appalling end the manifest vengeance of the gods; so when the profligate course of Marlowe was cut short in a disgraceful fray, a thrill of trembling awe seems to have run through his once dissolute companions, while while a fierce shout of triumph, at this fearful providence, burst from the puritanical opponents of the stage. Such are some of the singular points of resemblance between the earliest poet among our dramatists, and the unrivalled creator of the Athenian stage; and, though our drama can by no means be said to owe its existence to Marlowe, as that of Athens to Eschylus-it owes to him, nevertheless, a most important innovation, the rejection of rhyme and the adoption of blank verse. According to Mr. Collier's ingenious and satisfactory argument, 'Tamburlaine' was the first play which cast off the shackles of jingling rhyme and loose prose, which had been hitherto the language of the drama; -and much of its extravagance was intended to conciliate the audience to the innovation, and to the reception of what his contemporaries called Marlowe's mighty line. This was, in fact, the creation of English dramatic poetry; -this noblest form of verse immediately (notwithstanding the remonstrances of the rhymers, who vainly attempted to ridicule the 'swelling bombast of braggard blank verse ') took full possession of the stage. Marlowe himself, in his later efforts, greatly contributed to perfect what we may almost call his own invention. Mr. Collier has traced, with judgment, the manner in which his fine ear taught him a more easy flow,—a statelier march,―a more varied cadence,-the skill of floating the pause with greater boldness and felicity; the drawing it out from single lines, which never admitted the eleventh syllable, into a continuous stream of versification which embodied a whole speech, or, at least, a long passage, in one harmonious system. The reader, whose acquaintance with our old drama is confined to Shakspeare, will appreciate the service rendered by Marlowe, by contrasting the patches of rhyme, which occur in some of the earlier comedies, and the monotonous succession of single lines in the greater part of the three plays of Henry VI. with the freer and richer versification of the great poet's later productions. Some of these pieces of rhyme may be the remains of the old dramas, which Shakspeare worked up anew; or they may have been inserted in deference to the popular taste, which might yet retain a lingering affection for the jingle; and, in the other instance, so much of the old fabric remained, at least in the first part of Henry VI., that Shakspeare's additions may be discriminated as much by the difference of versification as of style. The finer passages of Marlowe have been so often quoted that we almost scruple to repeat them. Even from Tamburlaine' Mr. Collier has selected some thoughts of a nobler and less exaggerated tone; and some lines of great richness and luxuriance of fancy. The close of Faustus is well known, where the the poet represents the unhappy Doctor as watching the motion of the clock, and counting the hours and half hours as they slowly glide away and are heard to strike; and, occasionally breaking out into ejaculations of despair, feels the irresistible fatality which binds him to the fulfilment of his diabolic compact. This passage, which probably inspired Goethe, and which if the great German had finished the legend, even he could hardly have surpassed, was printed in Mr. Lamb's admirable Specimens, and has been adduced in many subsequent publications. We cannot, however, restrain ourselves from extracting at length some passages, though equally familiar to the lovers of our early poetry, from his Edward II.;' for on this play chiefly rests the right of Marlowe to be considered the legitimate forerunner of Shakspeare. The abdication of Edward II. is surpassed, indeed, by that of Richard II.; but it would have been dangerous for less than Shakspeare to have attempted to cope with Marlowe. Edward's allusion to his son even adds a tenderness to Marlowe's scene which is wanting in Shakspeare's. 'LEICESTER.-Be patient, good my lord, cease to lament; EDWARD.-Leicester, if gentle words might comfort me, 2 L2 By By Mortimer, and my unconstant queen, WINCHESTER.-Your grace mistakes; it is for England's good, But Edward's name survive, though Edward dies. But day's bright beam doth vanish fast away, [He puts on the crown. What! fear you not the fury of your king? They They pass not for thy frowns as late they did, But seek to make a new elected king; Which fills my mind with strange despairing thoughts, But that I feel the crown upon my head; Their blood and yours shall seal these treacheries. EDWARD. O Would I might! but heaven and earth conspire He of you all that most desires my blood, [He gives them the crown. Make me despise this transitory pomp, Come, death, and with thy fingers close my eyes, WINCHESTER.-My lord EDWARD. Call me not Lord. Away, out of my sight! ah, pardon me, Let not that Mortimer protect my son; More safety is there in a tiger's jaws, 1 Than his embracements.-Bear this to the queen, If with the sight thereof she be not moved, Return it back, and dip it in my blood. Unless it be with too much clemency ?-Act v. sc. i. The |