later edition, collated by me, is a re-impression of the one last mentioned, and appears to have been published about 1640. These three editions bear each the imprint "Middleburgh;" but, whatever may have been the case with respect to the first two, the third is evidently the production of a London press. This version of the Amores, taken altogether, does so little credit either to Marlowe's skill as a translator or to his scholarship, that one is almost tempted to believe it was never intended by him to meet the eye of the world, but was made, merely as a literary exercise, at an early period of life, when classical studies chiefly engaged his attention. We look in vain for the graces of Ovid. In many passages we should be utterly puzzled to attach a definite meaning to the words, if we had not the original at hand; and in many others the Latin is erroneously rendered, the mistranslations being sometimes extremely ludicrous.* I doubt if more can be said in praise of this version than that it is occasionally spirited and flowing. Of the XVth Elegy of the First Book there are two translations,—the second, which is "by B. J." (i. e. Ben Jonson) being, however, only an alteration of the first.‡ The Epigrams, which appeared along with the Ovid's Elegies, are wholly by John (afterwards, Sir John) Davies; a man so celebrated as the author of Nosce Teipsum, that I need not touch on his biography. Like other collections of the kind which came from the press a little later, these Epigrams are, for the most part, satires in miniature. They possess some poignancy of ridicule and some vigour of expression, but hardly enough to justify the applauses which they once called forth; § and they Both versions would seem to be by Jonson. See note †, p. 324. § They were probably widely circulated in manuscript before their appearance in print. See note ‡, p. 354, and note ‡‡, p. 359, of the present volume, for notices of them from Guilpin's Skialetheia, &c, 1598, (where Davies is termed "our English Martiall,") from Sir J. Harington's Metamorphosis of Ajax, 1596, and from Bastard's Chrestoleros, &c, 1598. See also Meres's Palladis Tamia, &c, 1598, fol. 284; Fitzgeoffrey's Affania, &c, 1601, Sigs. B 3, E 4; R. Carew's Epistle on the Excell. of the English Tongue, p. 13 (appended to his Survey of Cornwall, ed. 1769); and Jonson's Conversations with Drummond, pp. 15, 26, 37, (where mention is made of two epigrams not in the printed collection), ed. Shake. Soc.—In Jonson's xviiith Epigram is the line "Davis and Weever, and the best have been' (i.e. and the best epigrammatists that have been), Works, vIII. 161; where Gifford gives, without any addition of his own, a note by Whalley, who says that Jonson alludes to Davies of Hereford and to Weever's Funeral Monuments: but the allusion is to Sir John Davies's Epigrams and to Weever's Epigrams, 1599. chiefly recommend themselves to readers of the present day, as illustrating the manners and “humours" which prevailed towards the close of Elizabeth's reign. I have given them with the text considerably improved by means of one of the Harleian MSS. When Davies republished his poems in 1622, he did not admit a single Epigram into the volume. A paraphrase on the very elegant production of the Pseudo-Musaeus had been projected and was already partly composed by Marlowe, when death put an end to his labours; and as much of Hero and Leander as could be discovered after his decease having been entered in the Stationers' Books 28th September, 1593,† was given to the press in 1598.-While the poem of the Greek grammarian is comprised in 341 verses, the fragment in question extends to above 800. In this paraphrase Marlowe has somewhat impeded the progress and weakened the interest of the story by introducing extraneous matter and by indulging in whimsical and frivolous details; he occasionally disregards costume; he is too fond of conceits, and too prodigal of "wise saws and moral axioms. But he has amply redeemed these faults by the exquisite perception of the beautiful which he displays throughout a large portion of the fragment, by descriptions picturesque and vivid in the extreme, by lines which glow with all the intensity of passion, by marvellous felicities of language, and by skilful modulation of the verse.-The quotation from this poem in As you like it § may be considered as a proof that it was admired by Shakespeare; and the words which are there applied to the author,-"dead shepherd," sound not unlike an expression of pity for his sad and untimely end. "Musæus station'd with his lyre (Wordsworth's Lines written in a blank leaf of Macpherson's Ossian.) Yet various learned men believed that the Greek poem on Hero and Leander was really composed by the ancient Musæus: and we therefore need not be surprised at finding Marlowe and his continuator Chapman entertain that belief.-The elder Scaliger had not only persuaded himself that the poem was genuine, but that it was superior to the works of Homer. The younger and the greater Scaliger, however, thought very differently; and I give the following passage from his Epistolæ, because it is not cited by Schrader in the Prolegomena to Musæus. "Parcior et castigatior [Dionysio Per., Oppiano, et Nonno] quidem Musæus, sed qui cum illorum veterum frugalitate comparatus, prodigus videatur. Neque in hoc sequimur optimi parentis nostri judicium, quem acumina illa et flores declamatorii ita cœperunt, ut non dubitavit eum Homero præferre." p. 531, ed. 1627. "It occurs again in the registers of the Stationers, in 1597, 1598, and 1600." [The latest entry must refer to an edition of the poem with Chapman's continuation.] Warton's Hist. of Engl. Poet. iii. 434, ed. 4to. By an oversight, Warton calls it a "translation." Hist. of Engl. Poet. iii. 434, ed. 4to. Though Warton was perhaps better acquainted with the Greek and Roman writers than any of our poetical antiquaries, Tyrwhitt always excepted, yet this is not the only mistake he has made in such matters. For instance, in vol. ii. 461, he mentions Grindal's "recommending such barbarous and degenerate classics as Palingenius [i. e. Pier Angelo Manzolli], Sedulius, and Prudentius," &c. § See note †, p. 281 of the present volume. Jonson, too, in Every Man in his Humour has cited Hero and Leander; and he is reported to have spoken of it often in terms of the highest praise.† The age of Elizabeth, so fertile in great poets, had also its indifferent rhymers in abundance; and one of the latter class lost no time in attempting to complete this beautiful fragment. Before the close of the year 1598 Henry Petowe put forth The Second Part of Hero and Leander, conteyning their further fortunes; ‡ and, though none of his contemporaries has informed us how it was received by the public, there can be little doubt that it met with the contempt and ridicule which it deserved. In a Dedicatory Epistle to Sir Henry Guilford, knight, Petowe writes as follows. "This historie of Hero and Leander, penned by that admired poet Marloe, but not finished (being preuented by sodaine death), and the same (though not abruptly, yet contrary to all menns expectation) resting, like a heade seperated from the body, with this harsh sentence, Desunt nonnulla; I, being inriched by a gentleman, a friend of mine, with the true Italian discourse of those louers' further fortunes, haue presumed to finish the historie, though not so well as diuers riper wits doubtles would haue done," &c. Whether Petowe really borrowed the substance of this Continuation from a foreign original, or whether what he says about "the true Italian discourse" is to be understood as an ingenious fiction, I haue taken no pains to inquire it is at least certain that the wretched style in which he relates the very foolish incidents is all his own.§ One passage (and the best, too,) of the poem must * See note *, p. 282 of the present volume. + In an address "To the Reader," signed R. C., prefixed to The Chast and Lost Lovers, &c, 1651, the work of William Bosworth, "a young gentleman 19 years of age," who was then deceased, is the following passage; "The strength of his fancy and the shadowing of it in words he [Bosworth] taketh from Mr. Marlow in his Hero and Leander, whose mighty lines Mr. Benjamin Johnson (a man sensible enough of his own abilities) was often heard to say that they [sic] were examples fitter for admiration than for parallel." But I cannot help suspecting that all R. C.'s knowledge of Jonson's admiration of "Mr. Marlow" was derived from Ben's verses on Shakespeare, where we find the words, "Marlowe's mighty line." Some other notices of Marlowe's poem may be thrown together here.-"Let me see, hath any bodie in Yarmouth heard of Leander and Hero, of whome diuine Museus sung, and a diuiner Muse than him, Kit Marlow? . . . . At that, she [Hero] became a franticke Bacchanal outright, and made no more bones but sprang after him [Leander], and so resignd vp her priesthood, and left worke for Museus and Kit Marlowe." Nash's Lenten Stuffe, &c, 1599, pp. 42, 45.-"[Will you read] Catullus? [take] Shakespeare, and Barlowes [Marlowe's] Fragment." R. Carew's Epistle on the Excell. of the English Tongue, p. 13. (appended to his Survey of Cornwall, ed. 1769.)—“Marlowe his excellent fragment of Hero and Leander." Bolton's Hypercritica,-according to a MS. copy,-Anc. Crit. Essays (edited by Haslewood), ii. 247.-"In his begun poem of Hero and Leander he [Marlowe] seems to have a resemblance of that clean and unsophisticated wit which is natural to that incomparable poet [Shakespeare]." Phillips's Theat. Poet. (Modern Poets), p. 24, ed. 1675. It was entered in the Stationers' Books, 14th April of that year.-As poems in those days were much read in MS., Marlowe's Hero and Leander was probably familiar to Petowe before it had reached the press. This observation applies, of course, to Chapman also (see postea). § In an address "To the quicke-sighted Reader," Petowe declares that this production was "the first fruits of an vnripe wit, done at certaine vacant howers."-He afterwards published: Philochasander and Elanira the faire Lady of Britaine, &c, 1599.—Elizabetha quasi vivens. Eliza's Funerall, &c, 1603 (reprinted in The Harl. Miscel. vol. x. ed. Park).—Englands Cæsar. His Majesties most royall be inserted here, because it affords a remarkable proof of the celebrity which Marlowe had acquired : : "Quicke-sighted spirits,-this suppos'd Apollo, Conceit no other but th' admired Marlo; Marlo admir'd, whose honney-flowing vaine Oh, had that king of poets breathed longer, Then had faire beautie's fort been much more stronger! His goulden pen had clos'd her so about, No bastard æglet's quill, the world throughout, For why they were not expert in that trade. To meditate vpon his goulden lynes, His rare conceyts, and sweete-according rimes. To liue with beautie in Elyzium; Immortall beautie, who desires to heare His sacred poesies, sweete in euery eare: Marlo must frame to Orpheus' melodie Himnes all diuine to make heauen harmonie. There euer liue the prince of poetrie, Liue with the liuing in eternitie ! " + As the piece just quoted, however despicable in itself, possesses a sort of interest from its connection with Marlowe's fragment, and as it is of such rare occurrence that little more than its title has been cited by poetical antiquaries, some other extracts from it have been appended to the present volume.§ But Chapman, the well-known translator of Homer,-had also been busy with a continuation of Marlowe's "half-told tale ;" and it appears to have been completed as early as Petowe's Second Part above described. "As Museus, who wrote the loue Coronation, &c, 1603 (reprinted ibid.).—The Whipping of Runawaies, &c, 1603. And he probably was author of The Movs-trap (a collection of Epigrams), 1606, as it has a dedication signed H. P.— From what I have read of these pieces, I should say that Petowe improved as he continued to write, for they are much superior to his Hero and Leander: still they give him no claim to be styled a poet. * all on earth] Old ed. "all earth on earth." faire] i. e. beauty. Sig. B ii. § See Appendix IV. of Hero and Leander, had two excellent schollers, Thamaras and Hercules, so hath he in England two excellent poets imitators of him in the same argument and subiect, Christopher Marlow and George Chapman," are the words of Meres in his Palladis Tamia, &c. 1598.* At that date, however, there is little doubt that Chapman's portion of the poem had not been printed; nor does it seem to have been ever printed singly. The carliest edition of the complete work yet discovered is that of 1600; and, strangely enough, its title-page makes no mention of Chapman, though his name is coupled with Marlowe's in the title-pages of all the subsequent impressions. In this elaborate performance (the popularity of which is attested by repeated editions) Chapman has divided Marlowe's fragment into two Sestiads, has added four other Sestiads from his own pen, and has prefixed a rhyming Argument to each of the six. A passage of the Third Sestiad, in which Chapman makes an apostrophe to the "free soul" of Marlowe, requires some notice here: "Then, ho, most strangely-intellectual fire, The words, "his late desires," seem capable of no other interpretation than—the late wishes of Marlowe that Chapman should continue the poem; while the words which follow, "If yet it know not," seem to imply that those wishes had not been expressed to Chapman by Marlowe himself, but had been conveyed to Chapman by others. Perhaps, therefore, we are to understand,-that on some occasion, not long * Fol. 282. Meres, we may presume, had seen Chapman's Continuation in a manuscript copy. A little before the passage just quoted, he mentions Shakespeare's Sonnets, which certainly were not then in print. See the second article in the list of editions, p. 276 of the present volume: according to the titlepage, that edition ought also to contain Marlowe's First Book of Lucan; but in the Bodleian copy (the only one I have ever met with) the Lucan is wanting. Warton says, "I learn from Mr. Malone, that Marlowe finished only the about one hundred lines of the third." Hist. of Engl. Poet. iii. 434, ed. 4to. see note*, p. 279, first col., and note ‡, p. 289, in the present volume. § P. 291, sec. col. two first Sestiads and But this is a mistake; |