goers of the metropolis. Numerous entries concerning the performance of both Parts of this tragedy occur in Henslowe's Diary, all of them, however, subsequent to the death of Marlowe: the earliest is dated 28th August, 1594, the latest 13th Nov. 1595.* Venga un di voi, et lascisi vedere, Ma, s'io prendo il cammino, io ve n'avviso, Lib. i. C. xvIII. st. 9, ed. Pan. In the same poem Agramante declares to his council that he is resolved to subdue, not only Carlo Mano, but the whole world; and he concludes, "Poi che battuto avrò tutta la terra, Lib. II. C. I. st. 64. In Le Prime Imprese del Conte Orlando by Dolce, when Agolante hears that his son Almonte is slain, "egli ha sua stella Accusa, e la biastema parimente; Et è da l' ira stimolato tanto Che di strugger il ciel si dona vanto." There are touches of this kind even in Ariosto; C. XVII. p. 134, ed. 1579. "Dal sagace Spagnuol, che con la guida Orl. Fur. C. XXXIII. st. 51. The same sort of extravagance is occasionally found in English dramatists later than Marlowe. For instance, in Heywood's Four Prentices of London (acted about 1599, and certainly intended for a serious play) the Soldan exclaims, "Should Ioue himselfe in thunder answere I [i.e. ay], Yet this early production of Heywood contains some fine things; e. g., "In Sion towres hangs his victorious flagge, The line marked in Italics has been cited neither by the editors of Milton nor by those of Gray as parallel to the following passages; * Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air." The Bard. Pp. 40-60, ed. Shake. Soc.-The play called Tambercame, which is mentioned in the same Diary, was doubtless a distinct piece from Marlowe's Tamburlaine. " Taylor, the water-poet, makes Tom Coryat inform the Great Mogul, that Tamburlaine "perhaps is not altogether so famous in his own country of Tartaria as in England ;' and notices of the play, which shew that it was still in some repute, might be cited from writers of a more recent period.† But before the close of the seventeenth century it had sunk into oblivion: a precocious young gentleman, a Mr. Charles Saunders, whose Tamerlane (after having been acted, with a Prologue by Dryden) was printed in 1681, writes thus in his Preface; "It hath been told me, there is a Cock-pit play going under the name of The Scythian Shepherd or Tamberlain the Great, which how good it is any one may judge by its obscurity, being a thing, not a bookseller‡ in London, or scarce the players themselves who acted it formerly, cow'd call to remembrance." With very little discrimination of character, with much extravagance of incident, with no pathos where pathos was to be expected, and with a profusion of inflated language, Tamburlaine is nevertheless a very impressive drama, and undoubtedly superior to all the English tragedies which preceded it;-superior to them in the effectiveness with which the events are brought out, in the poetic feeling which animates the whole, and in the nerve and variety of the versification. Marlowe was yet to shew that he could impart truthfulness to his scenes; but not a few passages might be gleaned from Tamburlaine as grand in thought, as splendid in imagery, and as happy in expression, as any which his later works contain. A memorandum that Marlowe "translated Coluthus's Rape of Helen into English rhyme in the year 1587," is cited from Coxeter's MSS. by Warton; who observes that "Coluthus's poem was probably brought into vogue, and suggested to Marlowe's notice, by being paraphrased in Latin verse the preceding year by Thomas Watson." § * Oration to the Great Mogul, p. 85, Workes, ed. 1630. + E. G. "Tut, leave your raging, sir; for though you should roar like Tamerlin at the Bull," &c. Cowley's Guardian, act iii. sc. 6, ed. 1650. Since those days, the old editions of Marlowe's pieces have, of course, become more and more difficult to procure. The following fragment of Memoranda, in the handwriting of (I believe) Dr. Ducarel, was obligingly forwarded to me by Mr. Bolton Corney, and may prove not uninteresting to some readers. "One fine summer's day, in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty-four, going into an old book-shop kept by an old woman and her daughter, on the north side of Middle-Row, Holbourn, to look for any ancient books; not being there long, looking round the shop, before Dodd the comedian came in, to search, as he told me, for any one of Kit Marlow's plays. I asked the old woman if she had any more books besides those in the shop. She said she had; but they were in an inner room without any window-light; and that the last person that had been there was the noted book-worm Dr. Rawlinson,' -who then had been sleeping with his fathers some few years. "Mr. Dodd ask'd if it was agreeable for him to accompany me. We had two candles lighted, and going into this dark recess, saw a great number of books laying on the ground, which took us some hours looking over. He brought out a book or two; but was not lucky enough to find Kit Marlow there. And, after turning over, for three or four hours, many dirty books, I only found worth buying," &c. Though Dodd failed in Middle-Row, he must have found "dark recesses" in other localities where a search after early dramas was not made in vain; for his collection of plays (sold by auction after his decease) was very curious and valuable. Hist. of Engl. Poet. iii. 433, [Marlowe's translation of Coluthus] . . ed. 4to; where Warton also remarks, "I have never seen it But there is entered to Jones, in 1595, A booke entituled .... -The poet of Lycopolis so seldom rises above mediocrity, that the loss of Marlowe's version may be borne with perfect resignation. It is to be presumed that Tamburlaine had not been long before the public, when Marlowe produced his Faustus.* The date of the first edition of the prose-romance which supplied the materials for this play, is, I believe, doubtful; but "A ballad of the life and death of Doctor Faustus the great cungerer" was licensed to be printed 28th February, 1588-9; and, as ballads were frequently founded on favourite dramas, it is most likely that the ditty just mentioned was derived from our author's play. A stanza in Rowlands's Knave of Clubs, not only informs us that Alleyn acted the chief part in this tragedy, but also describes his costume; "The gull gets on a surplis, With a crosse upon his brest, In that manner was he drest." + The success of Faustus was complete. Henslowe has sundry entries‡ concerning it; none, however, earlier than 30th Sept. 1594, at which date Marlowe was dead, and the play, there is every reason to believe, had been several years on the prompter's list. Henslowe has also two important memoranda regarding the “additions" which were made to it, when, in consequence of having been repeatedly performed, it had somewhat palled upon the audience; "Pd unto Thomas Dickers [Dekker], the 20 of Desembr 1597, for adycyons to Fostus twentie shellinges." "Lent unto the companye, the 22 of novmbr 1602, to paye unto Wm Birde and Samwell Rowley for ther adicyones in Docter Fostes, the some of . . . . iiijli”.§ Faustus was entered in the Stationers' Books 7th January 1600-1.|| The earliest edition yet discovered is the quarto of 1604; which never having been Raptus Helena, Helen's Rape, by the Athenian duke Theseus'." Surely, Warton could not mean, that the book entered to Jones in 1595 was perhaps Marlowe's version of Coluthus; for Coluthus relates the rape of Helen by Paris, not by Theseus. * Mr. Collier observes that "Marlowe's Faustus, in all probability, was written very soon after his Tamburlaine the Great, as in 1588 a ballad of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus' (which in the language of that time might mean either the play or a metrical composition founded upon its chief incidents) was licensed to be printed." Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poet. iii. 126. As we find that the play was entered in the Stationers' Books in 1601, the "ballad of Faustus" must mean the story of Faustus in verse,—perhaps, that ballad which I have reprinted in the present volume, p. 136. Mr. Collier, in a note on Henslowe's Diary, p. 42, ed. Shake. Soc., states that "the old Romance of Faustus, on which the play is founded, was first entered on the Stationers' books in 1588:" qy. does he mean the old ballad of Faustus? + P. 22. ed. Percy Soc. (reprint of ed. 1611).-An inventory of Alleyn's theatrical apparel includes "Faustus Jerkin, his cloke." Collier's Mem. of Alleyn, p. 20. Diary, pp. 42-91, ed. Shake. Soc. § Ibid. pp. 71, 228.-Among the stage-properties of the Lord Admiral's men (Ibid. p. 273) we find "j dragon in fostes." || I make this statement on the authority of the MS. notes by Malone in his copies of 4tos 1604 and 1631 (now in the Bodleian Library). examined either by Marlowe's editors or (what is more remarkable) by the excellent historian of the stage, Mr. Collier, they all remained ignorant how very materially it differs from the later editions. The next quarto, that of 1616 (reprinted in 1624 and in 1631), besides a text altered more or less from the commencement to the end, contains some characters and scenes which are entirely new: but, as the present volume includes both the edition of 1604 and that of 1616, a more particular account of their variations is unnecessary here.-We have seen that "additions" were made to Faustus in 1597, and again in 1602, at the first of which dates Marlowe had been several years deceased; and a question arises, is the quarto of 1604 wholly from our author's pen, or is it, as the quarto of 1616 indisputably is,—an alteration of the tragedy by other hands? Malone believed that the quarto of 1604 was "Marlowe's original play;' ;"* but a passage in a speech of the Horsecourser proves him to have been mistaken. The words are these; 66 Mass, Doctor Lopus was never such a doctor :"+ now, Marlowe died in 1593; and the said Doctor Lopez did not start into notoriety till the following year, during which he suffered death at Tyburn for his treasonable practices. I at first entertained no doubt that the (somewhat mutilated and corrupted) quarto of 1604 presented Faustus with those comparatively unimportant "additions" for which Dekker was paid twenty shillings in 1597; and that the quarto of 1616 exhibited that alteration of the play which was made by the combined ingenuity of Bird and Rowley in 1602. But I have recently felt less confident on this subject, having found that the anonymous comedy The Taming of a Shrew, which was entered in the Stationers' Books and printed in 1594, contains a seeming imitation of a line in Faustus,—a line which occurs only in the quarto of 1616 (reprinted in 1624 and 1631), and which belongs to a scene that, as the merest novice in criticism will at once perceive, was not the composition of Marlowe. If the line in question§ was really imitated by the author MS. Note in his copy of 4to 1604.-In his copy of 4to 1631 he has written; "The reason why Rowley and Bird's additions did not appear in the edition of 1604, was, that they were retained for the use of the theatre." (Malone, it would seem, was not then aware that Dekker had made additions to Faustus in 1597.)—Mr. Collier says, "We may conclude that the additions last made [to Faustus by Bird and Rowley] were very considerable; and with them probably the piece was printed in 1604.” Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poet. III. 126: but when Mr. Collier made this remark, he was unacquainted with the quarto of 1604, as is proved by his quoting, throughout his valuable work, the text of the later Faustus. + P. 96, sec. col. He was executed in June 1594: see Stowe's Annales, p. 768, ed. 1615. § It is, "Or hew'd this flesh and bones as small as sand." P. 126, first col. The probable imitation of it is, "And hew'd thee smaller than the Libian sandes." The resemblance between these two lines might have been considered as purely accidental, did not The of The Taming of a Shrew, we must conclude that, earlier than 1597, Faustus had received" additions" concerning which the annals of the stage are silent; nor must we attempt to assign to their respective authors those two rifacimenti of the tragedy which are preserved in the quartos of 1604 and 1616.—A fifth quarto of Faustus was printed in 1663, With New Additions, as it is now Acted. With several New Scenes, together with the Actors Names [i. e. the names of the Dram. Pers.], the new matter* occupying much less space than the title-page would lead us to imagine, and evidently supplied by some poetaster of the lowest grade.-The repeated alterations and editions of this tragedy seem to justify the assertion of Phillips, that “of all that Marlowe hath written to the stage, his Dr. Faustus hath made the greatest noise, with its devils and such like tragical sport."+ The well-known fact, that our early dramatists usually borrowed their fables from novels or "histories," to which they often servilely adhered, has not been considered any derogation from their merits. Yet the latest biographer of Marlowe dismisses Faustus as "unworthy of his reputation," chiefly because it "closely follows a popular romance of the same name." Certain it is that Marlowe has "closely followed" the prose History of Doctor Faustus; but it is equally certain that he was not indebted to that History for the poetry and the passion which he has infused into his play, for those thoughts of surpassing beauty and grandeur with which it abounds, and for that fearful display of mental agony at the close, compared to which all attempts of the kind by preceding English dramatists are "poor indeed." In the opinion of Hazlitt, "Faustus, though an imperfect and unequal performance, is Marlowe's greatest work."§ Mr. Hallam remarks; "There is an awful melancholy about Marlowe's Mephistophiles, perhaps more impressive than the malignant mirth of that fiend in the renowned work of Goethe. But the fair form of Margaret is wanting." In the comic scenes of Faustus (which are nearly all derived from the prose History) we have buffoonery of the worst description; and it is difficult not to believe that Marlowe is answerable for at least a portion of them, when we recollect that he had inserted similar scenes in the original copy of his Tamburlaine. Taming of a Shrew contain various passages almost transcribed from Tamburlaine and Faustus: see much more on this subject, p. li. of the present essay. * Mr. Collier is mistaken when he states that in 4to. 1663 "a scene at Rome is transferred to Constantinople, and another interpolated from The Rich Jew of Malta." Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poet. iii. 126. There is no scene at Constantinople, nor any interpolation from the Jew of Malta; but there is a scene at Babylon, during which the Sultan questions one of his Bashaws concerning the taking of Malta, and is informed how they had won the town by means of the Jew. Perhaps it is hardly worth mentioning that Marlowe's Faustus was "made into a Farce, with the Humours of Harlequin and Scaramouch," by the celebrated actor Mountfort, who was so basely assassinated in 1692. + Theat. Poet. (Modern Poets), p. 25, ed. 1675. Lives of English Dramatists, i. 58 (Lardner's Cyclop.). § Lectures on Dram. Lit. p. 53, ed. 1840. Introd. to the Lit. of Europe, ii. 171, ed. 1843. |