British Classical Authors. Select Specimens of the National Literature of England and America, with Biographical Sketches and an Historical Outline of English Literature. Poetry and Prose

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.

one

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, of Shakespeare's

most eminent predecessors, was born about 1562, at Canterbury. In 1587 he took the degree of A. M. at Cambridge; before this time he had written his play of 'Tamburlaine the Great. His next play was The Life and Death of Dr. Faustus, in which the poet has displayed a great amount of talent, and introduced some scenes of terrific grandeur. This was followed

by the Jew of Malta, "The Massacre at Paris' and 'Edward the Second,' of which the last is considered the finest; indeed it is thought in some parts worthy of being compared with Shakespeare's Richard II. He has also written several other dramatic pieces, all possessing a certain amount of merit, beside several small poems of less value. Marlowe died in 1593.

THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOC- Or being dead raise men to life again,

TOR FAUSTUS.

How Faustus fell to the study of magic. born of parents base of stock

In Germany, within a town called Rhodes; At riper years to Wirtemberg he went, Whereas his kinsmen chiefly brought him up. So much he profits in Divinity,

That shortly he was graced with Doctor's name,'

Excelling all, and sweetly can dispute
In the heavenly matters of theology:
Till swoln with cunning and a self-conceit,
His waxen wings did mount above his reach.
And melting, heaven conspired his over-
throw:

For falling to a devilish exercise,
And glutted now with Learning's golden gifts,
He surfeits on the cursed necromancy.
Nothing so sweet as magic is to him,
Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss.

Faustus, in his study, runs through the circle of the
sciences; and being satisfied with none of them,
determines to addict himself to magic.
Faust. Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin
To sound the depth of that thou wilt profess:
Having commenc'd, be a Divine in show,
Yet level at the end of every art,
And live and die in Aristotle's works.
Sweet Analytics, 'tis thou hast ravish'd me,
Bene disserere est finis Logices.
Is, to dispute well, Logic's chiefest end?
Affords this art no greater miracle?
Then read no more; thou hast attain'd that

end.

A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit.
Bid Economy farewell; and Galen come.
Be a physician, Faustus, heap up gold,
And be eterniz'd for some wond'rous cure,
Summum bonum medicinæ sanitas:

The end of physic is our bodies' health. Why, Faustus, hast thou not attain'd that end?

Are not thy bills hung up as monuments, Whereby whole cities have escap'd the plague,

And divers desperate maladies been cured? Yet art thou still but Faustus, and a man. Couldst thou make men but live eternally,

Then this profession were to be esteem'd.
Physic, farewell. Where is Justinian?
Si una eademque res legatur duobus,
Alter rem, alter valorem rei, &c.
A petty case of paltry legacies.
Exhereditare filium non potest pater, nisi, §-c.
Such is the subject of the Institute,
And universal body of the Law.
This study fits a mercenary drudge,
Who aims at nothing but eternal trash,
Too servile and illiberal for me.
When all is done, Divinity is best.
Jerome's Bible, Faustus: view it well.
Stipendium peccati mors est: ha! Stipen-
dium, &c.
The reward of sin is death: that's hard.
Si peccasse negamus, fallimur et nulla est
in nobis veritas.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and there is no truth in us.
Why then belike we must sin, and so con-
sequently die.

Aye, we must die an everlasting death.
What doctrine call you this? Che sera sera:
What will be shall be. Divinity adieu.
These Metaphysics of Magicians,
And necromantic books, are heavenly.
Lines, Circles, Letters, Characters:
Aye, these are those that Faustus most de-
sires.

O what a world of profit and delight,
Of power, of honour, of omnipotence,
Is promised to the studious artizan!
All things that move between the quiet poles
Shall be at my command. Emperors and
Kings

Are but obey'd in their several provinces;
But his dominion that exceeds in this,
Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man:
A sound Magician is a Demigod.
Here tire my brains to gain a deity.

How am I glutted with conceit of this!
Shall I make Spirits fetch me what I please?
Resolve me of all ambiguities?
Perform what desperate enterprises I will?
I'll have them fly to India for gold,
Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,
And search all corners of the new-found world

MARLOWE.

For pleasant fruits and princely delicates.
I'll have them read me strange philosophy;
And tell the secrets of all foreign kings:
I'll have them wall all Germany with

brass,

And with swift Rhine circle all Wirtemberg:
I'll have them fill the public schools with
skill,
Wherewith the students shall be bravely
clad:

I'll levy soldiers with the coin they bring,
And chase the Prince of Parma from our
land;

And reign sole king of all the provinces;
Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war,
Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp bridge,
I'll make my servile Spirits to invent.
Come, German Valdes, and Cornelius,

And make me wise with your sage con-
ference.

Enter Valdes and Cornelius.

Say, Wagner, thou hast perused
my Will,

How dost thou like it?,
Wag. Sir, so wondrous well,
As in all humble duty I do yield

Faust. Valdes, sweet Valdes, and Cor- My life and lasting service for your love.

nelius,

Know that your words have won

me at

the last
To practise magic and concealed Arts.
Philosophy is odious and obscure:
Both Law and Physic are for petty wits;
"Tis Magic, Magic, that hath ravish'd me.
Then gentle friends aid me in this attempt;
And I that have with subtil syllogisms
Gravell'd the Pastors of the German Church,
And made the flowering pride of Wirtem-
berg

Swarm to my problems, as th'infernal Spirits.
On sweet Musæus when he came to hell,
Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,
Whose shadow made all Europe honour him.
Vald. Faustus, these books, thy wit, and
our experience,
Shall make all nations canonize us.
As Indian Moors obey their Spanish Lords,
So shall the Spirits of every Element
Be always serviceable to us three:
Like Lions shall they guard us when we
please;

Like Almain Rutters with their horsemen's

staves,

Or Lapland Giants trotting by our sides:
Sometimes like Women, or unwedded Maids,
Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows
Than have the white breasts of the Queen
of Love.

Corn. The miracles that magic will per-
form,

Will make thee vow to study nothing else.
He that is grounded in astrology,
Enricht with tongues, well seen in minerals,
Hath all the principles magic doth require.
Come, show me some demonstra-
tions magical,

Faust.

Berrig, British Auth.

Three Scholars enter.

Faust. Gramercy, Wagner.
Welcome, Gentlemen.

[Exit.

First Sch. Now, worthy Faustus, methinks your looks are chang'd. Faust. Oh, Gentlemen.

Sec. Sch. What ails Faustus? Faust. Ah, my sweet chamber-fellow, had I lived with thee, then had I lived still, but now must die eternally. Look, Sirs, comes he not? comes he not?

First Sch. Oh, my dear Faustus, what imports this fear?

Sec. Sch. Is all our pleasure turned to melancholy?

Third Sch. He is not well with being over solitary.

Sec. Sch. If it be so, we will have physicians, and Faustus shall be cured. Third Sch. "Tis but a surfeit, Sir; fear nothing.

Faust. A surfeit of a deadly sin that hath damn'd both body and soul.

Sec. Sch. Yet, Faustus, look up to heaven, and remember mercy is infinite.

Faust. But Faustus' offence can ne'er be pardoned. The serpent that tempted. Eve may be saved, but not Faustus. O Gentlemen, hear me with patience, and tremble not at my speeches. Though my heart pant and quiver to remember that I have been a student here these thirty years. O would I had ne'er seen Wirtemberg, never read book! and what

wonders have I done, all Germany can witness, yea, all the world: for which, Faustus hath lost both Germany and the world: yea, heaven itself, heaven the seat of God, the throne of the blessed, the kingdom of joy, and must remain in hell for ever. Hell, O hell, for ever. Sweet friends, what shall become of Faustus being in hell for ever? Sec. Sch. Yet Faustus call on God. Faust. On God whom Faustus hath abjured? on God whom Faustus hath blasphemed? O my God, I would weep but the devil draws in my tears. Gush forth blood instead of tears, yea life and soul. Oh, he stays my tongue: I would lift up my hands, but see, they hold 'em, they hold 'em.

Scholars. Who, Faustus? Faust. Why, Lucifer and Mephistophilis. O gentlemen, I gave them my soul for cunning. (1)

Scholars. O God forbid.

Faust. God forbid it indeed, but Faustus hath done it: for the vain pleasure of four-and-twenty years hath Faustus lost eternal joy and felicity. I writ them a bill with mine own blood, the date is expired: this is the time, and he will fetch me.

First Sch. Why did not Faustus tell us of this before, that Divines might have prayed for thee?

Faust. Oft have I thought to have done so; but the devil threatened to tear me in pieces if I named God; to fetch me body and soul if I once gave ear to divinity, and now it is too late. Gentlemen, away, lest you perish with me. Sec. Sch. O what may we do to save Faustus?

Faust. Talk not of me, but save yourselves and depart.

Third Sch. God will strengthen me, I will stay with Faustus.

First. Sch. Tempt not God, sweet friend, but let us into the next room and pray for him.

Faust. Aye, pray for me, pray for me; and what noise soever you hear, come not unto me, for nothing can

rescue me.

(1) Knowledge.

Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and
make
Perpetual day: or let this hour be but
A year, a month, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul.
O lente lente currite noctis equi.
The stars move still, time runs, the clock
will strike,

The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd?

I will leap to heaven, who pulls me down? See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament:

One drop of blood will save me: Oh, my Christ,

Christ. Rend not my heart for naming of Yet will I call on him: O spare me, Lucifer. Where is it now? 'tis gone? And see, a threat'ning arm, and angry Mountains and hills come, come, and fall

on me.

brow.

SHAKESPEARE.

It strikes, it strikes; now, body, turn to air,
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell.
O soul, be chang'd into small water drops,
And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found.

Thunder, and enter the Devils.

O mercy heaven, look not so fierce on me.
Adders and serpents, let me breathe awhile:
Ugly hell gape not; come not, Lucifer:
I'll burn my books: Oh Mephistophilis!

Enter Scholars.

First Sch. Come, gentlemen, let us go
visit Faustus,

For such a dreadful night was never seen
Since first the world's creation did begin,
Such fearful shrieks and cries were never
heard.

Pray heaven the Doctor have escaped the
danger.

Sec. Sch. O help us heavens! see here
are Faustus' limbs
All torn asunder by the hand of death.
Third Sch. The devil whom Faustus serv'd
hath torn him thus:
methought
For 'twixt the hours of twelve and one,
I heard him shriek, and call aloud for help;
At which same time the house seem'd all
on fire
With dreadful horror of these damned fiends.
Sec. Sch. Well, gentlemen, though Faus-
tus' end be such
As every Christian heart laments to think on:
Yet, for he was a scholar once admired
For wondrous knowledge in our German
schools,

We'll give his mangled limbs due burial:
And all the scholars, cloth'd in mourning
black,

Shall wait upon his heavy funeral.
Chorus. Cut is the branch that might
have grown full strait,
And burned is Appollo's laurel bough
That sometime grew within this learned man;
Faustus is gone! Regard his hellish fall,
Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise
Only to wonder at unlawful things;
Whose deepness doth entice such forward

wits

mits. To practise more than heavenly power per

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

STRATFORD-ON-AVON boasts of having been the birth-place of this hero of English literature. The event of his birth took place in April 1564. The particulars of his life are involved in great obscurity, but it is maintained by many that his father followed the trade of a glover or wool-comber and was in good circamstances. William is said to have attended the grammar-school of his native town, where most probably he aequired his knowledge of Latin and Greek, which Ben Jonson speaks of as having been very limited. Great doubts exist with respect to the manner in which he employed himself after leaving school, but it has been conjectured that he spent some time in a lawyer's office, as all his writings prove him to have been well versed in the terms of law. The London actors often visited Stratford, and therefore we may readily fancy, that Shakespeare had some intercourse with them, which, together with the observation of the lovely scenery around his native town, first awakened that genius which was to delight the world at a future period. Perhaps also, in being a spectator of the plays acted there, he formed an idea of some day making an improvement in dramatic literature. At the age of eighteen he married Ann Hathaway, the daughter of a substantial yeoman,' and soon afterwards left Stratford to try his fortune in London; some say, to avoid the disagreeable consequences of a lampoon he had written apon a gentleman, for having accused him of stealing

deer from his estate. In London he became a partner
in the Blackfriars company, and his reputation was soon
established, for in 1589 his name stands eleventh in a
list of fifteen forming the company; in 1596, the 5th in
a list of eight, and in 1603 we find him second proprie-
tor in a new patent granted by James I. From 1584 to
1611, he is supposed to have published all his plays, to
the number of thirty-seven, and in 1612, drawn by tender
remembrances of his native town, he entered it once
more, there to spend his remaining days in that peace
which he had so well earned. There he passed four years
in competency; he expired at the age of 52, and was
buried in the parish churchyard. Shakespeare is supposed
to have begun his literary career by correcting the plays
of others, and fitting them for appearing before the
been one of his earliest productions; it is written with
public. The Two Gentlemen of Verona' is said to have
the timidity of youthful genius, and the style does not
appear fully formed. In 'Richard II. and III. the charac-
ters are beautifully worked out: in 'Romeo and Juliet'
and The Merchant of Venice' it is obvious that age has
had a beneficial effect upon the writer, and in the Merry
wives of Windsor,' 'As you like it,' 'Henry IV. &c., all
these improvements blended with the richest comic of
comedy appear. In 'King Lear,' 'Hamlet, Othello,' 'Mac-
beth' and the "Tempest, his latest and best productions,
all the various talents of his wonderful mind are com-
passage from
bined. 'He was the man' (we quote this
2*

Which then our leisure would not let us

hear, Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?

Gaunt. I have, my liege. K. Rich. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him? If he appeal the duke on ancient malice; Or worthily, as a good subject should, 10 On some known grouud of treachery in him?

Gaunt. As near as I could sift him on that argument, On some apparent danger seen in him, Aim'd at your highness, no inveterate malice. K. Rich. Then call them to our presence; face to face,

Abbot of Westminster.

Lord Marshal; and another Lord.
Sir Pierce of Exton.
Sir Stephen Scroop.

Captain of a Band of Welchmen.
Queen to King Richard.
Duchess of Gloster.

Duchess of York.

Lady attending on the Queen.
Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers,
Two Gardeners, Keeper, Messen-
ger, Groom, and other attendants.

| And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will
hear
accused, freely speak.
[Exeunt some Attendants.

The accuser, and the

High-stomach'd are

In rage deaf as the

they both, and full of ire, sea, hasty as fire.

Re-enter Attendants with Bolingbroke and Norfolk. Boling. May many years of happy days befal

My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!

Nor. Each day still better other's happi

Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object
Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas
Mowbray?

Boling. First, (Heaven be the record to
my speech!)
In the devotion of a subject's love,
Tendering the precious safety of my prince,
And free from other misbegotten hate,
Come I appellant to this princely presence.
Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thec.
And mark my greeting well; for what I
speak

(1) Band and bond are each the past participle pas-
sive of the verb to bind; and hence the band, that by
which a thing is confined, and the bond, that by which
one is constrained, are one and the same thing. (2) In
the old copies this title is invariably spelt and
nounced Herford. In Hardynge's 'Chronicle' the word
is always written Herford or Harford. It is constantly
Herford, as a dissyllable, in Daniel's Civile Warres. (1) On which you come; or you come on.

My body shall make good upon this earth,
Or my divine soul answer it in heaven.
Thou art a traitor, and a miscreant;

pro

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British Classical Authors. Select Specimens of the National Literature of ...