Hero and Leander

Front matter

HERO AND LEANDER.

BY

MARLOW AND CHAPMAN.

Preface

PREFACE.

Mr. Hazlitt observes, in treating of the Elizabethan period of literature, which he likens to the "rich strond" of Spenser, that "it only wants exploring to fill the inquiring mind with wonder and delight, and to convince us that we have been wrong in lavishing all our praise on new-born gauds, though they are made and moulded of things past; and in giving to dust that is a little gilded, more laud than gilt o'er dusted:"—that it "will be found amply to repay the labour of the search, and it will be hard if in most cases curiosity does not end in admiration, and modesty teach us wisdom." Here very likely some of the profane will shake their heads and exclaim, "We have had specimens in plenty of the ore, and the mine does not pay the trouble of working!" and indeed there does seem some reason for the above complaint, when one refers to the dryness of many articles in the British Bibliographer, the Restituta, and the Archaica, and several of the reprints entire, which have issued from the Lee Priory private press of Sir Egerton Brydges. For this it is not very difficult to account.—The writer of these remarks is no way deficient in respect for the talents of the author of "Mary de Clifford" and "The Ruminator;" and, in his opinion, the vulgar jaded stomach of the age, which has no appetite but the false one induced by drams and cayenne, is miserably shown by its neglect of the last mentioned elegant series of papers. He has sym , even unto tears, in those heart-breathed melancholy effusions, poured out with such moving ingenuousness, during the "Sylvan Wanderer's" forest walks amid the dank heaps of matted leaves—and he has mourned over the fast crumbling decay of an ancient and noble house. But private feeling, however painful may be the struggle, (and in this case it is most painful,) must give way to impartial criticism.

Sir Egerton was originally intended for a man of genius—but many melancholy circumstances, which every lover of the Muse bewails with drooping head and heart, have crooked the promising branch, and turned the nourishing sap to a corroding poison, eating the heart of the tree. This it is that has caused that craving for unwholesome food which his editorial labours so frequently display. A darkness comes over his spirit, and the blue sky appears black even to his corporeal eye. His patrician feelings unconsciously cling to him in all things. The multitude are following the chase through a beautiful country after a more glittering leader: he cannot mingle unnoticed in the herd, and therefore plunges moodily among thorny brakes and black rocks—he throws himself beneath "knotty, knarry, barren trees," blasted by the "thwarting thunder blue;" and gropes around him for rank weeds which "the dire looking planet smites,"—His lips wreathe into a grievous smile when he lights on a sow-thistle, he tastes it, and fancies its bitter juice richer far than the oozings of the wine-vats.—No misgiving obtrudes itself on him that his palate is out of order! no! he carries home his bundle of dry plants and withered leaves, and sends it to his man cook, Mr. Warwick, who dresses the worthless trash with rich sauce. It is served to table in a superb dish, and re as an exquisite dainty to the wondering guests, In fact (dropping the silly metaphor) the reprints of those authors superintended by Sir E. Brydges have been, on the whole, such as to fully justify the imposing dogma of Dr. Johnson, "that they were sought after because they were scarce, and would not have become scarce had they been much esteemed."—But there were other neglected writers in that era besides Nicholas Breton, Robert Greene, and Thomas Watson, who surely merited Sir Egerton's best offices with the public on their behalf.— Why did he not follow up his beautiful edition of Drayton's "Nymphidia," with some elegant selections from the lyrical parts of Jonson and Fletcher, or from the polished sonnets of Drummond of Hawthornden, recommended by one of his wonted tasteful mild introductions; wherein, as in the preface to Raleigh's Poems, he might have shown us "that the poetry of that day was not an old fashioned uncouth monster, mounted on a lumbering Pegasus, dragon-winged, and leaden-hoofed; but that it as often wore a sylphlike form, with Attic vest, with faëry feet, and the butterfly's gilded wings?"—This would have unfolded more talent and love of the divine art than printing in splendid quarto, with charming vignettes, such a trifle (pretty, but still a trifle) as Mr. Quillinan's juvenile poem of Dunluce Castle. But unhappily for the cause, of which he was a zealous, though injudicious champion, his likings took an oblique direction— orient pearls lay neglected, while worthless beads were gathered up, strung, and clasped with gold: and imitating Hamlet's sentiment, ("The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty—use them after your own honour and dignity") Watson, Braithwaite, Constable, and Breton, were tricked out in splendid attire, befitting Jonson, or Chapman, or Marlowe, or Sidney, which so far from concealing their native meanness, set it forth in tenfold insignificance.

The rage for blindly reprinting works, merely because they were rare, is quenched; but it has had its use in creating a general spirit of investigation of the fine old writers of England, and Italy, which is gaining ground daily: and the effect of such search is visible in every department of literature. "The Retrospective Review," as far as it has appeared, is a considerable improvement on former publications of a similar nature; but in its poetic department, it pro only to administer small doses by way of provocatives, while the object of the "Select Poets" is to supply true adorers with copious draughts, unadulterated, from the well-head of the Sacred Waters.—There are many would-be admirers who will perhaps expect the editor to draw also of every green ditch and muddy pond in the Delphian country, and their ostrich-stomachs may be balked in not finding any crude, tough, juiceless substances, whereon they may try their marvellous powers of digestion—but this selection is planned with a ruthless regard to intrinsic value, and the editor's opinion that age, when not dignified by worth, is most unreverend and despised, must be a death blow to their hopes. But somewhat too much of this. The author of the first part of the present poem demands attention.

The life of this blazing, though transitory meteor, is shrouded in great obscurity. The place and date of his birth, and the circumstances of his parents are alike unknown; Oldys says that he was born about the former part of the reign of Edward the Sixth, but this can hardly be correct; and the conjecture of Mr. Ellis, who places his birth about 1562, carries with it an air of greater probability. He was of Benet College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of B. A. in 1583, and of M. A. 1587; and on leaving the university he became, like his great cotemporary Shakspeare, at once an actor and writer for the stage. So vague and uncertain are all the notices we have of Marlow, that a late ingenious writer in the Monthly Review has endeavoured to show that Marlow and Shakspeare may have been one and the same person! This paradox is sustained by some very specious arguments, but there is quite sufficient cotemporary evidence of Marlow's existence to overthrow it altogether. Thus Robert Greene in his Groatsworth of Wit addresses him, "thou famous gracer of tragedians." Francis Meres praises him together with Sidney, Spenser, Shakspeare, Daniel, &c. for having "mightily enriched, and gorgeously invested with rare ornaments, and resplendent habiliments, the English tongue." Carew couples his name with that of Shakspeare in the following passage of his "Excellencies of the English tongue:" "Would you read Catullus, take Shakspeare's and Marlow's fragments:" and Nashe, in his "Lenten Stuff," speaking of Hero and Leander, says, "of whom divine Musæus sung, and a diviner muse than he, Kit Marlow." George Peele, in his "Honour of the Garter," thus mentions him:

8"Unhappy in thy end, Marlow, the Muses' darling for thy verse, Fit to write passions for the souls below."

Henry Petowe published what he calls a second part of the Hero and Leander, in 1598, and in the following passages exceeds all his eulogists in panegyric, though his verses are homely.

"Marlow admir'd, whose honey-flowing vein No English writer can as yet attain. Whose name, in Fame's immortal treasury, Truth shall record to endless memory.

Marlow, late mortal, now framed all divine, What soul more happy, than this soul of thine? Live still in Heaven thy soul, thy fame on earth."—

And again,

"What mortal soul with Marlow might contend, That could, 'gainst reason, force him stoop or bend? Whose silver charming tongue mov'd such delight, That men would shun their sleep, in still dark night, To meditate upon his golden lines, His rare conceits, and sweet according rhymes, But Marlow—still admired Marlow's gone, To live with Beauty in Elizium, Immortal Beauty! who desires to hear His sacred poesies, sweet in every ear: Marlow must frame, to Orpheus' melody, Hymns all divine to make Heaven harmony; 'There ever live the prince of poetry, Live with the living in eternity."

The reader must be familiar with Ben Jonson's mention of "Marlow's mighty line," in his poem to the memory of Shakspeare: and with Drayton's verses, which Warton well observes, are 'the highest testimony," because "Drayton from his own feelings was well qualified to decide on the merits of a poet."

"Next Marlow, bathed in the Thespian springs, Had in him those brave translunary things That your first poets had: his raptures were All air and fire, which made his verses clear: For that fine madness still he did retain Which rightly should possess a poet's brain."

Decker, in one of his tracts, has placed Marlow in the Elisian Grove of Baies, "with Greene and Peele, under the shadow of a large vine." In that curious old comedy, "The Returne from Pernassus," is the following passage:

"Marlow was happy in his buskin'd Muse, Alas! unhappy in his life and end: Pity it is that wit so ill should dwell, Wit lent from Heaven, but vices sent from Hell."

It should seem that Marlow on his first launching into life pursued the same thoughtless career of dissipation, which it is to be feared was too prevalent with the men of wit and genius at that period; his associates were Nashe, and Greene, and Peele, dangerous companions—from the fascination of their society and the freedom of their lives; and all of them at mortal enmity with the Puritanical Precisians. Free-thinking on religious topics was then, as it has been deemed since, a mark of the man of spirit and of the world,—a fashionable vice. It may be remarked, that more heterodoxical books were then printed in England than in any other part of Europe; the works of Giordano Bruno, and Servetus, with others of the same stamp, first issued into light from the London press, under the countenance of men of eminence for their rank and talent in the court of Elizabeth.

It is possible, though the evidence is equivocal, that Marlow may have been led by the influence of evil example, in thoughtlessness and gaiety of spirits "to sport with sacred subjects; more perhaps from the preposterous ambition of courting the casual applause of profligate and unprincipled companions, than from any systematic disbelief of religion," he may have ventured upon

4"Unlawful things, Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits:"

but it should be remarked that his accusers were the Puritans, the inveterate enemies of stage-players and poets; and that Marlow seems to have aimed a blow at them in his Edward the Second, where young Spencer addressing the scholar Baldock ridicules the hypocritical pedant, who says a long grace at the table's end, wears a little band, buttons like pins heads, and is

——"Curate-like, in his attire, Though inwardly licentious enough."

This would never be forgiven or forgotten, his ridicule of their sacred persons would render him more obnoxious than absolute Atheism. Accordingly the fanatic Thomas Beard, in his "Theatre of God's Judgments," gladly availed himself of the unfortunate catastrophe of Marlow's untimely death, to show that it was an immediate judgment of Heaven. He represents him as "giving too large a swing to his own wit, and suffering his lust to have the full reins, so that he fell to that outrage and extremity, as Jodelle a French tragical poet did, (being an epicure and an atheist) that he denied God and his son Christ, and not only in word blasphemed the Trinity, but also (as it was credibly reported) wrote divers discourses against it, affirming our Saviour to be a deceiver, and Moses to be a conjuror: the Holy Bible also to contain only vain and idle stories, and all religion but a device of policy." (I quote from good old Anthony Wood, not having immediate access to Beard's Theatre,) he continues: "But see the end of this person, which was noted by all, especially the Precisians. For so it fell out, that he (Marlow) being deeply in love with a certain woman, had for his rival a bawdy serving-man, one rather fit to be a pimp, than an ingenious Amoretto, as Marlow conceived himself to be. Whereupon Marlow, taking it to be an high affront, rush'd in upon, to stab him with his dagger: but the serving man being very quick so avoided the stroke, that with all catching hold of Marlow's wrist, he stab'd his own dagger into his own head, in such sort, that notwithstanding all the means of surgery that could be wrought, he shortly after died of his wound, before the year 1593."

This account of Beard's is the foundation of all that has been laid to the charge of Marlow, it was in part copied and referred to by Meres in his Wit's Treasury; it was followed by Wood, and by all succeeding writers. William Vaughan, another puritan, published a little common place book, called the Golden Grove, about the year 1600, in which, among other instances of God's judgment upon atheists, &c. he relates with some variation of circumstances the same catastrophe; and in the same work will be found a chapter entitled, "Whether Stage-players ought to be suffered in a Commonwealth!!" which is to the full as liberal in its conclusions.

A late writer has supposed that Thomas Beard also points at Marlow in another work translated by him, and published in 1594, under the title of "The French Academic," in which is also to be found the following bitter philippic against players: "It is a shameful thing to suffer amongst us, or to lose our time, that ought to be so precious unto us, in beholding and in hearing players, actors of interludes and comedies, who are as pernicious a plague in a commonwealth as can be imagined. For nothing marreth more the behaviour, simplicity, and natural goodness of any people than this, because they soon receive into their souls a lively impression of that dissoluteness and villany which they see and hear, when it is joined with words, accents, gestures, motions, and actions, wherewith players and jugglers know how to enrich by all kind of artificial sleights, the filthiest and most dishonest matters, which commonly they make choice of. And to speak freely, in few words we may truly say, that the theatre of players is a school of all unchasteness, uncleanness, whoredom, craft, subtilty, and wickedness,"

Is it to be wondered at, that one who was both player and play-writer, and who had ventured "to dally with interdicted subjects," should be obnoxious to the censure of such writers as this, or have his memory traduced, and his tragic exit accounted a special visitation of the wrath of God?

True it is that among the papers of Lord Keeper Puckering, in the Harleian collection at the British Museum, a paper exists which may be considered evidence of his heretical, and as it styles them, "damnable" opinions. The writer, one Richard Bome, who appears to have taken a note of his conversation for the purpose of giving information against him, at the conclusion of his diabolical catalogue, says, "These things, with many other, shall by good and honest men be proved to be his opinions and common speeches, and that this Marloe per- suadeth men to atheism, willing them not to be afraid of bugbears and hobgoblins, and utterly scorning both God and his ministers, as I Richard Bome will justify, both by my oath, and the testimony of many honest men, and almost all men with whom he had conversed any time will testify the same. And, as I think, all men in Christianty ought to endeavour that the mouth of so dangerous a member may be stopped." Probably Marlow was aware of the character of those whom he thus irritated by his unlicensed speech, and did it out of bravado and wantonness, or to excite admiration of his spirit and courage in worrying a puritanical informer to desperation. Be this as it may, I do not mean to defend the act, but only to show what may probably have given rise to it. Of one part of the charge against Marlow, that of having written books against the Trinity, he must stand acquitted, and the reader will no doubt have seen how cautiously his accusers qualify their assertion by the convenient phrase, "as it is reported."

It is difficult to conceive that a mind so gifted as Marlow's could have descended from its "towering fancies," from "playing in the plighted clouds," to the groveling and soul-degrading tenets which are ascribed to him in this infamous paper; though I am willing to admit that his course of life may not have been altogether free from the stains of libertinism, the more to be lamented, as it led to that fatal event by which

"Cut was the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned was Apollo's laurel bough."

What might not have been expected from him if he had lived to follow the career of that heaven-gifted bard, whose earliest productions, it has been remarked, strongly resemble those of Marlow? It is evident that Shakspeare was familiar with his writings, and even the present poem interests us the more from being cited in "As You Like It."

"Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might; Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?

Act iii. Scene v.

It is no slight honour to Marlow that one of his compositions has been thought even to be worthy of Shakspeare, to whom was long attributed that beautiful Pastoral Song

"Come live with me, and be my love,"

some snatches of which are also uttered by Sir Hugh Evans during his "cholars and tremplings of mind" while awaiting Caius at the trysting place, Frogmore: (see Merry Wives, act i sc. 1). The popularity of this exquisite little poem is obvious from the number of imitations to which it gave rise.

In a criticism, which is thought to bear strong traces of the hand of Milton, Marlow is styled "a kind of second Shakspeare, not only because like him he rose from an actor to be a maker of plays, though inferior both in fame and merit; but also because in his begun poem of Hero and Leander, he seems to have a resemblance that clean and unsophisticated wit, which is natural to that incomparable poet."

Marlow, though fully appreciated in his own day, suffered considerably during the reign of French taste, when the rules were the only standard of excellence, and when Dr. Johnson wrote and printed with applause in his edition of Shakspeare, a series of cold, antithetical critiques, whose contemptuous brevity seems to intimate that, in his own conceit, the great moralist was a god to punish the fancied lapses of the sweet Swan, not a mortal to adore. The attention to black letter (as it was termed) which was then beginning to prevail, called the name, if not the works, of Marlow into notice; and Malone properly observed, "that he was the most famous and admired poet of that age, previous to the appearance of Shakspeare." In 1808 his plays came under the judgment of Charles Lamb, in his pithy, and deeply-weighed characters of the Elizabethan Dramatists:— "Faustus" and "Lust's Dominion" were reprinted, with prefatory sketches, in 1814.—Analyses of "Edward II." and the "Jew of Malta," were inserted in Blackwood's interesting magazine; and, still later, his "mighty line" has drawn high praise from the glittering pen of Mr. Hazlitt.—Mr. Lamb is rather hard on the fame of Marlow, and indeed shows less attention to his merits, than to those of any other author included in his specimens.—Barrabbas serves merely as a peg on which to fasten, under the cloak of moral observation, an illiberal sneer at a noted wealthy Jewish family; and "Tamburlaine" is said to be "in a very different style from the tragedy of Edward II." Did not this discrepancy suggest to Mr. Lamb some doubts as to the identity of the author? The genuineness of the Scythian Shepherd has often been suspected; Phillips attributes it to Thomas Newton—and till this point is settled, surely so ardent an admirer of the very reverend ancients might have spared poor Kit's manes the mortification of "the lunes of Tamburlaine." "Lust's Dominion" is dismis- sed in four lines, which savour rather of the Rambler's dogmatism than the Reflector's ingenuous, good humoured quaintness. "Rape, murder, and superlatives," are indeed there, yet many, many redeeming passages may be found, containing descriptions full of a certain amorous splendour without gaudiness, and scathing threats thundered from furnace hearts without rant. Many of Eleazar's very ravings are written with prodigious gusto and relish; and it may be said of Marlow, as it has been said of Kean the actor, that "he has a devil."—"There is a good deal of the same intense passion as in Faustus, the same recklessness of purpose, and the same smouldering fire within." In support of these remarks, it is hoped, the reader will not object to a few quotations; in which he can hardly fail to observe the variety and melody of Marlow's versification, with one or two exceptions, where the text is probably corrupt. The queen endeavouring to sooth Eleazar with her sugared blandishments, says,

"Smile upon me! and these two wanton boys, These pretty lads that do attend on me,

Shall call thee Jove, shall wait upon thy cup And fill thee nectar: their enticing eyes Shall serve as crystal, wherein thou may’st see To dress thyself, if thou wilt smile on me.— Smile on me, and with coronets of pearl, And bells of gold, circling their pretty arms In a round ivory fount these two shall swim, And dive to make thee sport: bestow one smile, And in a net of twisted silk and gold In my all-naked arms thyself shall lie.”

The old king expiring, and blind with the mists of death, desires an attendant to call his daughter, who is lying drowned in tears at the bed's foot.

"King Philip. Come hither, Isabella! reach a hand,— Yet now it shall not need; instead of thine Death, shoving thee back, clasps his hands in mine, And bids me come away——."

His younger son, Prince Philip, upbraids his mother and the courtiers with her lusts.—

"Call not me your son! My father, while he liv'd, tir'd his strong arms In bearing Christian armour 'gainst the Turks, And spent his brains in warlike stratagems, To bring confusion on damn'd infidels: Whilst you, that snorted here at home, betrayed His name to everlasting infamy;—

Whilst you at home suffered bis bed-chamber To be a brothelry,—whilst you at home, Suffer'd his queen to be a concubine, And wanton red-cheek'd boys to be her bawds; Whilst she, reeking in that letcher's arms2 Eleazar. Me! Phil. Villain, 'tis thee! thou hell-begotten fiend! At thee I stare!——"

Act the third opens with the following address to Night.

"Queen. Fair eldest child of Love! thou spotless Night, Empress of Silence, and the queen of Sleep, Who with thy black cheeks' pure complexion, Mak'st lovers' eyes enamoured of thy beauty!— Thou'rt like my Moor!——

Eleazar, raging for the death of his wife Maria, fancies king Fernando to be the murderer.

"Eleaz. Now, by the proud complexion of my cheeks, Ta'en from the kisses of the amorous Sun, Were he ten thousand kings that slew my love, Thus should my hand, plum'd with Revenge's wings, Requite mine own dishonour and her death.

[Stabs the king.

The king being slain, the Moorish prince thus solicits the crown of Castile.—

"Eleaz. Mendoza sweats to wear Spain's diadem,— Philip hath sworn confusion to this realm,— They both are up in arms; war's flames do shine Like lightning in the air.—Wherefore, my lords! Look well on Eleazar!—Value me, Not by my sun-burnt cheeks, nor by my birth, But by my loss of blood, Which I have sacrific'd in Spain's defence. Then look on Philip and the Cardinal!— Look on those gaping curs, whose wide throats Stand stretch'd wide open like the gates of death To swallow you, your country, children, wives. Philip cries, 'Fire and blood!' the Cardinal Cries likewise 'Fire and blood!—I'll quench those flames.— Rod. Lay by these ambages! What seeks the Moor? Eleaz. A kingdom! Castile's crown!——"

The reader will be reminded of Coriolanus' sovereign contempt of "the tag," in perusing Eleazar's proud vaunt of the divinity of a hero.

"Eleaz. to Queen. Are these your fears? Thus blow them into air. I rush'd amongst the thickest of their crowds, And with a countenance majestical, Like the imperious Sun, dispers'd their clouds.— I have perfum'd the rankness of their breath,

And by the magic of true eloquence Transform'd this many-headed Cerberus, This pied camelion,—this beast multitude, Whose power consists in number, pride in threats Yet melt like snow when majesty shines forth."

In a very spirited style is likewise the whole of the first scene, Act V.

Faustus is well censured by Hazlitt, who esteems it, on the whole, as Marlow's greatest work. "Faustus himself is a rude sketch, but it is a gigantic one. As the outline of the character is grand and daring, the execution is abrupt and fearful. The thoughts are vast and irregular, and the style halts and staggers under them with uneasy steps." Milton may have had in his eye the following passages:—

"Faustus to the Daemon. Where are you damn'd? Mephistophiles. In Hell.— Faust. How comes it then that thou art out of Hell? Mephis. Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.— Think'st thou that I who saw the face of God, And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven,

Am not tormented by a thousand Hells In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss?— Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd In one set place,—but where we are is Hell— And where Hell is, there must we ever be. And, to be short, when all the world dissolves, And every creature shall be purified, All places shall be Hell that are not Heaven."

These are noble lines—Lord Byron's obligations to them in his "Manfred" have been noted.—The last hour of Faustus' life is spent in such mental torture, as "thicks the" reader's "blood with cold."—"It is indeed an agony and fearful colluctation."

"(The clock strikes eleven.) (Faustus solus.) Oh! Faustus! Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, And then thou must be damn'd perpetually.— Stand still you ever-moving spheres of Heaven, That time may cease, and midnight never come. Fair Nature's eye! rise, rise again, and make Perpetual day! or let this hour be but A year, a month, a week, a natural day, That Faustas may repent and save his soul.— O lentè, lentè, currite noctis equi!—

The stars move still—time runs—the clock will strike— The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned.— Oh! I'll leap up to Heaven!—Who pulls me down? (Distractly) See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament! One drop of blood will save me.—Oh! my Christ—

[Attempts to pray.

Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!

Yet will I call on him—Oh! spare me, Lucifer! Where is it now?—'tis gone! and see— A threat'ning arm, an angry brow!— Mountains and hills! come, come and fall on me, And hide me from the heavy wrath of Heaven!—No?— Then will I headlong run into the earth: Gape, earth!—O no, it will not harbour me. You stars that reign'd at my nativity, Whose influence hath allotted death and hell, Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud.

(The clock chimes the half hour.)

Oh! half the hour is past, 'twill all be past anon.—

Oh! if my soul must suffer for my sin, Impose some end to my incessant pain! Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years— A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd! No end is limited to damned souls. Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul? Or why is this immortal that thou hast?

Curs'd be the parents that engendered me— No, Faustus! curse thyself, curse Lucifer, That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven.

(The clock strikes twelve.)

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.) Enter Dæmons.

Oh! mercy, Heaven! look not so fierce on me!

Adders and serpents! let me breathe awhile!— 6Oh! Mephistophiles!—" (Rolling thunder.)

[They all disappear.

The foregoing horrible picture demands such a relief as will gently lead the shaken mind to a calmer region, and hush it into a meek-eyed sadness. This relief may be derived from the works of Marlow himself, who seems, after all, to have had a considerable leaning to voluptuous reposing fancies, and to have dallied with love, like an accomplished amorist.—The beautiful tradition of the "broad Hellespont" is of undoubted antiquity, though unfortunately no fragment has reached us of the parent stock. Virgil alludes to it in a manner sufficient to show its notoriety in his day.