see that Alexander maketh but a toy of love, and leadeth affection in fetters: using fancy as a fool to make him sport, or a minstrel to make nim merry. It is not the amorous glance of an eye can settle an idle thought in the heart: no, no, it is children's game, a life for sempsters and scholars; the one, pricking in clouts, have nothing else to think on; the other picking fancies out of books, have little else to marvel at. Go, Apelles, take with you your Campaspe; Alexander is cloyed with looking on at that, which thou wonderest at. Apelles. Thanks to your majesty on bended knee; you have honoured Apelles. Campaspe. Thanks with bowed heart; you have blessed Campaspe. [Exeunt Alexander. Page, go warn Clytus and Parmenio, and the other lords, to be in readiness; let the trumpet sound, strike up the drum, and I will presently into Persia. How now, Hephistion, is Alexander able to resist love as he list? Hephistion. The conquering of Thebes was not so honourable as the subduing of these thoughts. Alexander. It were a shame Alexander should desire to command the world, if he could not command himself. But come, let us go. And, good Hephistion, when all the world is won, and every country is thine and mine, either find me out another to subdue, or on my word, I will fall in love." Marlowe is a name that stands high, and almost first in this list of dramatic worthies. He was a little before Shakspeare's time,* and has a marked character both from him and the rest. There is a lust of power in his writings, a hunger and thirst after unrighteousness, a glow of the imagination, unhallowed by any thing but its own energies. His thoughts burn within him like a furnace with bickering flames: or throwing out black smoke and mists, that hide the dawn of genius, or like a poisonous mineral, corrode the heart. His "Life and Death of Doctor Faustus," though an imperfect and unequal performance, is his greatest work. Faustus himself is a rude sketch, but it is a gigantic one. This character may be considered as a personification of the pride of will and eagerness of curiosity, sublimed beyond the reach of fear and remorse. He is hurried away, and, as it were, devoured by a tormenting desire to enlarge his knowledge to the utmost bounds of nature and art, and to extend his power with his knowledge. He would realize all the fictions of a lawless imagination, would solve the most subtle speculations of abstract reason; and for this purpose sets at defiance all mortal *He died about 1594. consequences, and leagues himself with demoniacal power, with "How am I glutted with conceit of this! Perform what desperate enterprize I will? Ransack the ocean for orient pearl, And search all corners of the new-found world For pleasant fruits and princely delicates. I'll have them read me strange philosophy, Enter VALDES and CORNELIUS. Come, German Valdes and Cornelius, And make me blest with your sage conference. Know that your words have won me at the last Both Law and Physic are for petty wits; Whose shadow made all Europe honour him. Valdes. These books, thy wit, and our experience Shall make all nations to 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; Than have the white breasts of the Queen of Love. That yearly stuffs old Philip's treasury*; * An anachronism. Faustus. As resolute am I in this In his colloquy with the fallen angel, he shows the fixedness of his determination : "What! is great Mephostophilis so passionate And scorn those joys thou never shalt possess." Yet we afterwards find him faltering in his resolution, and struggling with the extremity of his fate: "My heart is harden'd, I cannot repent: And long ere this I should have done the deed, There is one passage more of this kind, which is so striking and beautiful, so like a rapturous and deeply passionate dream, that I cannot help quoting it here it is the address to the Apparition of Helen. Enter HELEN again, passing over between two Cupids. Faustus. Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul! See where it flies. Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. I will be Paris, and for love of thee, . And wear thy colours on my plumed crest; -Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air, And none but thou shalt be my paramour." The ending of the play is terrible, and his last exclamations betray an anguish of mind and vehemence of passion not to be contemplated without shuddering: Perhaps the finest trait in the whole play, and that which softens and subdues the horror of it, is the interest taken by the two scholars in the fate of their master, and their unavailing attempts to dissuade him from his relentless career. The regard to learning is the ruling passion of this drama, and its indications are as mild and amiable in them as its ungoverned pursuit has been fatal to Faustus. "Yet, for he was a scholar once admir'd |