either in prose or in rhyme. The case seems to have been different, as already remarked, with some of the court-shows and private entertainments; but we are now adverting to the pieces represented at such places as the Theatre, the Curtain, Blackfriars, and in inn-yards adapted temporarily to dramatic amusements, to which the public was indiscriminately admitted. The earliest work, in which the employment of blank-verse for the purpose of the common stage is noticed, is an epistle by Thomas Nash introducing to the world his friend Robert Greene's "Menaphon," in 15875: there, in reference to "vain-glorious tragedians," he says, that they are "mounted on the stage of arrogance," and that they "think to out-brave better pens with the swelling bombast of bragging blank verse." He afterwards talks of the "drumming decasyllibon" they employed, and ridicules them for "reposing eternity in the mouth of a player." This question is farther illustrated by a production by Greene, published in the next year, "Perimedes, the Blacksmith," from which it is evident that Nash had an individual allusion in what he had said in 1587. Greene fixes on the author of the tragedy of "Tamburlaine," whom he accuses of "setting the end of scholarism in an English blank verse," and who, it should seem, had somewhere accused Greene of not being able to write it. • Sometimes plays written in prose were, at a subsequent date, when blankverse had become the popular form of composition, published as if they had been composed in measured lines. The old historical play, "The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth," which preceded that of Shakespeare, is an instance directly in point: it was written in prose, but the old printer chopped it up into lines of unequal length, so as to make it appear to the eye something like blank-verse. • Greene began writing in 1583, his "Mamillia" having been then printed: his "Mirror of Modesty” and “Monardo," bear the date of 1584. His "Menaphon" (afterwards called “Greene's Arcadia”) first appeared in 1587, and it was reprinted in 1589. We have never seen the earliest edition of it, but it is mentioned by various bibliographers; and those who have thrown doubt upon the point, (stated in the History of English Dramatic Poetry and the Stage, vol. iii. p. 150) for the sake of founding an argument upon it, have not adverted to the conclusive fact, that "Menaphon" is mentioned as already in print in the introductory matter to another of Greene's pamphlets, dated in 1587-we mean "Euphues his Censure to Philautus." We learn from various authorities, that Christopher Marlowe was the author of "Tamburlaine the Great," a dramatic work of the highest celebrity and popularity, printed as early as 1590, and affording the first known instance of the use of blank-verse in a public theatre: the title-page of the edition 1590 states, that it had been "sundry times shown upon stages in the city of London." In the prologue the author claims to have introduced a new form of composition: "From jigging veins of rhyming mother-wits, And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay, Accordingly, nearly the whole drama, consisting of a first and second part, is in blank-verse. Hence we see the value of Dryden's loose assertion, in the dedication to Lord Orrery of his "Rival Ladies," in 1664, that • If Marlowe were born, as has been supposed, about 1562, (Oldys places the event earlier) he was twenty-four when he wrote "Tamburlaine," as we believe, in 1586, and only thirty-one when he was killed by a person of the name of Archer, in an affray arising out of an amorous intrigue, in 1593. In a manuscript note of the time, in a copy of his version of "Hero and Leander," edit. 1629, in our possession, it is said, among other things, that" Marlowe's father was a shoemaker at Canterbury," and that he had an acquaintance at Dover whom he infected with the extreme liberality of his opinions on matters of religion. At the back of the title-page of the same volume is inserted the following epitaph, subscribed with Marlowe's name, and no doubt of his composition, although never before noticed : "In obitum honoratissimi viri Noctivagi terror, ganeonis triste flagellum, Occidit: heu ! secum effoetas Acherontis ad oras Livor, parce viro: non audacissimus esto Illius in cineres, cujus tot millia vultus Mortalium attonuit: sic cum te nuncia Ditis Vulneret exanguis, feliciter ossa quiescant, Famæque marmorei superet monumenta sepulchri." It is added, that "Marlowe was a rare scholar, and died aged about thirty." The above is the only extant specimen of his Latin composition, and we insert it exactly as it stands in manuscript. "Shakespeare was the first who, to shun the pains of continual rhyming, invented that kind of writing which we call blank-verse." The distinction belongs to Marlowe, the greatest of Shakespeare's predecessors, and a poet who, if he had lived, might, perhaps, have been a formidable rival of his genius. We have too much. reverence for the exhaustless originality of our great dramatist, to think that he cannot afford this, or any other tribute to a poet, who, as far as the public stage is concerned, deserves to be regarded as the inventor of a new style of composition. That the attempt was viewed with jealousy there can be no doubt, after what we have quoted from Nash and Greene. It is most likely that Greene, who was older than Nash, had previously written various dramas in rhyme; and the bold experiment of Marlowe having been instantly successful, Greene was obliged to abandon his old course, and his extant plays are all in blankverse. Nash, who had attacked Marlowe in 1587, before 1593 (when Marlowe was killed) had joined him in the production of a blank-verse tragedy on the story of Dido, which was printed in 1594. It has been objected to "Tamburlaine," that it is written in a turgid and ambitious style, such indeed as Nash and Greene ridicule; but we are to recollect that Marlowe was at this time endeavouring to wean audiences from the "jigging veins of rhyming motherwits," and that in order to satisfy the ear for the loss of the jingle, he was obliged to give what Nash calls "the swelling bombast of bragging blank-verse." This consideration will of itself account for breaches of a more correct taste to be found in "Tamburlaine." In the Prologue, besides what we have already quoted, Marlowe tells the audience to expect "high astounding terms," and he did not disappoint expectation. Perhaps the better to reconcile the ordinary frequenters of public theatres to the change, he inserted various VOL. I. с scenes of low comedy, which the printer of the edition in 1590 thought fit to exclude, as "digressing, and far unmeet for the matter." Marlowe likewise sprinkled couplets here and there, although it is to be remembered, that having accomplished his object of substituting blank-verse by the first part of "Tamburlaine," he did not, even in the second part, think it necessary by any means so frequently to introduce occasional rhymes. In those plays which there is ground for believing to be the first works of Shakespeare, couplets, and even stanzas, are more frequent than in any of the surviving productions of Marlowe. This circumstance is, perhaps, in part to be accounted for by the fact (as far as we may so call it) that our great poet retained in some of his performances portions of older rhyming dramas, which he altered and adapted to the stage; but in early plays, which are to be looked upon as entirely his own, Shakespeare appears to have deemed rhyme more necessary to satisfy the ear of his auditory than Marlowe held it when he wrote his "Tamburlaine the Great." As the first employment of blank-verse upon the public stage by Marlowe is a matter of much importance, in relation to the history of our more ancient drama, and to the subsequent adoption of that form of composition by Shakespeare, we ought not to dismiss it without affording a single specimen from “Tamburlaine the Great." The following is a portion of a speech by the hero to Zenocrate, when first he meets and sues to her: "Disdains Zenocrate to live with me, Or you, my lords, to be my followers? Fairer than whitest snow on Scythian hills, Which with thy beauty will be soon dissolv'd"." Nash having alluded to "Tamburlaine" in 1587, it is evident that it could hardly have been written later than 1585 or 1586, which is about the period when it has been generally, and with much appearance of probability, supposed that Shakespeare arrived in London. In considering the state of the stage just before our great dramatist became a writer for it, it is clearly, therefore, necessary to advert briefly to the other works of Marlowe, observing in addition, with reference to "Tamburlaine," that it is a historical drama, in which not a single unity is regarded; time, place, and action, are equally set at defiance, and the scene shifts at once to or from Persia, Scythia, Georgia, and Morocco, as best suited the purpose of the poet. Marlowe was also, most likely, the author of a play in which the Priest of the Sun was prominent, as Greene mentions it with "Tamburlaine" in 1588, but no such piece is now known: he however wrote "The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus," "The Massacre at Paris," "The rich Jew of Malta," and an English historical play, called "The troublesome * Our quotation is from a copy of the edition of 1590, 4to, in the library of Lord Francis Egerton, which we believe to be the earliest on the title-page it is stated that it is "now first and newly published." It was several times reprinted. No modern edition is to be trusted: they are full of the grossest errors, and never could have been collated. |