Heph. It would better become thee to be more courteous, and frame thyself to please. Dio. And you better to be less, if you durst displease. Alex. What dost thou think of the time we have here? Dio. That we have little, and lose much. Alex. If one be sick, what wouldst thou have him do? Dio. Be sure that he make not his physician his heir. Alex. If thou mightest have thy will, how much ground would content thee? Dio. As much as you in the end must be contented withal. Alex. What, a world? Dio. No, the length of my body. Alex. Hephestion, shall I be a little pleasant with him? Heph. You may; but he will be very perverse with you. Alex. It skilleth not, I cannot be angry with him. Diogenes, I pray thee, what dost thou think of love? Dio. A little worser than I can of hate. Dio. Because it is better to hate the things which make to love, than to love the things which give occasion of hate. Aler. Why, be not women the best creatures in the world? Dio. Next men and bees. Alex. What dost thou dislike chiefly in a woman? 1 41 Is it nothing about Venus? Apel. Ay me! if the picture of Campaspe be burnt, I am undone. Alex. Stay, Apelles, no haste, it is your heart is on fire, not your shop; and if Campaspe hang there, I would she were burnt. But have you the picture of Campaspe? belike you love her well, that you care not though all be lost, so she be safe. Apel. Not love her but your majesty knows that painters in their last works are said to excel themselves; and in this I have so much pleased myself, that the shadow as much delighteth me, being an artificer, as the substance doth others that are amorous. Alex. You lay your colours grossly; though I could not paint in your shop, I can spy into your excuse. Be not ashained, Apelles, it is a gentleman's sport to be in love. Call hither Campaspe. Methinks I might have been made privy to your affection; though my couuse! had not been necessary, yet my countenance might have been thought requisite. But Apelles, forsooth, loved under hand, yea and under Alexander's nose, and but I say no more. Apel. Apelles loveth not so; but he liveth to do as Alexander will. Enter CAMPASPE. Alex. Campaspe, here is news; Apelles is in love with you. Cam. It pleaseth your majesty to say so. Alex. Hephestion, I will try her too.-Campaspe, for the good qualities I know in Apelles, and the virtue I see in you, I am determined you shall enjoy one another. How say you, Campaspe, would you say ay? Cam. Your handmaid must obey, if you com mand. Alex. Think you not, Hephestion, that she would fain be commanded? Heph. I am no thought-catcher, but I guess unhappily. Alex. I will not enforce marriage, where I cannot compel love. Cam. But your majesty may move a question, where you be willing to have a match. Alex. Believe me, Hephestion, these parties are agreed; they would have me both priest and witness.--Apelles, take Campaspe. Why move ye 4o It skilleth not, i. e. it matters not; it is of no importance. So, in Lyly's Euphues and his England, 1582, p 82: Whether it be an inchaunted leafe, a vearse of Pythia, a figure of Amphion, a charac ter of Aschanes, an image of Venus, or a braunch of Sybilla, it skilleth not.' Again, p. 8b :—“ saying that it skilleth not, how long things were a doing, but how well they were done." 4 Above-Former editions read about. not?-Campaspe, take Apelles. Will it not be? If you be ashamed one of the other, by my consent you shall never come together. But dissemble not, Campaspe, do you love Apelles? Cam. Pardon, my lord, I love Apelles. Alex. Apelles, it were a shame for you, being loved so openly of so fair a virgin, to say the contrary. Do you love Campaspe? Apel. Only Campaspe. out of books, have little else to marvel at. Go, Apelles, take with you your Campaspe; Alexander is cloyed with looking on that, which thou wonderest at. Apel. Thanks to your majesty on bended knee: you have honoured Apelles. Cam. Thanks with bowed heart; you have blest Campaspe. [Exeunt. Alex. 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 present into Persia.-How now, Hephestion, is Alexander able to resist love as he list? Heph. The conquering of Thebes was not so honourable as the subduing of these thoughts. Alex. Two loving worms, Hephestion! I perceive Alexander cannot subdue the affections of men, though he conquer their countries. Lovely falleth like a dew, as well upon the low grass, as upon the high cedar. Sparks have their heat, ants their gall, flies their spleen.-Well, enjoy one another; I give her thee frankly, Apelles. Thou shalt sce 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 him 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 Aler. It were a shame Alexander should desire to command the world, if he could not commaud himself. But come, let us go, I will try whether I can better hear my hand with my heart, than I could with mine eye. And, good Hephestion, 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. [Exeunt. THE EPILOGUE AT THE BLACKFRIERS. Where the rainbow toucheth the tree, no caterpillers will hang on the leaves; where the glow-worm creepeth in the night, no adder will go in the day: We hope, in the ears where our travails be lodged, no carping shall harbour in those tongues. Our exercises must be as your Judgment is, resembling water, which is always of the same colour into what it runneth. In the Trojan horse lay couched soldiers, with children; and in heaps of many words we fear divers unfit, among some allowable. But as Demosthenes, with ofteu breathing up the hill, amended his stammering; so we hope, with sundry labours 42 against the hair, to correct our studies. If the tree be blasted that blossoms, the fault is in the wind, and not in the root; and if our pastimes be misliked, that have been allowed, you must impute it to the malice of others, and not our endeavour. And so we rest in good case, if you rest well content. 42 Against the hair-This phrase occurs in the Merry Wives of Windsor, A. 2. S. 3. ; and Mr Stee observes, that it is" proverbial, and is taken from stroking the hair of animals a contrary way to in which it grows. We now say against the grain." So, in Dekker's Satiromastrix: Go, let him lift up baldness to the sky; and thou shalt see turn Minever's heart quite against the hair." Middleton's Mayor of Quinborough, A. S. S. 2 : "Books in women's hands are as much against THE EPILOGUE AT THE COURT. We cannot tell whether we are fallen among cannot tell what we should term our labours, iron, Diomedes's birds or his horses; the one received or bullion; only it belongeth to your majesty to some men with sweet notes, the other bit all men make them fit either for the forge or the mint; with sharp teeth. But as Homer's gods conveyed current by the stamp, or counterfeit by the anvil. them into clouds, whom they would have kept For as nothing is to be called white, unless it had from curses; and as Venus, lest Adonis should been named white by the first creator, so can be pricked with the stings of adders, covered his there be nothing thought good in the opinion of face with the wings of swans; so we hope, being others, unless it be christened good by the judgeshielded with your highness's countenance, we ment of yourself. For ourselves again, we are shall, though we hear the neighing, yet not feel like these torches, wax, of which, being in your the kicking, of those jades; and receive, though highness's hands, you may make doves or vultures, no praise, (which we cannot deserve,) yet a par-roses, or nettles, laurel for a garland, or elder for don, which in all humility we desire. As yet we a disgrace. EDITIONS. (1.) "A moste excellent Comedie of Alexander, Campaspe, and Diogenes, played beefore the Queene's Majestie on twelfe-day at night, by her Majesties children, and the children of Paules. Imprinted at London, for Thomas Cadman, 1584, 4to." (2.) "Campaspe, played beefore the Queene's Majestie on New-yeares-day at night, by her Majesties children, and the children of Paules. Imprinted at London, for Thomas Cadman, 1584, 4to." (3.) "Campaspe, played beefore the Queene's Majestie on twelfe-day at night, by her Majesties children, and the children of Paules. Imprinted at London, by Thomas Orwin, for William Broome, 1591, 4to." (4.) "Campaspe, played before the Queene's Majestie on twelfe-day at night, by her Majesties children, and the children of Paules. London, printed by William Stansby, for Edward Blount, 1632, 12mo." EDWARD. II. 66 2 CHRISTOPHER MARLOW, a writer of considerable eminence in his time, was, according to Oldys,' born in the former part of the reign of Edward the Sixth, and received his education at Cambridge. The place of his birth is unknown, as are the circumstances of his parents, and the reason which induced him to quit the destination for which, by the nature of his education, he seemed to be intended. After leaving the university, he appeared upon the stage with applause as an actor, and then com menced dramatic writer with no inconsiderable degree of reputation. His character as a man does not appear in a favourable light. He is represented by an author, quoted in Wood's Athena, p. 338, as giving too large a swing to his own wit, and suffering his lust to have the full reins, by which means he fell to that outrage and extremity as Jodelle, a French tragical poet did, (being an epicure and atheist,) that he denied God and his Son Christ, and not only in word blasphemed the Trinity, but also, as 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." 3 A late writer is willing to believe, that the whole of Marlow's offence was during to reason on matters of religion; than which nothing could be a greater crime, in the opinion of those who did not dare to think for themselves. But the opinion of this gentleman will have less weight, when the violence of his prejudices against every kind of religi ous establishment are considered. Marlow was most probably a dissipated, abandoned man; and the circumstances of his death, as related by Wood, sufficiently prove it: " Being deeply in love with a certain woman, he 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 a high affront, rushed in upon, to stab him with his dagger; but the serving-man, being very quick, so avoided the stroke, that withal catching' hold of Marlow's wrist, he stabbed 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." 6 As a writer, Marlow's character stands in a much fairer light. Langbaine observes, that he was accounted an excellent poet by Jonson; and Heywood, his fellow-actor, stiles him the best of poets. Meres' names him with Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Daniel, &c. for having mightily enriched and gorgeously invested in rare ornaments, and resplendent habiliments, the English tongue. Carew the Cornish antiquary, places him along with Shakespeare, where he says, "Would you read Catullus, take Shakespeare and Marlow's fragments." Nash, speaking of Hero and Leander, says, "of whom divine Musæus sung, and a diviner muse than he, Kit Marlow." The author of The Returne from Pernassus 10 characterizes him thus: "Marlowe 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 heav'n, but vices sent from hell.” MS. Additions to Langbaine. 2 Beard's Theatre of God's Judgments. 3 Among the papers of Lord Keeper Puckering, in the British Museum, are some which give an account of Marlow's principles and tenets. 5 P. 342. 4 Berkenhout's Historia Literaria, Vol. I. p. 358. 6 Verses to the memory of Shakespeare. 7 Second Part of Wit's Commonwealth, p. 280. 9 Lenten Stuff, 4to. 1599, p. 42. 8 Excellencies of the English Tongue, p. 13. 10 1606, A. 1. S. 2. Drayton" in these terms: "Next Marlow, bathed in the Thespian springs, Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.” And George Peele, in The Honour of the Garter, 4to. 1593, or 99, mentions him in this manner : "Unhappy in thy end, Marlow, the muses darling for thy verse, If any wretched souls in passions speak.' His Dramatic Works are as follow: 1. The Tragedie of Dido, queene of Carthage. Played by the children of her Majesties chappel. Written by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nash, gent. 1594, 4to. 2. The troublesome Raigne and lamentable Death of Edwarde the Second, &c. 3. Tamberlaine the Greate. Who, from the state of a Shepherd in Scythia, by his rare and wonderful Conquests, became a most puissant and mightie Monarque, 1605, 4to. 1st Part, B. L. 4. Tamberlaine the Greate. With his impassionate furie, for the death of his Lady and Love faire Zenocrate his forme of exhortation and discipline to his three sonnes, and the manner of his owne death. The second Part, 4to. 1606, 4to. B. L. 5. The Massacre of Paris, with the Death of the Duke of Guise. A Tragedy play'd by the Right Honourable the Lord Admiral's Servants. 8vo. N. D. 6. The famous Tragedy of the rich Jew of Malta. 7. The Tragicall Historie of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, with new additions, 1631, 4to. B. L. 1663, 4to. B. L. 8. Lust's Dominion; or, the Lascivious Queen. A Tragedy, 12mo. 1661. Besides these, he was the Author of 1. Hero and Leander, translated from Musaus, with the first Book of Lucan, 4to. 1600. This translation, or at least Marlow's part of it, must have been published before 1599, being mentioned by several writers earlier than that year. It was entered at Stationer's Hall, in 1593 and 1597; and Henry Petowe's Second Part of it appeared in 1598. Marlow's part was left unfinished, and was 12 11 Censure of Poets, p. 1286. 12 This author exceeds all the panegyrists of Marlow in the extravagance of his eulogium. The following lines are taken from his poem : Again, "Marlow admir'd, whose honey flowing vaine, No English writer can as yet attaine. Whose name in Fame's immortall treasurie, Truth shall record to endles memorie. Marlo late mortall, now fram'd all divine, "What mortall soule with Marlow might contend, His rare conceyts and sweete according rimes. To live with beautie in Elyzium, Immortal beautie who desires to heare, His sacred poesies sweete in every eare: Himnes all divine to make heaven harmonic, |