394 Tucker Brooke, 



come from Norwich or its vicinity and may have held one of the 

 Norwich scholarships established by Parker. The letter, which 

 reads as follows, is in Malone's hand, and is endorsed in pencil : 

 'encl(osed) in Ir. of Windham to Amyot ii Sept. '04': 



Archbishop Parker founded several Scholarships in Corpus Christi Col- 

 lege in Cambridge, to which, when vacancies should happen, the Corporation 

 of Norwich were entitled to nominate. Christopher Marlin, Marley, or 

 Marlowe (for in all these ways his name was written), was nominated a 

 Scholar by the Corporation in the year /^A'o; and it is supposed that in the 

 corporation books of that year there is an entry of such nomination. If 

 that shd. be the case, Mr. Malone requests to know, whether his parents 

 are mentioned, and whether he is described as born in Norwich, or Wymond- 

 ham, or Aylsham, from the schools of any of which places the Corporation 

 were empowered to select such persons as they chose to nominate. When 

 by this means the parish of Christopher Marlin is obtained, it will be easy 

 to learn the exact time of his birth ; which is sought for on account of his 

 being a celebrated Poet of those times. 



The reply, dated 8 Oct., 1804, says that the Books of the Court 

 of Mayoralty and other records belonging to the Corporation of 

 Norwich have been searched in vain, and that other inquiries in 

 Norfolk have been without success. 



It is thus evident that the researches of eighteenth-century pro- 

 fessional scholars like Warton, Ritson, Reed, Steevens, and par- 

 ticularly Malone, had led to a considerable increase in knowledge 

 of Marlowe and his works. This knowledge, however, had hardly 

 extended beyond a small academic circle.^"® In 1808, appeared 

 Charles Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Contempo- 



"* Evidence that .others, besides actors and professional critics, were at 

 this time reading Marlowe quartos is found in Walter Scott's Notebook. 

 Under date of May 26, 1/97, Scott quotes three lines of Doctor Faustus (11. 



81S-817) : 



'There saw we learned Maroe s golden tombe ; 



The way he cut an English mile in length 



Thorow a rock of stone in one night's space;' 



and adds : 'Christopher Marlowe's Tragicall History of Dr. Faustus — a very 



remarkable thing. Grand subject — end grand.' (Lockhart, Life of Scott, 



chapter viii.) 



Thomas Dermody, the precocious Irish poet, who died in 1802 at the age 



of twenty-seven, left a burlesque piece called Dr. Faiistiis's Panegyric and 



some lines in TJie Pursuit of Patronage, which, however sentimentalized, 



show a real appreciation of Marlowe's genius : 



'Who, led by sweet Simplicity aside 



From pageants that we gaze at to deride. 



Has not, while wilder'd in the bow'ry grove. 



