The Reputation of Christopher Marlozvc. 397 



A review of Manfred had appeared in the previous (June) number 

 of Blackzvood's. In the following October number Maitland gives 

 an analysis also of Edzvard II, in the course of which he refers to 

 a criticism in the Edinburgh Rcvieiv of his previous discussion 

 oi Faustus Rud says: 



That "Faustus" is, as a composition, very inferior to Manfred, we per- 

 fectly agree with the Reviewer; for the wavering character of the German 

 magician will not bear comparison for a moment with that of the Princely 

 Wanderer of the Alps; and the mixed, rambling, headlong, and reckless 

 manner of Marlow, in that Play, must not be put into competition with the 

 sustained dignity of Byron. 



Nathan Drake's large and influential book on Shakespeare and 

 his Times (1817) gives Marlowe short shrift. He is thus 

 described : 



as an author, an object of great admiration and encomium in his own 

 times, and, of all the dramatic poets who preceded Shakespeare, certainly 

 the one who possessed the most genius. He was egregiously misled, how- 

 ever, by bad models, and his want of taste has condemned him, as a writer 

 for the stage, to an obscurity from which he is not likely to emerge.' (Vol. 

 ii., p. 245.)"^ 



Not even does there seem to have existed at this period any clear 

 impression of Marlowe's personal existence. An anonymous 

 writer in the Monthly Reviczv, August, 1819, in-the course of a dis- 

 cussion of Drake's Shakespeare and his Times, ofifers an astound- 

 ing theory : 



There is, however, something very enigmatic about this Christopher Mar- 

 lowe. Of his birth-place and early years, nothing is known: but, just at 

 the time when Shakspeare left Stratford, he appears on the London boards 

 as a distinguished actor, and an admirable play-wright both in tragedy and 

 comedy . . . Marlowe issued a pastoral ballad, entitled Tlic Passionate 

 Shepherd which Shakespeare afterward claimed, and inserted in his own 

 edition of The Passionate Pilgr!}n. Shortly afterward, in 1592 [sic] an 

 improbable story was circulated, that Marlowe had been assassinated with 

 his own sword, which attracted no judicial inquiry; and Shakspeare became 



"' Gifford expresses a more favorable judgment in his comment on Jonson's 

 phrase about Marlowe (Works of Jonson, 1816, vol. viii, p. 330) : 'Marlow's 

 viighty line is not introduced at random. Marlow has many lines which 

 have not hitherto been surpassed. His two parts of Taniburlaine, though 

 simple in plot and naked in artifice, have yet some rude attempts at con- 

 sistency of character, and many passages of masculine vigour and lofty 

 poetry . . . Marlowe had the sublimity of Milton, without the taste and 

 inspiration. It is not just to consign him to ridicule.' 



