The Reputation of Christopher Marlozce. 403 



for the whole of the remaining season, it was more difiticult to recognize 

 a Jew in the house, than even a Woman of Fashion."* 



The second of Hazlitt's Lectures 'Chiefly on the Dramatic Litera- 

 ture of the Age of Ehzabeth' (1820) contains some fifteen pages 

 of ^Marlowe criticism. The poet is here grouped — in contrast 

 with such well-known names as Ben Jonson, Alassinger, Beau- 

 mont, and Fletcher — among a set of writers 'who are next, or 

 equal, or sometimes superior to these in power, but whose names 

 are now little known, and their writings nearly obsolete.' 'Mar- 

 lowe,' Hazlitt says, 



is a name that stands high, and ahnost first in this Hst of dramatic 

 worthies.. . . There is a lust of power in his writings, a hunger and thirst 

 after unrighteousness, a glow of the imagination, unhallowed by anything 

 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. 



Hazlitt devotes most of his attention to Doctor Faiistus, which, 

 'though an imperfect and unequal performance, is his greatest 

 work,' and to Lust's Dominion, which he thinks most resembles 

 it. The Jezv of Malta he does not think 'so characteristic a speci- 

 men of this writer's powers' ; and he regards Edzvard II as weak 

 in most respects, though 'according to the modern standard of 

 composition, Marlowe's best play.' 



The most immediate successor to Malone in the serious study 

 of ^Marlowe's life and work was probably James Broughton. His 

 edition of Tamhnrlainc, prepared in 1818, but not published, has 

 been mentioned. It was he who in 1820 discovered the record of 

 the poet's burial in the Church of St. Nicholas, Deptford, thus 

 verifying Vaughan's account^^^ in this detail. In 1821 he searched 



"* The sequel is given in the Monthly Magazine, vol. 53, Part I for 1822, 

 p. 59 : 'During the controversy relative to Mr. Bucke's Traged}-, it may 

 be remembered, that the author stated in his preface, that he had not only 

 refused to write an Epilogue {sic), but that he had declined being in any 

 way instrumental, in attempting to revive the drama of the "Jew of Malta," 

 because "he felt ashamed in being accessory to the cruelty of offering such 

 an undeserved and unprovoked insult to the great body of the Jews." This 

 conduct having given great satisfaction to the Jews, a select society of 

 them have determined upon presenting Mr. Bucke with a splendid copy of 

 the "Talmud of Babylon," and an illuminated one of the "Talmud of 

 Jerusalem." 



"° See above, p. 356. 



