The Reputation of Christoplier Marlowe. 361 



these two works." In the Merry Wives of Windsor (III. i.) Sir 

 Hugh Evans sings the song. It drew forth other rephes than 

 that ascribed to Raleigh ;i*^ and as late as Walton's time (1653), 

 when Marlowe's plays and the paganism of Hero and Lcander 

 were objects of equal scandal it was still keeping the poet's memory 

 fragrant.^' 



Even before the appearance of the first known edition in 1598, 

 Hero and Lcander seems to be referred to as Marlowe's most 

 characteristic work. Thus Thomas Edwards (L'Envoy to Nar- 

 cissus, 1595) deplores the deaths of Thomas Watson (d. 1592) 

 and ]\Iarlowe under the names of their favorite heroes : 



Amintai and Leandcr's gone, 



Oh deere sonnes of stately kings, 

 Blessed be your nimble throats 



That so amorously could sing. 



Meres introduces a conventional reference to the poem,^® and 



^' 'Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, 



"Who ever lov'd that lov'd not at first sight?"' (III. v. 81 f.) 



'This is the only reference Shakespeare made to any author of his time. 

 The only other contemporaries he mentioned were Queen Elizabeth, Lord 

 Southampton, Lord Essex, and, indirectly. King James.' Henrietta C. 

 Bartlett, Mr. WilHajii Shakespeare: Original and Early Editions, etc., 1922, 

 p. 115. 



'° Cf . Roxburghe Ballads I. 205 ; TJie Amorose Songcs, Sonets, and Elegies 

 of Alexander Craige (1606), 'Alexis to Lesbia,' Hunterian Club ed., 1873, 

 p. 151 ; Donne, Tlie Bait; Herrick, To Phillis to love and live with him. 



Dyce quotes two allusions from Nicholas Breton : — 'At the least you 

 shall heare the old song that you were wont to like well of, sung by the 

 blacke browes with the cherrie-cheeke, vnder the side of the pide cow. Come 

 hue zvith me and be my lone' (A Paste zvith a Packet of Mad Letters} ; 



'Why, how now, doe you take me for a woman, that you come vpon me 

 with a ballad of Come Hue zvith vie and be my lone?' {Choice, Chance, 

 and Change, &c., 1606, p. 3) 



" 'Her voice was good, and the ditty fitted for it ; it was that smooth 

 song which was made by Kit Marlow, now at least fifty years ago ; and 

 the milk-maid's motlier sung an answer to it, which was made by Sir 

 Walter Raleigh, in his younger days. They were old-fashioned poetry, but 

 choicely good; I think much better than the strong lines that are now in 

 fashion in this critical age.' {The Complete Angler, Chapter iv.) 



^^ 'As Musaeus, who wrote the loue of Hero and Leander, had two excellent 

 schollers, Thamaras & Hercules: so hath he in England two excellent 

 Poets, imitators of him in the same argument and subject, Christopher 

 Marlow, and George Chapman.' (Palladis Tamia, 1598.) 



