Tlic Reputation of Christopher Marlozvc. 363 



The Rawlinson MS. version of Edmund Bolton's Hypercritica 

 (ca. 1610?) mentions, among the books 'out of which wee gather 

 the most warrantable English,' 'Marlowe his excellent fragment 

 of Hero and Leander.' The version printed in 1722 omits both 

 Marlowe and Shakespeare from the list (cf. J. Haslewood, Ancient 

 Critical Essays. 181 5, vol. ii, p. 246 f.). 



The continuations by Petowe and Chapman are of course tri- 

 liutes to the effect of the original poem in 1598. Even the admired 

 Chapman gained fame from the fact that he finished Marlowe's 

 work: at least nine editions, between 1598 and 1637, ^'lote on the 

 title-page that the poem was 'Begun by Christopher Marloe, and 

 finished by George Chapman.' Chettle, in England's Mourning 

 Garment (1603), thus speaks of the continuator: 



Neither doth Corin, full of worth and wit, 

 That finished dead Musaeus' gracious song, 

 With grace as great, and words and verse as fit, 

 Chide meager death for doing virtue wrong. 



In 'dead Musaeus' there is a double reference to the ancient Greek 

 and to Marlowe. Chapman himself, in addressing 'to the Common 

 Reader' his actual translation of the Greek poem (published 1616), 

 says : 



When you see Lcandcr and Hero, the subjects of this Pamphlet, I persuade 

 myself your prejudice will increase to the contempt of it; either headlong 

 presupposing it all one, or at no part matchable, with that partly excellent 

 Poem of Maister Marloe's. 



The learned Burton cites Hero and Leander frecjuently in the 

 third part of the Anatomy of Mclanclwly (1621),-^ and the flip- 

 pant ^^'ater-Poet, Taylor, sings it as he sculls : 



'It chanc'd one evening, on a reedy bank, 



The Muses sat together in a rank : 



Whilst in my boat I did by water wander. 



Repeating lines of Hero and Leander.' (Taylor's Motto.) 



A puzzled lover in John Cooke's comedy, Greene's Tu Quoque, 

 or The City Gallant (1614),^* turns to Hero and Leander for 

 inspiration : 



There's no good to be done by praying for her, 

 I see that; I must plunge into a passion: 

 Now for a piece of Hero and Leander; 



'' Ed. 1652, pp. 457, 458, 464, 468, etc. 

 '' Hazlitt-Dodsley xi. 250 f . 



