384 Tucker Brooke, 



Of Conjuring "Faustus," and the "Beauchamps bold," 

 You poets us'd to have the second day.*^ 

 An allusion in the fourth act of Shadwell's Humourists (1670) 

 shows equally well that Tamburlaine had been relegated to the 

 tiines of old tradition, and that reference to the huml)ling of 

 Bajazeth, once so trite, now had the strangeness of novelty. Dry- 

 bob says : 



I have been beaten more severely, than ever Turk was by Tauicrlain; 

 which, by the way, is no ill Comparison: hah? 



By the close of Charles II's reign even this little had been for- 

 gotten. When C. Saunders published in 1681 his unsuccessful 

 play of 'Tamerlane tJie Great. A Tragedy. As it is Acted by 

 their Majesties Servants at the Theatre Royal,' he was able to 

 speak as follows of certain condemnatory critics : 



and the means they took, was to give out, that this was only an Old 

 Play Transcrib'd. But I hope I may easily unload my self of that Calumny, 

 when I shall testifie that I never heard of any Play on the same Subject, 

 untill my own was Acted, neither have I since seen it, though it hath been 

 told me, there is a Cock Pit Play, going under the name of the Scythian 

 Shepherd, or Tamberlain the Great, which how good it is, any one may 

 Judge by its obscurity, being a thing, not a Bookseller in London, or scarce 

 the Players themselves, who Acted it formerly, cou'd call to Remembrance, 

 so far, that I believe that whoever was the Author, he might e'en keep it 

 to himself secure from invasion, or Plagiary; But let those who have Read 

 it Convince themselves of their Errors, that this is no second Edition, but 

 an entirely new Play. Moreover, utterly to overthrow this Objection, I 

 must acquaint you that I drew the design of this Play, from a late Novell, 

 call'd Tanierlanc and Asteria, which I'm sure bears not half the Age of the 

 Tragedy before mention'd and I am confident the Characters are quite 

 different. 



Saunders oversteps the literal truth when he says that the book- 

 sellers of the day were totally unacquainted with Tamhurlaine, 

 for the two parts are duly listed in the catalogues of 1 656-1 671 f^ 

 but his own innocence of all knowledge of his predecessor is 

 unquestionable, as is also that of Nicholas Rowe, whose more suc- 

 cessful Tamerlane (1702) symbolized in its hero the magnanimity 

 of William of Orange.®" 



*■* The mention of the Bold Beauchamps indicates that Davcnant remem- 

 bered Suckling's allusion in The Goblins (cf. ante, p. 372). 



*° See Greg, List of Masques, etc.. Appendix ii, p. ex. 



*" Sir Sidney Lee (D. N. B.) thinks an indebtedness to Marlowe's Tamhur- 

 laine discernible in Sir Francis Fane's tragedy. The Sacrifice (1686). This 

 is a work in very rococo style, but the relation seems dubious. 



