The Reputation of Christopher Marlon'C. 387 



ford were produced during the eighteenth century, notably in 1724 

 and the following years, when rival versions by Thurmond"-' and 

 Rich played in opposition, and evoked the ridicule of Pope's 

 Dunciad (1728, bk. iii. 307 ff.) : 



To aid our cause, if Heav'n thou can'st not bend, 

 Hell thou shalt move ; for Faustus is our friend : 

 Pluto with Cato thou for this shalt join . . . ."^ 



The memory of ^Marlowe appears to have lingered after the 

 Restoration only with the professional compilers of antiquarian 

 knowledge, whose accounts are often fantastically inaccurate. 

 The most adequate treatment he received at this time was at the 

 hands of the inaccurate Edward Phillips (Theatrmn Poctarum, 

 1675), who has been supposed to have got some of his criticisms 

 from his uncle, jNIilton."^ Phillips writes of Marlowe : 



Christopher Martoxv, a kind of a second Shakesphcar (whose contemporary 

 he was) not only because like him he rose from an Actor to be a maker of 

 Plays, though inferiour both in Fame and Merit ; but also because in his 

 begun Poem of Hero and Leander, he seems to have a resemblance of that 

 clean and unsophisticated Wit, which is natural to that incomparable Poet ; 

 this Poem being left unfinished by Marlozv, who in some riotous Fray came 

 to an untimely and violent End, was thought worthy of the finishing Hand 

 of Chapman; in the performance whereof nevertheless he fell short of the 

 Spirit and Invention with which it was begun ; of all that he hath written 

 to the Stage his Dr. Faustus hath made the greatest noise with its Devils 

 and such like Tragical sport, nor are his other 2 Tragedies to be forgotten, 

 namely his Edzv. the H. and Massacre at Paris, besides his Jciv of Malta a 

 Tragecomedie, and his Tragedy of Dido, in which he was joyned with N^ash. 



John Aubrey (1626-1697) says of Ben Jonson, on the alleged 

 authority of Sir Edward Shirburne :— 'He killed Mr. . . Marlow, 

 the poet, on Bunhill, comeing from the Green-Curtain play- 

 house. — From Sir Edward Shirburn.'*''^ Aubrey's adversary, 



"■^ For the scenario of Thurmond's Harlequin Dr. Faustus, see A. Diebler, 

 Anglia vii, 341-354 (1884) : Faust- mid IVagncrpantoiniincn in England. 



'■'■' Pope's note on this passage runs : — 'Faustus, Pluto, &c. Names of 

 miserable Farces, which it was the custom to act at the end .of the best 

 Tragedies, to spoil the digestion of the audience.' He adds, of the two 

 playhouses : — 'they also rival'd each other in showing the burnings of 

 hell-fire, in Dr. Faustus.' 



^^ See, however, E. N. S. Thompson, 'Milton's Part in Theatruin Poet- 

 arum,' Mod. Lang. Notes, January, 1921. 



"'"' Brief Lives, set down between 1669 and 1696, ed. A. Clark, 1898, vol. ii. 

 p. 13. 'The doating Aubrey, who implicitly swallows every idle story, and 

 confounds every true one.' (Gifford.) 



