The Atitkorship of " King Henry VI." 155 



casual outsiders. The absence of this changefulness of mood and of 

 dramatic irony should probably be ascribed, not to any congenital 

 want of humor in the poet, but to his total absorption in the special 

 side of the question which he is endeavoring to portray. Few men 

 can throw themselves into the delineation of the highest sublimities 

 of passion and at the same time retain full consciousness of all the 

 little humorous accompaniments of life. Even in Shakespeare 

 thi power came only with maturity, and in Shakespeare it is almost 

 unique. It is easy for the cold critic, sj'mpathizing with Shake- 

 speare's Pistol, to find much that is absurd in the intensity of Tamhur- 

 laine ; but it would have been quite impossible for any poet, while 

 in a mood unimpassioned enough to be conscious of these laughable 

 trivialities, to reach the tragic exaltation which makes the greatness 

 of ^larlowe's play. Thus, the fact that Marlowe's strong tragic 

 pinion bears him in his moments of inspiration above the lowly 

 species of comedy with which Greene, for instance, was accustomed 

 to intersperse his romantic extravaganzas should not be taken as 

 a necessary indication that Marlowe at all times lacks a sense of 

 humor, or that he was incapable of utilizing comic material where 

 it was possible to do so without subverting the great tragic purpose 

 of his dramas. The evidence is all against this common assumption. 

 I believe that the most conspicuous comic scenes in the Conten- 

 tion, those dealing with Jack Cade, are distinctly in Marlowe's 

 manner. It has been usual, of course, to declare that these scenes 

 cannot have been composed by Marlowe, because they are effective 

 comedy, and ^larlowe was no comic writer. Such an argument 

 involves a complete non sequitur. What we are really justified in 

 expecting of comic matter introduced by Marlowe into a serious play 

 is that it shall not be tawdry, as is much of Greene's buffoonery and 

 most of the later, non-Marlovian, additions to the text of Doctor 

 Faustus ; and that it shall not be extraneous to the main issue of 

 the play, as Shakespeare's early comic scenes usually are. The Cade 

 scenes offend in none of these respects. So far are they from being 

 irrelevant that they serve a very necessary function in preparing 

 the way for York's rebellion and bringing out the instability of 

 Henry's rule. Their spirit is not that imparted by the professed 

 comedian or fun-maker. Cade's followers, unlike the insipid clowns 

 of contemporary farce, are a band of wild fanatics, as heavily charged 

 with tragedy as any that in later days did homage to the goddess 

 Guillotine. Their follies and extravagances, like the murderous 

 jests in The Massacre at Paris, have in every case a deadly sequel 

 which actually darkens the black atmosphere of the tragedy. 



