226 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



English author ought to be intelligible to English readers, and, 

 if the editor do not make it so, he wrongs the old poet, for two 

 centuries lapt in lead, to whose works he undertakes to play the 

 gentleman-usher. A play written in our own tongue should not 

 be as tough to us as ./Eschylus to a ten years graduate, nor do 

 we wish to be reduced to the level of a chimpanzee, and forced 

 to gnaw our way through a thick shell of misprints and mis- 

 pointings only to find (as is generally the case with Marston) a 

 rancid kernel of meaning after all. But even Marston some 

 times deviates into poetry, as a man who wrote in that age could 

 hardly help doing, and one of the few instances of it is in a 

 speech of Erichtho, in the first scene of the fourth act of 

 Sophonisba (vol. i. p. 197), which Mr. Halliwell presents to 

 us in this shape : 



hardby the reverent (!) ruines 



Of a once glorious temple rear d to Jove 

 Whose very rubbish .... 



yet beares 



A deathlesse majesty, though now quite rac d, [razed,] 

 Hurl d down by wrath and lust of impious kings, 

 So that where holy Flamins [Flamens] wont to sing 

 Sweet hymnes to Heaven, there the daw and crow, 

 The ill-voyc d raven, and still chattering pye, 

 Send out ungrateful sounds and loathsome filth; 

 Where statues and Joves acts were vively limbs, 



Where tombs and beautious urnes of well dead men 

 Stood in assured rest, &c. 



The last verse and a half are worthy of Chapman ; but why did 

 not Mr. Halliwell, who explains up-pont and / um, change 

 Joves acts were vively limbs to Jove s acts were lively limned/ 

 which was unquestionably what Marston wrote ? 



In the Scourge of Villanie (vol. iii. p. 252) there is a 

 passage which till lately had a modern application in America, 

 though happily archaic in England, which Mr. Halliwell suffers 

 to stand thus : 



Once Albion lived in such a cruel age 



Than man did hold by servile vilenage : 



Poore brats were slaves of bondmen that were borne, 



And marted, sold : but that rude law is torne 



And disannuld, as too too inhumane. 



This should read 



Man man did hold in servile villanage; 



Poor brats were slaves (of bondmen that were born) ; 



and perhaps some American poet will one day write in the past 

 tense similar verses of the barbarity of his forefathers. 

 We will give one more scrap of Mr. Halliwell s text: 



