LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 307 



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' gTaduate, 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 mispointings 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 oue 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 : — 



" hardbv 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 ungratefull 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," etc. 



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

 why did not Mr. Halliwell, who explains iip-jyont and / 

 um, change "Joves acts were vively limbs " to "Jove's 

 acts were lively limned," which was unquestionably what 

 Marston wrote 1 



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 : — 



