Eleazar's sarcasm,

"These dignities,

Like poison, make men swell; this rat's-bane honour,
Oh, 'tis so sweet! they'll lick it till they burst”~

shews the utmost virulence of smothered spleen; and his concluding strain of malignant exultation has been but tamely imitated by Young's Zanga.

"Now tragedy, thou minion of the night,

Rhamnusia's pewfellow*, to thee I'll sing,
Upon a harp made of dead Spanish bones,
The proudest instrument the world affords:
To thee that never blushest, though thy cheeks
Are full of blood, O Saint Revenge, to thee
I consecrate my murders, all my stabs," &c.

It may be worth while to observe, for the sake of the curious, that many of Marlowe's most sounding lines consist of monosyllables, or nearly so. The repetition of Eleazar's taunt to the Cardinal, retorting his own words upon him, " Spaniard or Moor, the saucy slave shall die"-may perhaps have suggested Falconbridge's spirited reiteration of the phrase " And hang a calve's skin on his recreant limbs."

I do not think THE RICH JEW OF MALTA SO characteristic a specimen of this writer's powers.

* This expression seems to be ridiculed by Falstaff.

It has not the same fierce glow of passion or expression. It is extreme in act, and outrageous in plot and catastrophe; but it has not the same vigorous filling up. The author seems to have relied on the horror inspired by the subject, and the national disgust excited against the principal character, to rouse the feelings of the audience: for the rest, it is a tissue of gratuitous, unprovoked, and incredible atrocities, which are committed, one upon the back of the other, by the parties concerned, without motive, passion, or object. There are, notwithstanding, some striking passages in it, as Barabbas's description of the bravo, Philia Borzo*; the relation of his own unaccountable villainies to Ithamore; his rejoicing over his recovered jewels " as the morning lark sings over her young;" and the backwardness he declares in himself to forgive the Christian in

*"He sent a shaggy, tattered, staring slave,

That when he speaks, draws out his grisly beard,
And winds it twice or thrice about his ear;
Whose face has been a grind-stone for men's swords:
His hands are hack'd, some fingers cut quite off,

Who when he speaks, grunts like a hog, and looks
Like one that is employ'd in catzerie,

And cross-biting; such a rogue

As is the husband to a hundred whores;

And I by him must send three hundred crowns.”

Act IV.

juries that are offered him*, which may have given the idea of one of Shylock's speeches, where he ironically disclaims any enmity to the merchants on the same account. It is perhaps hardly fair to compare the Jew of Malta with the Merchant of Venice; for it is evident, that Shakespear's genius shews to as much advantage in

*"In spite of these swine-eating Christians
(Unchosen nation, never circumcised;
Such poor villains as were ne'er thought upon,
Till Titus and Vespasian conquer❜d us)
Am I become as wealthy as I was.

They hoped my daughter would have been a nun;
But she's at home, and I have bought a house
As great and fair as is the Governor's <
And there, in spite of Malta, will I dwell,
Having Ferneze's hand; whose heart I'll have,
Aye, and his son's too, or it shall go hard.

I am not of the tribe of Levi, I,
That can so soon forget an injury.

We Jews can fawn like spaniels when we please ;
And when we grin we bite; yet are our looks
As innocent and harmless as a lamb's.

I learn'd in Florence how to kiss my hand,
Heave up my shoulders when they call me dog,
And duck as low as any bare-foot Friar:
Hoping to see them starve upon a stall,
Or else be gather'd for in our synagogue,
That when the offering bason comes to me,
Even for charity I may spit into it."

knowledge of character, in variety and stageeffect, as it does in point of general humanity.

Edward II. is, according to the modern standard of composition, Marlowe's best play. It is written with few offences against the common rules, and in a succession of smooth and flowing lines. The poet however succeeds less in the voluptuous and effeminate descriptions which he here attempts, than in the more dreadful and violent bursts of passion. Edward II. is drawn with historic truth, but without much dramatic effect. The management of the plot is feeble and desultory; little interest is excited in the various turns of fate; the characters are too worthless, have too little energy, and their punishment is, in general, too well deserved, to excite our commiseration; so that this play will bear, on the whole, but a distant comparison with Shakespear's Richard II. in conduct, power, or effect. But the death of Edward II. in Marlow's tragedy, is certainly superior to that of Shakespear's King; and in heart-breaking distress, and the sense of human weakness, claiming pity from utter helplessness and conscious misery, is not surpassed by any writer whatever.

"Edward. Weep'st thou already? List awhile to me, And then thy heart, were it as Gurney's is,

Or as Matrevis, hewn from the Caucasus,
Yet will it melt ere I have done my tale.
This dungeon, where they keep me, is the sink
Wherein the filth of all the castle falls.

Lightborn. Oh villains.

Edward. And here in mire and puddle have I stood
This ten days' space; and lest that I should sleep,
One plays continually upon a drum.

They give me bread and water, being a king;
So that, for want of sleep and sustenance,
My mind's distemper'd, and my body's numb'd:
And whether I have limbs or no, I know not.
Oh! would my blood drop out from every vein,
As doth this water from my tatter'd robes!
Tell Isabel, the Queen, I look'd not thus,
When for her sake I ran at tilt in France,

And there unhors'd the Duke of Cleremont."

There are some excellent passages scattered up and down. The description of the King and Gaveston looking out of the palace window, and laughing at the courtiers as they pass, and that of the different spirit shewn by the lion and the forest deer, when wounded, are among the best. The Song "Come, live with me and be my love," to which Sir Walter Raleigh wrote an answer, is Marlowe's.

Heywood I shall mention next, as a direct contrast to Marlowe in every thing but the smoothness of his verse. As Marlowe's imagination glows like a furnace, Heywood's is a gentle,