Faustus. As resolute am I in this In his colloquy with the fallen angel, he shows the fixedness of his determination :: "What! is great Mephostophilis so passionate For being deprived of the joys of heaven? And scorn those joys thou never shalt possess." Yet we afterwards find him faltering in his resolution, and struggling with the extremity of his fate : "My heart is harden'd, I cannot repent: Scarce can I name salvation, faith, or heaven; And long ere this I should have done the deed, There is one passage more of this kind, which is so striking and beautiful, so like a rapturous and deeply passionate dream, that I cannot help quoting it here: it is the address to the Apparition of Helen. Enter HELEN again, passing over between two Cupids. And burnt the topless tow'rs of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul! See where it flies. I will be Paris, and for love of thee, And wear thy colours on my plumed crest; And none but thou shalt be my paramour." The ending of the play is terrible, and his last exclamations betray an anguish of mind and vehemence of passion not to be contemplated without shuddering : -"Oh, Faustus! Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, That Faustus may repent, and save his soul. (The Clock strikes twelv".) It strikes! it strikes! Now, body, turn to air, (Thunder. Enter the Devils.) Oh! mercy, Heav'n! Look not so fierce on me! Perhaps the finest trait in the whole play, and that which softens and subdues the horror of it, is the interest taken by the two scholars in the fate of their master, and their unavailing attempts to dissuade him from his relentless career. The regard to learning is the ruling passion of this drama, and its indica'ions are as mild and amiable in them as its ungoverned pursuit has been fatal to Faustus. "Yet, for he was a scholar once admir'd For wondrous knowledge in our German schools, And all the students, clothed in mourning black, So the Chorus: "Cut is the branch that might have grown full strait, That sometime grew within this learned man." And still more affecting are his own conflicts of mind and agonizing doubts on this subject just before, when he exclaims to his friends: "Oh, gentlemen! Hear me with patience, and tremble not at my speeches. Though my heart pant and quiver to remember that I have been a student here these thirty years; oh! would I had never seen Wittenberg, never read book!" A finer compliment was never paid, nor a finer lesson ever read to the pride of learning. The intermediate comic parts, in which Faustus is not directly concerned, are mean and grovelling to the last degree. One of the Clowns says to another, “Snails! what hast got there? A book? Why thou can'st not tell ne'er a word on't." Indeed, the ignorance and barbarism of the time, as here described, might almost justify Faustus's overstrained admiration of learning, and turn the heads of those who possessed it from novelty and unaccustomed excitement, as the Indians are made drunk with wine! Goëthe, the German poet, has written a drama on this tradition of his country, which is considered a master-piece. I cannot find in Marlowe's play, any proofs of the atheism or impiety attributed to him, unless the belief in witchcraft and the Devil can be regarded as such; and at the time he wrote, not to have believed in both would have been construed into the rankest atheism and irreligion. There is a delight, as Mr. Lamb says, "in dallying with interdicted subjects;" but that does not, by any means, imply either a practical or speculative disbelief of them. 'Lust's Dominion, or The Lascivious Queen,' is referable to the same general style of writing; and is a striking picture, or rather caricature of the unrestrained love of power, not as connected with learning, but with regal ambition and external sway. There is a good deal of the same intense passion, the` same recklessness of purpose, the same smouldering fire within: but there is not any of the same relief to the mind in the lofty imaginative nature of the subject, and the continual repetition of plain practical villainy and undigested horrors disgusts the sense and blunts the interest. The mind is hardened into obdu racy, not melted into sympathy, by such barefaced and barbarous cruelty. Eleazar, the Moor, is such another character as Aaron in Titus Andronicus;' and this play might be set down without injustice as "pew-fellow" to that. I should think Marlowe has a much fairer claim to be the author of 'Titus Andronicus' than Shakspeare, at least from internal evidence; and the argument of Schlegel, that it must have been Shakspeare's, because there was no one else capable of producing either its faults or beauties, fails in each particular. The Queen is the same character in both these plays, and the business of the plot is carried on in much the same revolting manner, by making the nearest friends and relatives of the wretched victims the instruments of their sufferings and persecution by an arch-villain. To show, however, that the same strong-braced tone of passionate declamation is kept up, take the speech of Eleazer on refusing the proffered crown: "What, do none rise? No, no, for kings indeed are deities. And who'd not (as the sun) in brightness shine? Who among millions would not be the mightiest? To sit in godlike state; to have all eyes 1 This usurpation; wiping off your fears This is enough to show the unabated vigour of the author's style. This strain is certainly doing justice to the pride of ambition, and the imputed majesty of kings. We have heard much of "Marlowe's mighty line," and this play furnishes frequent instances of it. There are a number of single lines that seem struck out in the heat of a glowing fancy, and leave a track of golden fire behind them. The following are a few that might be given. "But I that am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black," &c. Eleazer's sarcasm, |