wrights and actors, many of whom have left behind them valuable dramatic work. Thomas Kyd, Lyly, Peele and Greene were among the number, Sir Walter Raleigh was their friend, and all London was ready to appreciate their performances on the stage. Greene describes the wild. life they led together, the mingling of good work with low company, which has always been the case with such men as Marlowe. At the time when Greene himself was "famoused for an arch play-making poet," his companions "were lightly the lewdest persons in the land, apt for pilfering, perjury, forgery, or any villainy, who," as he says, "came still to my lodging, and these would continue quaffing, carousing, and surfeiting with me all day long."

In such company Marlowe's life was spent, and to its character his premature death was due. Of the circumstances attending his end we know little, the bare fact remains that one of the most brilliant dramatic writers of the day, whose success seems to have been acknowledged by all his contemporaries, was killed in a drunken brawl at Deptford, in June 1593, before he had reached the age of thirty. His work has therefore the added interest of never having reached such a maturity as it might have done; we see the genius in what

remains, we can only imagine what might have been had he lived.

His work is almost entirely dramatic, and he appears to have taken part in the performance of his own plays.

Permanent theatres had lately begun to be erected; the miracle and morality plays of earlier times, with their companies of strolling-players, had given place to more consecutive and historical pieces, and at first Lord Leicester and other great noblemen had been in the habit of supporting private dramatic companies.

The boys, or "children" as they were called, of the great schools in London, used to perform plays at certain times, and seemed formidable rivals to the older players.

Leicester, being all powerful with the Queen, obtained permission for his company of actors to perform inside the walls of London, but the corporation of the City was much against such performances, partly on account of the doubtful nature of many of the pieces acted, and partly because of the constant risk in contagion from the plague in such a close-packed and unwholesome atmosphere.

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This led to the erection of certain play-houses "theaters" outside the boundaries of the

London city walls, of which the first was called the "Theater," and was situated in Shoreditch; soon after its erection came others, the "Curtain," the "Rose," and the "Swan."

In these play-houses, with scanty scenery, often consisting merely of a sign-post bearing the name of the spot where the action was supposed to take place, without music, lights, or modern accessories, one may fancy the great men of the time, resting from their labour on land or sea, and watching the moving figures and listening to the thrilling words of the greatest dramas that England has ever produced.

Marlowe's work, although partly contemporary in point of time, essentially prefaces that of Shakspere. His plays are vivid, imaginative, and thrilling, but his work is not creative, and his characters lack life ; there is a broad line between his work and that of the mighty dramatist whose figures live for evermore. Marlowe's personages, except the central figure in each drama, have little vitality, and he could never draw a woman.

But his work is powerful, rich, and vivid, and stands always secure in its place in the literature of his country, although somewhat overshadowed by the fame of his mighty successor.

His first play, "Tamburlaine," was drawn partly

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from a Spanish source, and is the tale of a Scythian shepherd who rises by great and savage deeds to be lord over the Eastern World. He gives his own idea of the play in his Prologue to the First Part:

"From jigging veins of rhyming mother wits,
And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay,
We'll lead you to the stately tent of war,

Where you shall hear the Scythian Tamburlaine
Threatening the world with high astounding terms,
And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword.
View but his picture in this tragic glass,

And then applaud his fortune as you please."

Tamburlaine's own figure stands out vividly in contrast to the shadowy description of most of the other characters in the play; in appearance he is

"Of stature tall, and straightly fashioned,
Like his desire, lift upward and divine;

So large of limbs, his joints so strongly knit,
Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear
Old Atlas's burden ;-'twixt his manly pitch,
A pearl, more worth than all the world, is placed,
Wherein by curious sovereignity of art

Are fixed his piercing instruments of sight,
Whose fiery circles bear encompassèd

A heaven of heavenly bodies in their spheres,
That guides his steps and actions to the throne,
Where honour sits invested royally :

Pale of complexion, wrought in him with passion,
Thirsting with sovereignity and love of arms;
His lofty brows in folds do figure death,

And in their smoothness, amity, and life;
About them hangs a note of amber hair,
Wrapped in curls, as fierce Achilles was,

On which the breath of Heaven delights to play,
Making it dance with wanton majesty.—
His arms and fingers, long and sinewy,
Betokening valour and excess of strength;
In every part proportioned like the man

Should make the world subdued to Tamburlaine."

He goes on his victorious career, subduing the world before him; the Persian commander sent against him he persuades, apparently without difficulty, to fight on his side, and he conquers the Turkish Emperor, and all his forces. Bajazeth, his captive, he keeps, according to the custom of Louis XI., in an iron cage, which in this case seems to be portable, as the unfortunate Emperor is brought in to the banquet by slaves, and is taunted and mocked by Tamburlaine on refusing to take food like a beast through the bars of the cage.

Parts of the play are truely medieval in the savage spirit they breathe, as in the scene when Bajazeth and his wife Zabina, unable to bear their sufferings longer, dash out their brains against the iron bars of the Emperor's prison.

Tamburlaine, like so many rude heroes of the time, has one soft spot in his fierce heart, and that is his love for his captive Egyptian bride,