WILLIAM PICKERING, CHANCERY LANE; TALBOYS AND WHEELER, OXFORD; T. COMBE AND SON, LEICESTER. M.DCCC.XXVI. KIT MARLOWE'S WORKS. VOLUME I. TAMBERLAINE THE GREAT,-PART I. THE LIFE OF CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. MARLOWE was the only dramatic poet who obtained any great degree of celebrity previously to the appearance of Shakespeare's plays; we hardly meet with a single scene in the dramatic productions of Marlowe's predecessors which is calculated to call forth the passions of grief, or terror, or astonishment. They are all written either in the dry didactic style of Ferrex and Porrex, or in the extravagant vein of King Cambises. The dramatists, indeed, who preceded him had no dominion over the passions-they/ were extravagant and bombastic, instead of being pathetic or natural. Peele and Greene, the friends and contemporaries of Marlowe, exhibited only slight and occasional indications of feeling in their dramatic compositions. Marlowe was the first who made any impression upon the hearts of the audience. He possessed more genius and refinement, and drew his materials from a purer source, than any former |