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The Marlowe Canon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Tucker Brooke
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Extract

Christopher Marlowe's name appears on the title-pages of the early editions of the following plays:

  1. Dido: ‘Written by Christopher Marlowe, and Thomas Nash. Gent.‘ (1594)

  2. Edward the Second: ‘Written by Chri. Marlow Gent.‘ (1594)

  3. The Massacre at Paris: ‘Written by Christopher Marlow.‘ (n. d. ca. 1600.)

  4. Doctor Faustus: ‘Written by Ch. Marl.‘ (1604)

  5. The Jew of Malta: ‘Written by CHRISTOPHER MARLO.‘ (1633)

  6. Lust's Dominion: ‘Written by Christofer Marloe, Gent.‘ (1657)

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , September 1922 , pp. 367 - 417
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1922

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References

1 The authorship of the Henry VI plays is not specifically discussed in this article. The present writer's belief that Marlowe was the main author of the First Part of the Contention and the True Tragedy and that he was not at all concerned in the First Part of Henry VI has been stated elsewhere. Cf. The Authorship of the Second and Third Parts of “King Henry VI” (Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1912) and the Yale Shakespeare edition of The First Part of King Henry VI (1918), Appendix C.

2 Contrast the specific use of the past tense on the title-pages of other plays:— two Tragicall Discourses, as they were sundrie times shewed vpon Stages in the Citie of London' (Tamburlaine, 1590); ‘As it was sundrie times publiquely acted’ (Edward II, 1594); ‘As it hath bene Acted’ (Doctor Faustus, 1604).

3 Thomas Woodcock was an under warden of the Stationers' Co. from July 1593. As he died, April 22, 1594, it would appear that the 1594 quarto must have been published between that date and the twenty-fourth of the previous month, when the old year ended by the stationers' calendar. On March 4, 1593-4 Woodcock entered a book called A Myrrour of Popishe subtilties.

4 Nashe's Summer's Last Will was similarly designed for private performance, though by what company is not known. McKerrow shows good reason to believe that it was composed for production in 1592 at Archbishop Whitgift's palace at Croydon, and actually given there, after revision, on the occasion of the Queen's visit in August, 1600 (Nashe iv. 416 ff.).

5 Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica, 1748, p. 512.

6 ‘His Tragedy of Dido Queen of Carthage was completed and published by his friend Thomas Nashe in 1594.‘ Regarding the elegiac song on Marlowe's death by Nashe, which both Tanner and Warton profess to have seen in a copy of Dido, nothing further is known. All that can be said on this perplexing subject has been well said by Dyce and McKerrow.

7 Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1830. Broughton suspects ‘that Nash merely prepared it for the press after Marlowe's death, or at the utmost completed two or three scenes, which perhaps were left unfinished.‘

8 ‘It is probably an early work of Marlowe's, so far as it is his at all, and it must have been elaborated and considerably enlarged by Nash in a manner that is sometimes a caricature, perhaps not quite unconsciously, of Marlowe's manner. Dido must be compared to Hero and Leander rather than to any of Marlowe's dramas.‘ (Mermaid ed, xliii).

9 ‘I am inclined to think that so far as Dido was written by Marlowe, it must be regarded as a juvenile work, very probably composed before he left Cambridge… . It is impossible to determine how much of this tragedy is Marlowe's, although it is tolerably easy to lay one's finger on what must be Nashe's.‘

10 ‘Nashe's work lay chiefly in completing certain scenes which Marlowe had sketched in the rough.‘

11 ‘The piece must have been a very juvenile effort, awkwardly revised and completed by Nashe after Marlowe's death.’ (D. N. B., Marlowe). In the article on Nashe, Lee says: ‘In 1594 he completed and saw through the press Marlowe's unfinished “Tragedie of Dido.” Nash's contribution to the work is bald, and lacks true dramatic quality.’

12 ‘Although Marlowe left Dido unfinished at his death, it is pretty safe to say that his friend Thomas Nashe, who completed it, added but little to the play.‘ (Collectanea i. 91.)

13 ‘It seems to me to be practically all Marlowe's.‘ (Private letter, 1909.)

14 ‘It is chiefly the circumstance of the monotony of Nash's versification which enables us to judge what parts of the tragedy of Dido proceeded from his pen, and what other parts from that of his coadjutor Marlow’ (Hist. Engl. Dr. Poet. iii. 225). Collier ascribes to Nashe the description of the taking and sack of Troy; to Marlowe the ‘pretty scene in which Dido is wounded by Cupid in guise of Ascanius and one or two that follow it.’ ‘Although there is a marked superiority in the versification of some parts of the play over others’, Collier adds, ‘we may conclude with sufficient certainty that it was produced before Marlowe had himself acquired that degree of excellence in the formation of blank verse which he had attained when he produced his Edward II.‘ (p. 229.)

15 In his Biographical Chronicle, ii. 147, 148 (1891), Fleay asserts that Dido was written by Marlowe and Nashe at Cambridge, and thus partitions the authorship:—Marlowe—I.i.a, II.i.ii., III.iii., IV.iii.iv., V.i.ii.; Nashe—the rest. In the introduction to his edition of Edward II (1877) Fleay had accepted the more usual view: ‘He (Marlowe) did leave an unfinished play, however, Dido. This got somehow into Nash's possession, who finished it for the Chapel Children.‘

16 Wagner (Sh.-Jb. xi. 75) calls Dido ‘eine sehr durchdachte und sorgfältig ausgeführte Arbeit, in der Marlowe offenbar seinen jüngern Genossen, Nash, Alles ausführen liess, was zur bloss äusserlichen Fortführung der Handlung gehörte, während er selbst den Gesammtplan und die grossen, pathetischen Scenen lieferte.‘

17 ‘Broadly, I would state that the “vocabulary” and phrasing of Nashe are so marked in this “Tragedie”—as our Glossarial-Index demonstrates—and that of Marlowe is so slightly illustrated, that in my judgment very little of it was left by Marlowe for Nashe. His “mighty line” is scarcely once found; not even his choice epithets except in a very few cases, and even these few so mixed up with Nashe's self-evidencing bits as to be doubtful: e.g., one might have set down a passage in “Dido” as almost certainly Marlowe's, but in it occurs a so singularly used Nashe word as to certify it to have been his. See Glossarial-Index under “Attrect.” And so throughout.‘ (Vol. vi. p. xxii.)

18 The large amount of alliteration and rime, and relatively small proportion of feminine endings, caesural pauses, and trochaic first feet are notable. The figures for different parts of this play as regards rime and final polysyllables perhaps offer some hints as to its authorship:

Final polysyllables Riming lines
L1. 1-100 5 12
101-200 6 8
201-300 4 6
301-400 15 4
401-500 18 5
501-600 8 2
601-700 12 6
701-800 13 4
801-900 5 2
901-1000 3 7
1001-1100 5 6
1101-1200 5 8
1201-1300 10 4
1301-1400 7 4
1401-1500 8 8
1501-1600 12 6
1601-1700 11 4
1701-1736 1 4

The percentage of riming lines decreases pretty regularly as the percentage of final polysyllables increases. If we take the polysyllables as a mark of Marlowe's hand, the largest traces of that poet would seem to be in the scenes dealing with Dido's first meeting with Æneas and the tale of Troy's destruction (with a falling off in the latter portion—lines 500-600—which includes the story of Priam's death); and in the scenes portraying the development of Dido's love (11. 600-800) and the final parting (11. 1500 ff.). The passages specially lacking in final polysyllables are often noticeably unlike Marlowe; e.g., the Jupiter-Ganymede prologue, which has no dramatic purpose; the flat rendering of the opening of the Æneid (134-295); the altercation between Juno and Venus (811-910); the jealousy of Iarbas and scene at the cave (911-1094); and the episode of Iarbas and Anna (1095-1150). Perhaps, however, the unevenness may be due as much to youthful inability to sustain the high style as to divided authorship.

19 ‘Often, when comparing Marlowe's plays and poems with each other, I have been struck by the close manner in which Dido repeats Tamburlaine, and it has occurred to me that perhaps the author worked concurrently at the two dramas, and threw Dido aside to get on with other work… . Dido and Tamburlaine resemble one another in phrasing; and in both plays the phrasing is different from what we find in other parts of Marlowe's work.‘ (Collectanea i. 91 f.)

20 Cf. also Tamburlaine 3462

Like louely Thetis in a Christall robe

21 Cf. also Lucan 527 And Commets that presage the fal of kingdoms.

22 Possibly it may be worth while to add the references to Deucalion (Dido 1465, Tamb. 2732 f.) and to ‘blubbered cheeks’ (Dido 1541, Tamb. 1802).

23 The following explanations of apparent marks of late composition of Dido may be mentioned:

  1. 1.

    1. The second part of Tamburlaine is much more loosely constructed than the first. It contains more padding and is imaginatively less intense. Therefore the poet's temptation to draw upon the stock of ideas stored up in previous works would naturally have been greater than in the first part.

  2. 2.

    2. The hypothesis, already suggested by Knutowski and others, that Marlowe subjected Dido to an incomplete revision toward the close of his life, at the time when he was interested in Edward II and Hero and Leander, would obviate some difficulties, but is not based upon much solid probability.

  3. 3.

    3. The lines in Tamburlaine, 3055 ff., show that Marlowe's imagination was playing with the ideas embodied in the apostrophe to Helen before he conceived the play of Doctor Faustus.

24 On the assumption that the Dido and Æneas first played by Henslowe's company on January 8, 1598 was not the Marlowe-Nashe drama.

25 Edward II, lines 151, 832 f., 857, 1911 f., 2031, 2651. Crawford asserts that ‘There are at least thirty passages in Arden of Feversham that were directly inspired by Edward II.‘

26 Edward II, lines 157, 162, 594 f., 1875, 2248 f.

27 Edward II, lines 173 f., 1550, 1684 ff., 1964.

28 No entry of this play has been found in the Stationers' Register. It has been rather doubtfully assumed that it was in existence in 1589 on the ground of an allusion to ‘Tom Stukeley’ in Peele's Farewell to Norris and Drake. Cf. Edward II, line 1956.

29 Cf. Edward II, lines 2302-2304.

30 Cf. Edward II, line 2522. Nashe's play was apparently written during the summer of 1592. Cf. McKerrow, Nashe iv. 416 ff.

31 See Edward II, line 2562.

32 See Henslowe's letter of September 28, 1593.

33 In the circumstances of performance and publication Edward II seems to be associated with The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, which was likewise acted by Pembroke's Men (printed 1595), and with The First Part of the Contention Between York and Lancaster (printed 1594). Warton's statement that Edward II was ‘written in the year 1590‘ rests upon no ascertained authority.

34 No more performances in this year were possible because of the plague.

35 It is however possible, as Greg notes (Henslowe's Diary ii. 197), that these properties were used in connection with an extended work on the Civil Wars of France, in three parts and an Introduction, referred to by Henslowe between Sept. 29, 1598 and Jan. 20, 1598/9. The authors of this were Dekker and Drayton, who may have drawn upon Marlowe's tragedy.

36 Webster is known to have written a play called The Guise, now lost. Collier sought to connect Webster with the 1601 revival on the strength of Henslowe's record of Nov. 3, which he read: ‘Lent vnto Wm. Jube the 3 of Novembz 1601 to bye stamell cllathes for the gwisse—Webster … iii11.’ The name Webster, he says (Hist Engl. Dr. Poet., 1832, ii. 101) ‘sufficiently connects Webster with the performance, which we may conjecture was a new version of Marlowe's tragedy.’ The word ‘Webster,’ however, is a modern forgery. Cf. Warner, Dulwich Catalogue, pp. xlii and 161, and Greg, Henslowe's Diary. See also Stoll, John Webster, 200-205.

37 See discussion of this point in the paper on the Authorship of the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI, pp. 173, 174.

38 Collier (Hist. Engl. Dr. Poet. iii. 132) thinks that The Massacre at Paris ‘possibly, in point of date, preceded Faustus,‘ and that it certainly preceded The Jew of Malta (ibid. 135). The latter idea is denied by Dyce, p. xxiv, note ¶.

39 Lines 1005, 1027 sound like reminiscences of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, II. ii. 10, 48, which was not in existence till half a dozen years after Marlowe's death. Mr. J. M. Robertson (The Shakespeare Canon, 1922) would give Marlowe a part in Julius Caesar and in Henry V.

40 It may be surmised that the many deletions of references to the Deity, and similar expurgations, were made after King James's statute against profanity on the stage came into operation (1605). See P. Simpson, ‘The 1604 Text of Marlowe's “Doctor Faustus‘” (English Association, Essays and Studies, 1921, pp. 142-155.)

41 Cf. Collier, Hist. Engl. Dr. Poet. iii. 126-130.

42 Collier's contention that the word ballad ‘in the language of that time, might mean either the play or a metrical composition founded upon its chief incidents’ (ibid. 126) seems to be entirely unjustified. It is supported neither by the evidence which he adduces nor by the N. E. D. Collier may have got the idea from Malone, who in his copy of the 1631 edition of Faustus noted the entry of the ballad and added: ‘This was probably the play; for R. Jones appears to have been Marlowe's Printer. See the preface to Tamburlaine.‘

43 This company continued, however, to perform regularly at court till February 16, 1591 (cf. Greg, Henslowe's Diary ii. 83). Between 1591 and 1594 nothing is heard of it. Fleay assumes it to have spent these years abroad.

Allusions in the play to the Prince of Parma (d. 1592) and ‘the fiery keele at Antwarpes bridge’ (1585), and a very dubious reference to Thomas Cavendish's circumnavigation of the globe, July 21, 1586—Sept. 10, 1588, have no real value as determining the posterior limit for the date of the play.

44 Collier (Henslowe's Diary, p. 42) states that the English Faustbook was entered for publication in 1588. Fleay suggests that the leaf containing this entry has since been abstracted; but misstatement on Collier's part seems considerably more likely.

45 This is reprinted in an appendix to the Mermaid Marlowe. A slightly different version in the Bodleian (Wood 401) is collated by Logeman, p. 140.

46 W. Wagner states well the relation between the ballad and the play: ‘In spite of the coincidences we notice here, the ballad cannot be derived from the play. We should first notice that besides the discrepancies already pointed out there is a fundamental difference in the view taken of Faustus's character… . We are, therefore, inclined to assume that the ballad was founded upon mere oral relation of the legend, such as might be obtained some way or other, perhaps from one of the inmates of the German “Steelyard” in London’ (p. xxvi).

I have observed just one passage in the ballad which sounds like Marlowe —where Faustus is made to say:

'I then did wish both sun and moon to stay,
All times and seasons never to decay.'

And this, curiously enough, is much more like the words of Edward II (2052 f.),

'Stand still you watches of the element,
All times and seasons rest you at a stay,'

than like the parallel lines of Faustus (1422 f.),

'Stand stil you euer moouing spheres of heauen,
That time may cease, and midnight neuer come.'

47 Greg notes that Henslowe's Diary first speaks of the company as Nottingham's Men on May 26, 1599.

48 Critics have habitually assumed that Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (acted as an old play, Feb. 19, 1591/2) was written in imitation of Doctor Faustus. The idea appears to be based chiefly on the presumption against Greene created by his plagiarism of Tamburlaine in Alphonsus. As Ward properly says (Old English Drama) there is no evidence for determining the priority of either play.

48 A. Wagner's quibble that the opening speech by Machiavel, in which this allusion is found, may possibly have been written subsequently to the rest of the play does not deserve consideration, unless one wishes to interpret the mention of Guise's death as hinting at Marlowe's Tragedy of the Guise (Massacre at Paris), first acted January 30, 1593.

50 The reference to the Jew of Malta in one of Harington's epigrams is supposed by Collier to date from 1592 (Collier's Dodsley viii. 243-45); but Harington's words only prove that the play was then well known:

'Of a devout Vsurer… … .
Was euer lew of Malta or of Millain
Then this most damned lew, more Iewish villain?' (Epigrams, bk. iii. 16)

51 Hallam's words have been frequently quoted with approval: ‘The first two acts of The Jew of Malta are more vigorously conceived, both as to character and circumstance, than any other Elizabethan play, except those of Shakespeare.‘

52 ‘In the scenes with Bellamira and Pilia Borza there is a good deal not by Marlowe. This is not due to original collaboration, but to alteration by Heywood c. 1632. Compare The Captives (the part with the friars).‘ (Biog. Chron. Engl. Dr. ii. 61, 62.)

53 Phillips advances no proof of this statement; nor can any reason for it be conceived save that Newton is author of A Notable Historie of the Saracens (1575), an apparent source of the play.

54 Footnote: ‘Edw. Phillips in his Theatrum Poetarum.‘

55 Some Account of English Dramatick Poets, 1691, p. 344.

56 Cf. vol. iv. p. 567.

57 In another note, written in his copy of the 1605/6 Tamburlaine, Malone repeats the passage in the Black Book: ‘the spindle-shanke spyders, which shewed like great leachers, with little legs, went stalking ouer his [Thomas Nashe's] head, as if they had been conning of Tamburlayne’; and adds: ‘Does not this seem to insinuate that Nashe was either the author of this play, or at least assisted Marlowe in writing it?’ Dyce properly points out that the passage does not support Malone's reasoning: ‘It means, I have no doubt, that the spiders stalked with the tragic gait of an actor practising the part of Tamburlaine.’

Hallam, who calls the piece ‘the production wholly or principally of Marlowe,’ yet remarks that ‘Nash has been thought the author of Tamburlaine by Malone, and his inflated style, in pieces known to be his, may give some countenance to this hypothesis.’ Bullen observes that Nashe's derogatory remarks in his preface to Menaphon about the type of drama represented by Tamburlaine prove that he could not have been responsible for it.

58 Evidently Malone was led to this strange conclusion by the references in Suckling's Goblins and Davenant's Playhouse to be Let. See The Reputation of Christopher Marlowe, Trans. Conn. Academy xxv, p. 372, 383 f.

59 In his first article in the Gentleman's Magazine (1830) Broughton says that the question of Marlowe's authorship of Tamburlaine remains doubtful, and adds: ‘but for my own part, after again attentively perusing the play, comparing the style with that of Marlowe's acknowledged productions, and carefully weighing the evidence fro and con, I am inclined to believe that he was not the author.‘

60 Printed, without date by Whittingham and Rowland; ascribed by the Bodleian catalogue to the year 1814.

61 Note: ‘MS. notes on Langbaine.‘

62 Further, Lowndes records that ‘In the British Museum Catalogue, Tamburlaine the Great, 1605, is attributed to John Marston.‘ It is of course not so attributed at present. When it was, and on what grounds, I do not know.

63 Cf. Warner, Dulwich Library Catalogue, 159, 160; and Greg, Henslowe's Diary.

64 Hist. Engl. Dr. Poet. iii. 115.

65 Collier's citation of the line in Gabriel Harvey's Gorgon ‘sonnet’: ‘Weepe, Powles; Thy Tamberlaine voutsafes to die,‘ must however be thrown out, I think. It is not likely that Harvey was referring to Marlowe's death in this poem.

66 Another indication of Greene's familiarity with the second part of Tamburlaine is found in Menaphon (licensed Aug. 23, 1589): ‘Stand not in doubt man, for be she base, I reade that mightie Tamburlaine after his wife Zenocrate (the worlds faire eye) past out of the Theater of this mortall life, he chose stigmaticall trulls to please his humorous fancie.‘ (Grosart's Greene vi. 84. Cf. Tamb. 2570). Collier's assertion that Menaphon was printed in 1587 (which would further push back the date of Tamburlaine) is incorrect.

67 Malone says (MS. note): ‘This was, I believe, Marlowe's last work; and it appears to me his most finished performance: I mean the two first Sestiads, for which alone he is answerable. Many of the lines remind one of Dryden.‘

68 Opposite the first page of the dedication in his copy of the edition of 1600, Malone wrote: ‘This was, I believe, the Dedication to an edition of the two first Cantos of this poem by Marlowe, printed as I imagine in 1593. From this dedication it should seem that there had been an edition of that part of this poem which was written by Marlowe, soon after his death, which happened in 1593. See the Entry at Stationer's Hall.‘

69 Cf. D. N. B.

70 I.e., by Elizabethan reckoning. The record is dated March 2 (1597/8), and reads: ‘Paule Lynlay. Assigned ouer vnto hym from Edward Blount, by the consent of the Wardens, A booke in Englishe called HERO and LEANDER, vjd.‘

71 Cf. McKerrow, Dictionary of Publishers and Booksellers.

72 Malone himself later gave up the idea. See the two notes previously quoted.

73 Cf. Thorpe's Catalogue, no. v for 1835, p. 124: ‘The first two Sestiads, and about one hundred lines of the third, were written by Marlow, and the remainder by Chapman.‘

74 Introduction to his edition, p. xvii.

75 Cf. McKerrow, Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers.

76 This is the metre of Daniel's Civil Wars and Drayton's Barons' Wars. Venus and Adonis has the corresponding six-line stanza: ab ab cc.

77 Lines 2, 3(?), 8, 10, 16, 24. Why the anthologist chose to break off in the midst of a clause is hard to imagine.

78 ‘Richard Barnfield, Marlowe, and Shakespeare in Collectanea.‘

79 ‘The lines, “I walked along a stream for pureness rare,” may be an extract from a charming poem, but in themselves the verses scarcely seem to call for the admiring comments they have lately received. It would not be surprising to discover that this fragment, fathered on Marlowe after his decease, whilst his name was one to conjure by, owes its origin to Michael Drayton.’ (Marlowe and his Associates, 220). Ingram goes on to say that the lines are much like the description of Queen Isabel's chamber in ‘The Tower of Mortimer’ in The Barons' Wars.

80 ‘The author displays sufficient mastery of the metre to warrant its attribution to his later years.‘

81 Thorpe, the famous publisher of Shakespeare's sonnets, does not appear to have published anything on his own behalf before 1604. See McKerrow, Dictionary of Publishers and Booksellers.

82 In the same year (1600) John Flasket published a complete edition of Hero and Leander (Marlowe's and Chapman's parts) with the curiously erroneous title-page: ‘Hero and Leander: Begunne by Christopher Marloe: Whereunto is added the first booke of Lucan translated line for line by the same Author.‘ See the discussion of Hero and Leander for the relations of the various publishers concerned.

83 In connection with the publication of English books at Middleburgh in Zealand (Holland) see J. D. Wilson, ‘Richard Schilders and the English Puritans,‘ Trans Bibl. Soc., 1910. Schilders printed a large number of Puritan tracts at Middleburgh between 1580 and 1616. He appears to have been the only printer in the place.

1 Boswell-Malone Shakspeare, ii. 313: ‘some circumstances which have lately struck me, confirm an opinion which I formerly hazarded, that Christopher Marlowe was the author of that play.‘

2 Broughton doubtless ventured this statement the more lightly because of his disbelief in Marlowe's authorship of Tamburlaine.

3 In Fleav's Shakspere, p. 27, he says that the old King John plays ‘were written for the Queen's Men in 1589 by Peele, Marlowe, and Lodge.’ Sidney Lee (D. N. B., Marlowe) offers doubtful homage to Fleay when he remarks that the work ‘may in its concluding portions be by Marlowe, but many of his contemporaries could have done as well.’

4 Compare the similarly vague words of Courtney:

‘It is possible that Shakespeare and Marlowe worked together on The Troublesome Raigne of John, King of England (though Greene probably had a hand in it, hence his sneers about Shakespeare's plagiarism), and while the character of The Bastard is undoubtedly all Shakespeare, King John contains many Marlowe passages’ (Fortnightly Review, Oct., 1905).

5 Swinburne demurs in a letter to Bullen, Jan. 14, 1885: ‘I hardly agree with you about Titus Andronicus. The third and fourth scenes of the fourth act have always seemed to me hardly unworthy of the (very) young Shakespeare, and not very like any one else—unless, perhaps, Kyd; certainly not Marlowe. And in the rest of the Play there are only here and there lines—never, (or hardly ever) a Scene—good enough for our poet.‘

6 In his fourth, revised, edition, 1912, Hazlitt silently cancelled this statement.

7 In his study of the Dutch Richard III play, O. J. Campbell says of this passage: ‘None of these conjectures finds corroboration in the Roode en Witte Roos except that the play clearly shows a formative influence upon the early Senecan treatment of the Chronicle material like that which Marlowe indubitably exercised.‘ (The Position of the Roode en Witte Roos in the Saga of King Richard III, Univ. Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature, 1919, p. 57.)

8 Marlowe's authorship is championed in a recent paper, by Mr. S. S. Ashbaugh and in Mr. Robertson's book, The Shakespeare Canon (1922).

8 Marlowe's authorship is championed in a recent paper, as yet unpublished, by Mrs. S. S. Ashbough.

9 The existence of these was apparently first noted specifically by an anonymous American correspondent of Charles Knight, who based thereon an argument for Marlowe's authorship. Cf. Knight's Library Shakespeare, 1842, ii. 114 ff. Broughton alludes only generally to ‘particular passages, where the language is verbatim the same as in his acknowledged works.‘

10 Crawford's paper was first published in Notes and Queries, 1901. It is reprinted in Collectanea i. 47-100 (1906).

11 Cf. Malone Society Collections I. 2. 108-110 (1908) and F. G. Hubbard, Locrine and Selimus (p. 17-35 of Shakespeare Studies by Members of the Department of English of the University of Wisconsin, 1916).

12 The case for Greene's authorship is considerably stronger than Dr. Grosart recognized when he advanced it. Cf. H. Gilbert, R. Greene's Selimus.

13 Sidney Lee admits, doubtless under the influence of Fleay's arguments, that ‘Evidence of style also gives Marlowe some pretension to a share in Edward III.‘ No such evidence appears to the present writer. The quotations which Fleay points to have no evidential value.

14 A suspicious-looking motive for forgery is offered by the fact that the last two lines confirm Collier's discovery of an ‘improved’ manuscript version of a scene in The Massacre at Paris. I do not know where the copy of the Larum for London quarto with the lines in question is now to be found.

16 ‘A briefe and true Declaration of the Sicknessse, last Wordes, and Death of the King of Spaine, Philip, the Second of that Name; who died in his Abbey of S. Laurence at Escuriall, seven Miles from Madrill, the Thirteenth of September, 1598 … 1599.‘ See the 1809 edition of the Harleian Miscellany, ii. 395-7.

17 Henslowe's Diary F 67v (ed. Greg, p. 118): ‘Layd out for the company the 13 of febrearye 1599 (1600) for a boocke called the spaneshe mores tragedie vnto thomas deckers wm harton John daye in pte of payment the some of … iij11.‘

18 Day's Parliament of Bees is entirely in rime. Day's Humour out of Breath, Haughton's Englishmen for my Money, and Dekker's Old Fortunatus and Shoemaker's Holiday contain large blocks of riming verse. All contain frequent hemistichs.

19 Henslowe's Diary ii. 211.

20 In reference to a reply by Bullen, Swinburne writes (Jan. 19, 1885): ‘I dare say you are right about the authorship of Lust's Dominion. I took its identity with The Spanish Moor's Tragedy on trust from Dyce and Collier. But I think it deserves a decently careful edition.’ I do not know upon what grounds Bullen may have discredited the identification of the two plays. Mr. J. LeGay Brereton writes (private letter, 1909): ‘There's not a trace of Marlowe's hand in it, tho’ it shows Marlovian influence in structure, characterisation and style. Collier and his followers identified it with The Spanish Moor's Tragedy on insufficient evidence; but further study convinces me that they are right. Dekker wrote the greater part of the piece.'

21 E.g.,

Tyrants swim safest in a crimson flood
True misery loves a companion well
In extremities choose out the least

22 Collier also admitted that the endorsed name is ‘in a more modern hand.‘

23 Malone has the note: ‘In 1595 was entered by R. Jones (his printer) “a booke entituled Raptus Helenae, Helen's Rape, by the Athenian Duke Theseus.” The same had been paraphrased in Latin Verse by T. Watson in 1586—in wch. year it was printed in 8°.’ Warton similarly confounds with Coluthus's poem on Helen and Paris the clearly different work on Helen and Theseus; and is rebuked by Dyce. In fact the Stationers’ entry of 1595 relates to a poem by John Trussell, of which the only known copy was lately in the Britwell library: ‘Raptus Helenae. The first Rape of faire Hellen. Done into a Poeme by I. T. Imprinted at London by Richard Iohnes, at the signe of the Rose and Crowne … Holborne. 1595.‘ (Cf. Hazlitt's Handbook, p. 616.)

English translations of Coluthus were later made by Sir Edward Sherburne (1618-1702) and by Francis Fawkes (1720-1777).

24 Note Dyce's acknowledgement of Collier's assistance in his Preface to the edition of 1850.

25 Dyce (p. xiii. note ‡.) erroneously states that Elizabeth Manwood married the elder Sir Thomas Walsingham, Marlowe's friend.