The name has been a frequent matter for discussion, some declaring it to be the hill (berg) or fortress (burg) of Merlin the Briton, others the Marl borough, in allusion to the surrounding soil, which, however, is chalk. A great British mound exists at the south-west extremity of the town, and a castle was erected around it by William the Conqueror. This became a somewhat notable place. Henry I. kept Easter here in 1110, and Henry II. granted it to John Lackland. Henry III. held his last parliament here in 1267, and passed the “Statutes of Marleberge.” Later the castle served as an occasional royal residence; it was probably dismantled during the Wars of the Roses. The town was besieged and taken during the civil wars, and a few years later (1653) was almost entirely consumed by fire. A large mansion was erected by Lord Seymour in the reign of Charles II. near the site of the castle, and this, after various vicissitudes, was in 1843 converted into “Marlborough College,”—a public school designed mainly for the education of the sons of the clergy. A large group of buildings— chapel, schools, dining hall, racket courts, &c.—soon sprung up around the original building, and the school numbered five hundred and eighty in 1882.

MARLBOROUGH, a town of the United States, in Middlesex county, Massachusetts, about 25 miles west from Boston, with stations on the Old Colony and the Fitchburg Railways. It lies in a fertile hilly district, and contains a beautiful sheet of water 160 acres in extent, known as Williams Lake. Shoemaking is the staple industry, some of the factories in the department rivalling the largest in the world. There is a good public library; and three weekly newspapers are published in the town. The population increased from 8474 in 1870 to 10,126 in 1880. Marlborough, colonized by settlers from Sudbury in 1655, and incorporated in 1661, occupies the site of the Christian Indian village of Okommakamesitt.

MARLBOROUGH, John Churchill, Duke of (1650- 1722). In the small manor house of Ashe, situated in the parish of Musbury in Devonshire, but hardly a stone’s throw beyond the parish of Axminster, John Churchill the first duke of Marlborough was born 24th of June 1650. Arabella Churchill, his eldest sister, and the mother of the duke of Berwick, was born in the same house on the 28th of February 1648. They were the children of Winston Churchill of Glanville Wotton in Dorset and Elizabeth the fourth daughter of Sir John Drake, who after the close of the civil war received his son-in-law into his own house. For a year or two after the Restoration John Churchill went to St Paul’s school, and there is a tradition that during this period he showed the bent of his taste by reading and re-reading Vegetius De Re Militem. When fifteen years old he obtained a place in the household of the duke of York, and about the same time his sister Arabella became maid of honour to the duchess, two events which contributed greatly to the advancement of the Churchills. Next year, in 1666, he received, through the influence of his master, a commission in the guards, and left England for service at Tangiers. Such fighting as was waged with the Moors did not accord with bis feelings, and he soon returned to his own country. For a few years afterwards Churchill remained in attendance at the court, and it was during this period that the natural carefulness of his disposition was shown by his investing in an annuity a present of £5000 given him by a court beauty. In 1672, when England to her shame sent six thousand troops to aid Louis XIV. in his attempt to subdue the Dutch, Churchill formed one of the company, and soon attracted the attention of Turenne, by whose profound military genius the whole army was directed. At the siege of Nimeguen Churchill acquitted himself with such success that the French commander predicted his ultimate rise to distinction. When Maestricht was besieged he saved the life of the duke of Monmouth, and received the thanks of Louis XIV. for his services. Early in 1678 he was married to Sarah Jennings, the favourite attendant on the Princess Anne, the younger daughter of the duke of York. Her father Richard Jennings, a Hertfordshire squire, had twenty-two brothers and sisters; one of the latter married a London tradesman called Hill, and their daughter Abigail Hill afterwards succeeded her cousin the duchess of Marlborough as favourite to Queen Anne. Sarah Jennings had as little money as her husband, but this deficiency was more than compensated for by an abundance of energy and ambition.

On the accession of James II. the Churchills received a great increase in fortune. Colonel Churchill had been created a Scotch peer in 1682, and as a reward for his services in going on a special mission from the new monarch to Louis XIV. he was advanced to the English peerage under the title of Baron Churchill of Sandridge in Hertfordshire, the village in which the Jennings’s property was situated. A step in the army was at the same time conferred upon him, and when the duke of Monmouth attempted his ill-fated enterprise in the western counties the second position in command was bestowed on Lord Churchill. Through his vigilance and energy victory declared itself on· the king’s side. After the death of Monmouth he withdrew as far as possible from the administration of public business. Whilst on his embassy to the French court he had declared with emphasis that if the king of England should change the religion of the state he should at once leave his service, and it was not long before the design of James became apparent to the world. Churchill was one of the first to send overtures of obedience to the prince of Orange. Although he continued in a high position under James, and drew the emoluments of his places, he promised William of Orange to use every exertion to bring over the troops to his side. James had been warned against putting any trust in the loyalty of the man on whom he had showered so many favours, but the warnings were in vain, and on the landing of the Dutch prince at Brixham Churchill was sent against him with five thousand men. When the royal army had advanced to the downs of Wiltshire and a battle seemed imminent, James was disconcerted by learning that in the dead of night his general had stolen away like a thief into the opposite camp. For this timely act of treachery Churchill received another advancement in the peerage. He had now become the earl of Marlborough and a member of the privy council, a mark of royal favour which during this and the next reign was more than an unmeaning honour. William felt, however, that he could not place implicit reliance in his friend’s integrity; and, with a clear sense of the manner in which Marlborough’s talents might be employed without any detriment to the stability of his throne, he sent him with the army into the Netherlands and into Ireland. For some time there was no open avowal of any distrust in Marlborough’s loyalty, but in May 1692 the world was astonished at the news that he had been thrown into the Tower on an accusation of treason. Though the evidence which could be brought against him was slight, and he was soon set at liberty, there is no doubt that Marlborough was in close relations with the exiled king at St Germains, and that he even went so far as to disclose to his late master the intention of the English to attack the town of Brest. The talents of the statesmen of this reign were chiefly displayed in their attempts to convince both the exiled and the reigning king of England of their attachment to his fortunes. The sin of Marlborough lay in the fact that he had been favoured above his fellows by each in turn, and that he betrayed both alike apparently without scruple or without shame. Once again during the Fenwick plot he was charged with treason, but William, knowing that if he pushed Marlborough and his friends to extremities there were no other statesmen on whom he could rely, contented himself with ignoring the confessions of Sir John Fenwick, and with executing that conspirator himself. Not long afterwards the forgiven traitor was made governor to the young duke of Gloucester, the only one of Anne’s numerous children who gave promise of attaining to manhood. During the last years of William’s reign Marlborough once more was placed in positions of responsibility. His daughters were married into the most prominent families of the land: the eldest became the wife of the eldest son of Lord Godolphin; the second, the loveliest woman at the court, with her father’s tact and temper and her mother’s beauty, married the only son of Lord Sunderland. Higher honours were in store for his family, and they came on the accession of Queen Anne in March 1702. She had not been more than three days upon the throne before the knighthood of the Garter was conferred upon Marlborough. He was made captain-general of the English troops both at home and abroad, and master-general of the ordnance. The new queen did not forget the life-long service of his wife; three positions at the court by which she was enabled to continue by the side of the sovereign as closely as she had lived with the princess were united in her person. The queen showed her devotion to her friend by another signal mark of favour. The rangership of Windsor Park was granted her for life, with the especial object of enabling Lady Marlborough to live in the Great Lodge. These were the opening days of many years of fame and power. A week or two after the death of William it was agreed by the three great powers, England, Holland, and Austria, which formed the grand alliance, that war should be declared against France on the same day, and on May 4, 1702, the declaration was made by the three countries. Marlborough was made commander-in-chief of the united armies of England and Holland, but throughout the war his plans were impeded by th© jealousy of the commanders who were nominally his inferiors, and by the opposite aims of the various countries that were striving to break the power of France. He himself wished to penetrate into the French lines; the anxiety of the Dutch was for the maintenance of their frontier and for an augmentation of their territory; the desire of the Austrian emperor was to ensure his son’s rule over Spain. To secure concerted action by these different powers taxed all the diplomacy of Marlborough, but he succeeded for the most part in his desires. In the first year of the campaign it was shown that the armies of the French were not invincible. Several fortresses which Louis XIV. had seized upon surrendered themselves to the allies. Kaiserswerth on the Rhine and Venloo on the Meuse soon passed from the hands of the French to the English. The prosperous commercial town of Liège with its commanding citadel quickly capitulated. The successes of Marlborough caused much rejoicing in his own country, and for these brilliant exploits he was raised to the highest rank in the peerage, and rewarded with a handsome annuity. In the spring of the following year a crushing blow fell upon the duke and duchess. Their eldest and only surviving son, the marquis of Blandford, was seized whilst at King’s College, Cambridge (under the care of Hare, afterwards bishop of Chichester), with the small-pox, and died on the 20th February 1703, in his seventeenth year. If the character of the youth which is given by Cole, the Cambridge antiquary, can be accepted as true, and Cole was not likely to be prejudiced in favour of the family of Churchill, his talents had already justified the prediction that he would rise to the highest position in the state.

The result of the campaign of 1703 inspired the French king with fresh hopes of ultimate victory. The dashing plans υf Marlborough were frustrated by the opposition of his Dutch colleagues. When he wished to invade the French territory they urged him to besiege Bonn, and he was compelled to accede to their wishes. After this digression from his first purpose he returned to his original plan of attacking Antwerp; but, in consequence of the incapacity of the Dutch leaders, the generals (Villeroi and Bouffiers) of the French army surprised the Dutch division and inflicted on it a loss of many thousands of men. Marlborough was forced to abandon his enterprise, and all the compensation which he received was the capture of the insignificant forts of Huy and Limburg. After a year of comparative failure for the allies, Louis XIV. was emboldened to enter upon an offensive movement against Austria; and Marlborough, smarting under the misadventures of 1703, and conscious that the war could only be brought to an end by more decisive measures, was eager to meet him. A magnificent army was sent by the French king under the command of Marshal Tallard, with instructions to strike a blow at Vienna itself. Marlborough divined the intention of the expedition, and, without communicating his intentions to his colleagues, led his troops into Bavaria. The two armies (that under Marlborough and Prince Eugène numbering more than fifty thousand men, whilst Tailard’s forces were nearly ten thousand stronger) met in battle array near the village of Blenheim. The French commander made the mistake of supposing that the enemy’s attack would be directed against his position in the village, and he concentrated an excessive number of his troops at that point. The early part of the fight was in favour of the French. Three times were the troops led by Prince Eugène driven back in confusion; Marlborough’s cavalry failed on their first attack in breaking the line of the enemy. But in the end the victory of the allies was conclusive. Nearly thirty thousand of the French and Bavarians were killed and wounded, and in Blenheim alone ten thousand were made prisoners. Never was a victory more eagerly welcomed than this, and never was a conquering leader more rewarded than Marlborough. On his return to his own country he was received with enthusiasm on all sides. Poets and prose writers were employed to do him honour, and the lines of Addison comparing the English commander to the angel who passed over “pale Britannia” in the storm of 1703 have been famous for nearly two centuries. The manor of Woodstock, which was transferred by Act of Parliament from the crown to the duke, was a reward more after his own heart. The gift even in that form was a noble one, but the queen heightened it by instructing Sir John Vanbrugh to build a palace in the park at the royal expense, and, although the works subsequently caused much anxiety to the duke and duchess, £240,000 of public money was spent on the buildings.

The following year was not marked by any stirring incident. Marlborough was hampered by tedious formalities at the Hague and by jealousies at the German courts. The armies of the French were again brought up to their full standard, but the generals of Louis were instructed to entrench themselves behind earthworks and to act on the defensive. In the darkness of a July night these lines were broken through, and the French were forced to take shelter under the walls of Louvain. Marlborough urged an attack upon them in their new position, but his passionate arguments were spent in vain, and when 1705 had passed away the forces of the French king had suffered no diminution. This immunity from disaster tempted Villeroi in the next spring into meeting the allied forces in an open fight, but his assurance proved his ruin. The battle of Ramillies (23d May 1706) ended in the total rout of the French, and caused the transference of nearly the whole of Brabant and Flanders to the allies. Five days afterwards the victor entered Brussels in state, and the inhabitants acknowledged the rule of the archduke. Antwerp and Ostend surrendered themselves with slight loss. Menin held out until three thousand of the soldiers of the allies were laid low around its walls, but Dender-ιnonde, which Louis had forty years previously besieged in vain, quickly gave itself up to the resistless Marlborough. Again a year of activity and triumph was succeeded by a period of languor and depression. During the whole of 1707 fortune inclined to the other side, with the result that early in the next year Ghent and Bruges returned to the allegiance of the French, and Marlborough, fearing that their example might be followed by the other cities, advanced with his wdιole army towards Oudenarde. Had the counsels of Vendome, one of the ablest of the French generals, prevailed, the fight might have had a different issue, but his suggestions were disregarded by the duke of Burgundy, the grandson of Louis, and the battle, like its predecessor, ended in their defeat. After this victory Marlborough, ever anxious for decisive measures, wished to advance on Paris, but he was overruled. The allied army invested the town of Lille, on the fortifications of which Vauban had expended an immensity of thought; and after a struggle of nearly four months, and the loss of thirty thousand men, the citadel surrendered. By the end of the year Brabant was again subject to the rule of the allies. The suffering in France at this time weighed so heavily upon the people that its proud king humbled himself to sue for peace. Each of the allies in turn did he supplicate, and his minister endeavoured by promises of large sums of money to obtain the support of Marlborough to his proposals. These attempts were in vain, and when the winter passed away a French army of one hundred and ten thousand, under the command of Villars, took the field. On the 3d of August 1709 Tournay capitulated, and the two leaders, Marlborough and Eugène, led their forces to Mons, in spite of the attempt of Villars to prevent them. For the last time during the protracted war the two armies met in fair fight at Malplaquet, 11th September 1709, where the French leader had strengthened his position by extensive earthworks. The fight was long and doubtful, and, although the French ultimately retreated under the direction of Bouffiers, for Villars had been wounded on the knee, it was in good order, and their losses were less than those of their opponents. The campaign lasted for a year or two after this indecisive contest, but it was not signalized by any such “glorious victory” as Blenheim. All that the English could plume themselves on was the acquisition of a few such fortresses as Douai and Bethune, and all that the French had to fear was the gradual tightening of the enemy’s chain until it reached the walls of Paris. The energies of the French were concentrated in the construction of fresh lines of defence, until their commander boasted that his position was impregnable. In this way the war dragged on until the conclusion of the peace of Utrecht.

All that Marlborough had effected on the battlefield during these years of war had not prevented his position from being undermined by party intrigues at home. In the early part of Queen Anne’s reign his political friends were to be found among the Tories, and the ministry was chiefly composed of members of that party. After a year or two, however, the more ardent Tories withdrew, and two younger adherents of the same cause, Harley and St John (both of whom were at present content to conceal their animosity to Marlborough), were introduced into the ministry. The duchess, partly through the influence of her son-in-law, the earl of Sunderland, and partly through the opposition of the Tories to the French war, had gone over to the Whig cause, and she pressed her views on the sovereign with more vehemence than discretion. She had obtained for her indigent cousin, Abigail Hill, a small position at court, and the poor relation very soon began to injure the benefactor who had befriended her. With Hill’s assistance Harley and St John widened the breach with the queen which was commenced by the imperious manner of the duchess. The love of the two friends changed into hate, and no opportunity for humiliating the family of Marlborough was allowed to pass away neglected. Sunderland and Godolphin were the first to fall (July-August 1710); a few months later the duchess was dismissed from her offices; and, although Marlborough himself was permitted to continue in his position a short time longer, his full was only delayed until the last day of 1711. Life in England had become so unpleasant that he went to the Continent, and he remained abroad until the death of Anne (1st August 17Id). Then he once more returned to the shores of England and resumed his old military posts, but he took little part in public affairs. Even if he had wished to regain his commanding position in the country,-ill health would have prevented him from obtaining his desires. Johnson, indeed, says, in the Vanity of Human Wishes, that “the streams of-dotage” flowed from his eyes; but it is not desirable to examine too critically the assertions of a poem which relied for its success upon the strength of its comparisons. It is certain that at the time of his death he was able to understand the remarks of others and to express his own wishes. At four o’clock on the morning of the 16th June 1722, he died at Cranbourn Lodge near Windsor. His remains were at first deposited in Westminster Abbey, in the vault at the east end of King Henry VII.’s chapel, but they now rest at Blenheim.

His widow, to whom must be assigned a considerable share both in his rise and in his fall, survived till October 1744. Those years were spent in bitter animosity with many within and without her own family. Left by her husband with the command of boundless wealth, she used it for the vindication of his memory and for the justification of her own resentment. Two of the leading opponents of the ministry, Chesterfield and Pitt, were especially honoured by her attentions. To Pitt she left ten thousand pounds, to the other statesman twice that sum and a reversionary interest in her landed property at Wimbledon. Whilst a widow, she received numerous offers of marriage from many titled suitors. She refused them all: from her marriage to her death her heart had no other inmate than the man as whose wife she had become almost a rival to royalty.

Marlborough obtained his first start in life through a handsome pension, and his rapid rise to the highest position in the state was due to his singular tact and to his skill in the management of men. In an age remarkable for grace of manner and for adroitness of compliment, his courteous demeanour and the art with which he refused or granted a favour extorted the admiration of every one with whom he came in contact. Through his consideration for the welfare of his soldiers he held together for years an army drawn from every nation in Christendom. His talents may not have been profound (he possessed “an excellent plain understanding and sound judgment” is the opinion of Lord Chesterfield); but they were such as Englishmen love. Alike in planning and in executing, he took infinite pains in all points of detail. Nothing escaped his observation, and in the hottest moment of the fight the coolness of his intellect shone conspicuous. His enemies indeed affected to attribute his uniform success in the field, to fortune, and they magnified his love of money by drawing up balance sheets which included every penny which he had received, but omitted the pounds which he had spent in the cause he had sincerely at heart. All that can be·

alleged in excuse of his attempt to serve two masters, the king whom he had deserted and the king who had received him into favour, is that not one of his associates was without sin in this respect.

The books on Marlborough are very numerous. Under his name in the catalogue of the British Museum there are 121 entries, and 32 under that of his wife. The chief works are Lediard’s, Coxe’s, and Alison’s Lives ; a French memoir in 3 volumes, 1808; Marlborough’s Letters and Despatches, edited by Sir George Murray (5 volumes); and Mrs Creighton’s interesting summary. The descriptions in Mr John Hill Burton’s Reign of Queen Anne of the battle scenes of Marlborough are from personal observation. A good account of his birthplace and country will be found in Pulman’s Rook of the Axe District ; and for the home of the duchess the reader can refer to Mr Cussan’s History of Hertfordshire. Long after the death of the duke there were many pamphlets written on the conduct of his wife from her appearance at court; but they relate to matters of little interest at the present time.

The only authentic record concerning the death of Marlowe is an entry “in the burial-register of the parish church of St Nicholas,” Deptford: “Christopher Marlowe, slain by Francis Archer, June 1, 1593.” Two Puritan scribblers have left two inconsistent reports as to the circumstances of this manslaughter. On the more respectable authority of Francis Meres the critic (1598) we are told that Marlowe was “stabbed to death” by a “servingman” of bad character, “a rival of his in his lewd love.” The one thing unhappily certain is that one of the greatest among English poets died of a wound received in a brawl (stabbed in the head, according to one account, with his own dagger) at the untimely age of twenty-nine years and three months. Like Sir Walter Raleigh and a few less memorable men of the same generation, he was attacked in his own time not merely as a freethinker, but as a propagandist or apostle of atheism; nor was the irregularity of his life thought worthier of animadversion than the uncertainty of his livelihood. The informer whose name has survived as that of his most venomous assailant was duly hanged the year after Marlowe’s death; and the list of his charges, first published by Ritson, is hardly a document which can commend itself to any man’s confidence as plausibly or even possibly accurate in all its detailed report of the violent and offensive nonsense attributed to the freethinking poet in common conversation “concerning his damnable opinions.”

The majestic and exquisite excellence of various lines and passages in Marlowe’s first play must be admitted to relieve, if it cannot be allowed to redeem, the stormy monotony of Titanic truculence which blusters like a simoom through the noisy course of its ten fierce acts. With many and heavy faults, there is something of genuine greatness in Tanιburlaine the Great ; and for two grave reasons it must always be remembered with distinction and mentioned with honour. It is the first poem ever written in English blank verse, as distinguished from mere rhymeless decasyllabics; and it contains one of the noblest passages, perhaps indeed the noblest in the literature of the world, ever written by one of the greatest masters of poetry in loving praise of the glorious delights and sublime submission to the everlasting limits of his art. In its highest and most distinctive qualities, in unfaltering and infallible command of the right note of music and the proper tone of colour for the finest touches of poetic execution, no poet of the most elaborate modern school, working at ease upon every consummate resource of luxurious learning and leisurely refinement, has ever excelled the best and most representative work of a man who had literally no models before him, and probably or evidently was often if not always compelled to write against time for his living.

The just and generous judgment passed by Goethe on the Faustus of his English predecessor in tragic treatment of the same subject is somewhat more than sufficient to counterbalance the slighting or the sneering references to that magnificent poem which might have been expected from the ignorance of Byron or the incompetence of Hallam. And the particular note of merit observed, the special point of the praise conferred, by the great German poet should be no less sufficient to dispose of the vulgar misconception yet lingering among sciolists and pretenders to criticism, which regards a writer than whom no man was ever born with a finer or a stronger instinct for perfection of excellence in execution as a mere noble savage of letters, a rough self-taught sketcher or scribbler of crude and rude genius, whose unhewn blocks of verse had in them some veins of rare enough metal to be quarried and polished by Shakespeare. What most impressed the author of Faust in the work of Marlowe was a quality the want of which in the author of Manfred is proof enough to consign his best work to the second or third class at most. “How greatly it is all planned !” the first requisite of all great work, and one of which the highest genius possible to a greatly gifted barbarian could by no possibility understand the nature or conceive the existence. That Goethe “had thought of translating it” is perhaps hardly less precious a tribute to its greatness than the fact that it has been actually and admirably translated by the matchless translator of Shakespeare—the son of Victor Hugo; whose labour of love may thus be said to have made another point in common, and forged as it were another link of union, between Shakespeare and the young master of Shakespeare’s youth. Of all great poems in dramatic form it is perhaps the most remarkable for absolute singleness of aim and simplicity of construction; yet is it wholly free from all possible imputation of monotony or aridity. Tamburlaine is monotonous in the general roll and flow of its stately and sonorous verse through a noisy wilderness of perpetual bluster and slaughter; but the unity of tone and purpose in Doctor Faustus is not unrelieved by change of manner and variety of incident. The comic scenes, written evidently with as little of labour as of relish, are for the most part scarcely more than transcripts, thrown into the form of dialogue, from a popular prose History of Dr Faustus, and therefore should be set down as little to the discredit as to the credit of the poet. Few masterpieces of any age in any language can stand beside this tragic poem—it has hardly the structure of a play—for the qualities of terror and splendour, for intensity of purpose and sublimity of note. In the vision of Helen, for example, the intense perception of loveliness gives actual sublimity to the sweetness and radiance of mere beauty in the passionate and spontaneous selection of words the most choice and perfect; and in like manner the sublimity of simplicity in Marlowe’s conception and expression of the agonies endured by Faustus under the immediate imminence of his doom gives the highest note of beauty, the quality of absolute fitness and propriety, to the sheer straightforwardness of speech in which his agonizing horror finds vent ever more and more terrible from the first to the last equally beautiful and fearful verse of that tremendous monologue which has no parallel in all the range of tragedy.

It is now a commonplace of criticism to observe and regret the decline of power and interest after the opening acts of The Jew of Malta. This decline is undeniable, though even the latter part of the play is not wanting in rough energy and a coarse kind of interest; but the first two acts would be sufficient foundation for the durable fame of a dramatic poet. In the blank verse of Milton alone, who perhaps was hardly less indebted than Shakespeare was before him to Marlowe as the first English master of word-music in its grander forms, has the glory or the melody of passages in the opening soliloquy of Barabas been possibly surpassed. The figure of the hero before it degenerates into caricature is as finely touched as the poetic execution is excellent; and the rude and rapid sketches of the minor characters show at least some vigour and vivacity of touch.

In Edward the Second the interest rises and the execution improves as visibly and as greatly with the course of the advancing story as they decline in The Jew of Malta. The scene of the king’s deposition at Kenilworth is almost as much finer in tragic effect and poetic quality as it is shorter and less elaborate than the corresponding scene in Shakespeare’s King Richard II. The terror of the deathscene undoubtedly rises into horror; but this horror is with skilful simplicity of treatment preserved from passing into disgust. In pure poetry, in sublime and splendid imagination, this tragedy is excelled by Doctor Faustus; in dramatic power and positive impression of natural effect it is as certainly the masterpiece of Marlowe. It was almost inevitable, in the hands of any poet but Shakespeare, that none of the characters represented should be capable of securing or even exciting any finer sympathy or more serious interest than attends on the mere evolution of successive events or the mere display of emotions (except always in the great scene of the deposition) rather animal than spiritual in their expression of rage or tenderness or suffering. The exact balance of mutual effect, the final note of scenic harmony, between ideal conception and realistic execution is not yet struck with perfect accuracy of touch and security of hand; but on this point also Marlowe has here come nearer by many degrees to Shakespeare than any of his other predecessors have ever come near to Marlowe.

Of The Massacre at Paris it is impossible to judge fairly from the garbled fragment of its genuine text which is all that has conje down to us. To Mr Collier, among numberless other obligations, we owe the discovery of a noble passage excised in the piratical edition which gives us the only version extant of this unlucky play, and which, it must be allowed, contains nothing of quite equal value. This is obviously an occasional and polemical work, and being as it is overcharged with the anti-Catholic passion of the time has a typical quality which gives it some empirical significance and interest. That antipapal ardour is indeed the only note of unity in a rough and ragged chronicle which shambles and stumbles onward from the death of Queen Jeanne of Navarre to the murder of the last Valois. It is possible to conjecture, what it would be fruitless to affirm, that it gave a hint in the next century to Nathaniel Lee for his far superior and really admirable tragedy on the same subject, issued ninety-seven years after the death of Marlowe.

In the tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage, a servile fidelity to the text of Virgil’s narrative has naturally resulted in the failure which might have been expected from an attempt at once to transcribe what is essentially inimitable and to reproduce it under the hopelessly alien conditions of dramatic adaptation. The one really noble passage in a generally feeble and incomposite piece of work is, however, uninspired by the unattainable model to which the dramatists have been only too obsequious in their subservience. It is as nearly certain as anything can be which depends chiefly upon cumulative and collateral evidence that the better part of what is best in the serious scenes of King Henry VI. is mainly the work of Marlowe. That he is at any rate the principal author of the second and third plays passing under that name among the works of Shakespeare, but first and imperfectly printed as The Contention between the two Famoτιs Houses of York and Lancaster, can hardly be now a matter of debate among competent judges. The crucial difficulty of criticism in this matter is to determine, if indeed we should not rather say to conjecture, the authorship of the humorous scenes in prose, showing as they generally do a power of comparatively high and pure comic realism to which nothing in the acknowledged works of any pre-Shakespearean dramatist is even remotely comparable. Yet, especially in the original text of these scenes as they stand unpurified by the ultimate revision of Shakespeare or his editors, there are tones and touches which recall rather the clownish horseplay and homely ribaldry of his predecessors than anything in the lighter interludes of his very earliest plays. We find the same sort of thing which we find in their writings, only better done than they usually do it, rather than such work as Shakespeare’s a little worse done than usual. And even in the final text of the tragic or metrical scenes the highest note struck is always, with one magnificent and unquestionable exception, rather in the key of Marlowe at his best than of Shakespeare while yet in great measure his disciple.

Had every copy of Marlowe’s boyish version or perversion of Ovid’s Elegies deservedly perished in the flames to which it was judicially condemned by the sentence of a brace of prelates, it is possible that an occasional bookworm, it is certain that no poetical student, would have deplored its destruction, if its demerits could in that case have been imagined. His translation of the first book of Lucan alternately rises above the original and falls short of it,—often inferior to the Latin in point and weight of expressive rhetoric, now and then brightened by a clearer note of poetry and lifted into a higher mood of verse. Its terseness, vigour, and purity of style would in any case have been praiseworthy, but are nothing less than admirable, if not wonderful, when we consider how close the translator has on the whole (in spite of occasional slips into inaccuracy) kept himself to the most rigid limit of literal representation, phrase by phrase and often line by line. The really startling force and felicity of occasional verses are worthier of remark than the inevitable stiffness and heaviness of others, when the technical difficulty of such a task is duly taken into account.

One of the most faultless lyrics and one of the loveliest fragments in the whole range of descriptive and fanciful poetry would have secured a place for Marlowe among the memorable men of bis epoch, even if his plays had perished with himself. His Passionate Shepherd remains ever since unrivalled in its way—a way of pure fancy and radiant melody without break or lapse. The untitled fragment, on the other hand, has been very closely rivalled, perhaps very happily imitated, but only by the greatest lyric poet of England—by Shelley alone. Marlowe’s poem of Hero and Leander, closing with the sunrise which closes the night of the lovers’ union, stands alone in its age, and far ahead of the work of any possible competitor between the death of Spenser and the dawn of Milton. In clear mastery of narrative and presentation, in melodious ease and simplicity of strength, it is not less pre-eminent than in the adorable beauty and impeccable perfection of separate lines or passages.

The place and the value of Christopher Marlowe as a leader among English poets it would be almost impossible for historical criticism to overestimate. To none of them all. perhaps, have so many of the greatest among them been so deeply and so directly indebted. Nor was ever any great writer’s influence upon his fellows more utterly and unmixedly an influence for good. He first, and he alone, guided Shakespeare into the right way of work: his music, in which there is no echo of any man’s before him, found its own echo in the more prolonged but hardly more exalted harmony of Milton’s. He is the greatest discoverer, the most daring and inspired pioneer, in all our poetic literature. Before him there was neither genuine blank verse nor a genuine tragedy in our language. After his arrival the way was prepared, the paths were made straight, for Shakespeare. (a. c. s.)

Close to the Seine, half-way between Marly-le-Roi and St Germain, is the village of Port-Marly (500 inhabitants), and 1 mile farther up is the hamlet of Marly-la-Machine. Here, under Louis XIV., an immense hydraulic engine, driven by the current of the river, was erected; it raised the water to a high tower of 155 metres (508 English feet), where the aqueduct of Marly commenced (2100 English feet in length, 75 in height, with 36 arches, still well-preserved), carrying the waters of the Seine to Versailles. The first engine of Marly began to work in 1682, but it was necessary to modify it in 1803. In 1826 a steam-engine was substituted, and since 1858 an atmospheric engine has been employed.