Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/189

 the play before September 1594, but it was not until that time that be was connected with the lord admiral's company, for which the piece was written, and no inference as to its date is to be drawn from his entry.

The 'Tragedy of Dr. Faustus' was entered on the Stationers' Registers 7 Jan. 1600–1, but the 4to of 1604 is the earliest edition yet discovered. A copy (probably unique) is in the Bodleian Library. The title runs: 'The Tragicall History of D. Faustus. As it hath beene Acted by the Right Honourable the Earl of Nottingham his servaunts. Written by Ch. Marl. London. Printed by V. S. for Thomas Bushell, 1604.' Five years later this edition was reissued practically without alteration. A unique copy is in the town library of Hamburg, and has the title: 'The Tragicall History of the horrible Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. Written by Ch. Marl. Imprinted at London by G. E. for John Wright, 1609, 4to.' A reissue dated 1611 belonged to Heber (, Catalogue, No. 3770). A fourth 4to, which contains some scenes wholly rewritten, and Others printed for the first time, was published in 1616 as 'The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. Written by Ch. Marl. London. Printed for John Wright, 1616.' Other quartos, agreeing in the main with that of 1616, appeared in 1619 (belonging to Mr. F. Locker Lampson), 1620, 1624, 1631, and, 'with several new scenes,' 1603 (very corrupt). Careful modern editions are by Wilhelm Wagner, London (1877 and 1885) by Dr. A. W. Ward, Oxford (1878 and 1887), and by H. Breymann, Heilbronn, 1889.

The relations between the two texts of 1604 and 1616 present numerous points of difficulty. Neither seems to represent the author's final revision. In a very few passages the later quarto presents a text of which the earlier seems to supply the author's revised and improved version. In other passages the readings of 1616 seem superior to those of 1604. At the same time each edition contains comic scenes and other feeble interpolations for which Marlowe can scarcely have been responsible: nor is it satisfactory to ascribe them, with Mr. Fleay, to Dekker. In 1662 Henslowe paid William Bird and Samuel Rowley 4 l. for making additions to 'Faustus,' and, as far as the dates or internal evidences go, either quarto may with equal reasonableness be credited with contributions by Bird and Rowley. The two editions were certainly printed from two different playhouse copies, each of which imperfectly reproduced different parts of the author's final corrections. Some of the scenes which only figure in the 1616 quarto were certainly extant more than twenty years earlier. A line in one of the interpolated scenes of 1616 was imitated in the 'Taming of A Shrew,' published as early as 1594, while reference was made to an incident in another added scene some three years later in the 'Merry Wives of Windsor' (iv. 5.71). A careful collation of the 1604 edition by Proescholdt is in 'Anglia,' iii. (1881). In the edition published at Heilhronn in 1889 the quartos of 1604 and 1616 are printed on opposite pages.

Although a collection of disconnected scenes rather than a drama, and despite its disfigurement by witless interpolations. Faustus's apostrophe to Helen, and his great soliloquy in the presence of death — 'an agony and fearful colluctation' — render the tragedy a very great achievement in the range of poetic drama. The first connected account of the story of Faust appeared at Frankfort-on-the-Maine in 1587 under the title 'Historia Ton. D. Jobann Fausten dem weitbeschreyten Zauberer und Schwartzkunstler.' A unique copy is in the Imperial Library of Vienna (cf. reprint by Dr. August Kuhne, Zerbat, I86S). The earliest English translation extant, 'The Historie of the damnable Life and deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus, by P. F., Gent.' is dated in 1592, but the title-page describes it as 'newly imprinted,' a proof that an earlier edition had appeared. From that earlier edition Marlowe doubtless derived his knowledge of the legend (cf., Marlowe's Paustus und seine Quelle, Bielefeld, 1881: see 'Marlowe's Faust,' by in Anglia, i. 44, and by , Englische Studien, v. 56).

The play was again well received. Alleyn assumed the title-role, and twenty-three performances were given by Henslowe between September 1594 and October 1597. On the last occasion, however, the receipts were 'nil.' According to Prynne's 'Histrio-Mastix,' 1633, f. 556, on one occasion the devil himself 'appeared on the stage at the Belsavage Playhouse in Queen Elizabeth's dayes' while the tragedy was being performed, 'the truth of which,' Prynne adds, 'I have heard from many now alive, who well remember it' (cf Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. v. 265). A phrase in the famous description of Helen is borrowed by Shakespeare in 'Troilus and Cressida,' and scene v. is closely imitated in Barnabe Barnes's 'Devil's Charter,' 1607, where the hero, Alexander Borgia, undergoes some of Faustus's experiences (cf., Lit. Relations of England and Germany, pp. 197 sq.) Dekker's 'Olde Fortunatus' also shows