Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/190

 signs of Faustus's influence. 'Of all that Marlow hath written to the stage his "Dr. Faustus" hath made the greatest noise,' wrote Phillips in his 'Theatrum Poetarum,' 1675. In 1684 appeared Mountfort's 'Life and Death of Dr. Faust,' in which Marlowe's tragedy was converted into a pantomime, and in that uncomplimentary form obtained a new lease of popularity (cf. Anglia, vii. 341 sq.) Abroad Marlowe's work was equally well appreciated. English companies of actors performed it on their continental tours in the seventeenth century. It was acted at Grätz in 1608, and at Dresden in 1626, and very frequently at Vienna (cf., Die englischen Comodianten ... in Oesterreich). Goethe admired it, and had an intention of translating it before he designed his own play on the same theme. W. Muller rendered it into German in 1858, and Francois Victor Hugo translated it into French in 1668. A Dutch version was published at Groningen in 1887.

Marlowe's third effort was 'The Jew of Malta.' An incidental reference to the death of the Duke of Guise proves that its date was subsequent to 1588. It was frequently acted under Henslowe's management between 26 Feb. 1591–2 and 21 June 1596, and was revived by him on 19 May 1601. Alleyn, who took the part of Barabas the Jew, is said to have worn an exceptionally large nose. In 1633 it was again acted in London, both at court and at the Cockpit. On 24 April 1818 Kean revived at Drury Lane a version altered by S. Penley, and played Barabas himself; it ran for twelve nights (, Hist. Account, viii. 645). It was equally popular abroad. In 1607 English actors produced it while on continental tours at Passau, and in 1608 at Grätz. In an early seventeenth-century manuscript, now at Vienna, there is a German comedy based partly on Marlowe's play and partly on Shakespeare's 'Merchant of Venice.' This is printed in Meissner's 'Die englischen Comildianten,' pp. 180 sq.

A lost ballad, doubtless based on the play, was entered on the Stationers' Registers by John Danter on 16 May 1594. Next day the tragedy was itself entered there by Nicholas Ling and Thomas Millington, but it was not published till 1683. when it was edited by Thomas Heywood. The full title runs: 'The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta. As it was played before the King and Qveene in Her Majesties Theatre at White Hall, by her Majesties servants at the Cock-pit. Written by Christopher Marlo. London. Printed by I. B. for Nicholas Vavasour, 1633' 4to. It was included in Dodsley's collection, 1780; it was separately edited by W. Oxberry, 1818; and was translated by E. von Buelow into German in his 'Altenglische Schaübhne,' 1831, pt. i. A Dutch translation was issued at Leyden as early as 1645.

The opening scenes are in Marlowe's best vein, and are full of dramatic energy; in the later acts there is a rapid descent into 'gratuitous, unprovoked, and incredible atrocities,' hardly tolerable as caricature, and it is possible that the only accessible text presents a draft of Marlowe's work defaced by playhouse hacks. As in 'Tamburlaine,' Marlowe here again sought his plot in oriental history, although no direct source is known. He embodied hearsay versions of the siege of Malta by the Turks under Selim, son of the sultan Soliman, in 1565, and of another attack on the island by the Spaniards (cf., Les Chevaliers de Malte et la Marine de Philippe II, Paris, 1887). Barabas resembles a contemporary historical personage, Joan Miquez (b. 1520), afterwards known as Josef Nossi, a Portuguese Jew, who, after sojourning in Antwerp and Venice, settled in Constantinople, exerted much influence over the sultan, became Duke of Naxos and the Cyclades (1569), and took part, in the siege of Cyprus in 1570 against the Venetians (cf., De Sacro Fœdere in Selimum, Geneva, 1587). Marlowe also knew the chapter on Malta in Nicholas Nicholay's 'Navigations. . . into Turkie,' translated by T. Washington the younger, 1586 (cf. 'Die Quelle von Marlowe's "Jew of Malta,"' by Leon Kellner, in Englische Studien, x. 80–110).

'Edward II' was Marlowe's chief incursion into the English historical drama, and by the improvement manifest in dramatic construction it may be ascribed to his latest year. Marlowe mainly borrowed his information from Holinshed and had occasional reference to Stow, but in his spirited characterisation of Gaveston and Edward II, Mortimer and Edmund, earl of Kent, he owes little to the chroniclers. It is the best constructed of Marlowe's pieces. 'The reluctant pangs of abdicating royalty in Edward,' wrote Charles Lamb, 'furnished hints which Shakespeare scarcely improved in his "Richard II;" and the death scene of Marlowe's king moves pity and terror beyond any scene, ancient or modern, with which I am acquainted.' The work was entered on the Stationers' Registers by William Jones on 6 July 1593. A unique copy of an edition of 1594 is in the public library of Cassel. The earliest edition known in this country was published in 1598 as 'The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of