Page:The Age of Shakespeare - Swinburne (1908).djvu/101

 and indeed the only considerable agent was published, and attributed—of all poets in the world—to Christopher Marlowe, by a knavish and ignorant bookseller of the period. That 'Lust's Dominion; or, the Lascivious Queen,' was partly founded on a pamphlet published after Marlowe's death was not a consideration sufficient to offer any impediment to this imposture. That the hand which in the year of this play's appearance on the stage gave 'Old Fortunatus' to the world of readers was the hand to which we owe the finer scenes or passages of 'Lust's Dominion,' the whole of the opening scene bears such apparent witness as requires no evidence to support and would require very conclusive evidence to confute it. The sweet spontaneous luxury of the lines in which the queen strives to seduce her paramour out of sullenness has the very ring of Dekker's melody: the rough and reckless rattle of the abrupt rhymes intended to express a sudden vehemence of change and energy; the constant repetition or reiteration of interjections and ejaculations which are evidently supposed to give an air of passionate realism and tragic nature to the jingling and jerky dialogue; many little mannerisms too trivial to specify and too obvious to mistake; the occasional spirit and beauty, the frequent crudity and harshness, of the impetuous and uncertain style; the faults no less