Page:The Age of Shakespeare - Swinburne (1908).djvu/203

 were there.' The description of an usurer is memorable by its reference to the first great poet of England, among whose followers Rowley is far from the least worthy of honour. 'His visage (or vizard), like the artificial Jew of Malta's nose,' brings before the reader in vivid realism the likeness of Alleyn or Burbage as he represented in grotesque and tragic disguise the magnificent figure of Marlowe's creative invention or discovery by dint of genius. (I do not remember the curious verb 'to rand' except in this little book: 'he randed out these sentences': I presume it to be the first form of 'rant.') The account of St. Paul's in 1609 is very curious and scandalous: 'the very Temple itself (in bare humility) stood without his cap, and so had stood many years, many good folks had spoke for him because he could not speak for himself, and somewhat had been gathered in his behalf, but not half enough to supply his necessity.'

When we pass from 'the Temple' to Westminster Hall we come upon a sample of humour which would be famous if it were the gift of a less ungratefully forgotten hand.

'Here were two brothers at buffets with angels in their fists about the thatch that blew off his house into the other's garden and so spoiled a Hartichoke.'