It is worthy of
notice, that as the drama owes everything to popular patronage, its moral
tone reflects of necessity the moral character of the people who frequent
it, and of the age which sustains it.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.--Among those who may be regarded as the immediate
forerunners and ushers of Shakspeare, and who, although they prepared the
way for his advent, have been obscured by his greater brilliance, the one
most deserving of special mention is Marlowe.
Christopher Marlowe was born at Canterbury, about the year 1564. He was a
wild, irregular genius, of bad morals and loose life, but of fine
imagination and excellent powers of expression. He wrote only tragedies.
His _Tamburlaine the Great_ is based upon the history of that _Timour
Leuk_, or _Timour the Lame_, the great Oriental conqueror of the
fourteenth century:
So large of limb, his joints so strongly knit,
Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear
Old Atlas' burthen.
The descriptions are overdrawn, and the style inflated, but the subject
partakes of the heroic, and was popular still, though nearly two
centuries had passed since the exploits of the historic hero.
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