and represented through the whole kingdom,
like similar compositions, with immense applause.

Marlowe's "Faustus" has been judged rather favorably by modern English
critics. Mr. Hazlitt calls it, "though an imperfect and unequal
performance, Marlowe's greatest work." Mr. Hallam remarks,--"There is an
awful melancholy about Marlowe's Mephistopheles, perhaps more
impressive than the malignant mirth of that fiend in the renowned work
of Goethe." Charles Lamb even preferred Marlowe's "Faustus," as a
whole, to the latter! Mr. Collier calls it "a drama of power, novelty,
interest, and variety." So, indeed, it is; but all that power,
interest, novelty, and variety do not belong to Marlowe, but to the
prose romance, after which he wrote. Indeed, he followed it so
closely,--as every reader can see for himself, by reading the play in
Dyce's edition, and comparing it with the notes under the text,--that
sometimes whole scenes are copied, and even whole speeches, as, for
instance, that of the Emperor Charles V. The coarse buffoonery, in
particular, of which the work is full, is retained word for word. Of
the countless absurdities and prolixities of the Volksbuch, Marlowe
has, of course, omitted a great deal, and condensed the story to the
tenth part of its original length; but the fundamental idea, the plot,
and the characters, belong exclusively to the original. Marlowe's
poetical merit lies partly in the circumstance that he was the first to
feel the depth and power of that idea, partly in the thoughts and
pictures with which some speeches, principally the monologues of
Faustus himself, are interwoven. The Faustus of Marlowe is the Faust of
the legend, tired of learning because it is so unproductive, and
selling his soul, not for knowledge, but for wealth and power. His
investigating conversations with Mephistopheles, his inquiries, and the
answers of the latter, are almost as shallow and childish as those in
the People's Book; and Faustus himself remarks, on the information
which his companion gives him,--

"Those slender trifles Wagner could decide;
Has Mephistopheles no greater skill?"

This latter, indeed, seems to us, in spite of the admiration of English
critics, a decided failure. There is in him no trace of either the
cruel, icy-cold malignity of the fiend of Goethe, or the awful grandeur
of Milton's Tempter. It cannot be said that Marlowe's Devil seduces
Faustus. He is almost on the verge of repentance himself; of