curacy) kept himself to the most rigid limit of literal
representation, phrase by phrase and often line by line. The really
startling force and felicity of occasional verses are worthier of remark
than the inevitable stiffness and heaviness of others, when the
technical difficulty of such a task is duly taken into account.

One of the most faultless lyrics and one of the loveliest fragments in
the whole range of descriptive and fanciful poetry would have secured a
place for Marlowe among the memorable men of his epoch, even if his
plays had perished with himself. His "Passionate Shepherd" remains ever
since unrivalled in its way--a way of pure fancy and radiant melody
without break or lapse. The untitled fragment, on the other hand, has
been very closely rivalled, perhaps very happily imitated, but only by
the greatest lyric poet of England--by Shelley alone. Marlowe's poem of
"Hero and Leander," closing with the sunrise which closes the night of
the lovers' union, stands alone in its age, and far ahead of the work of
any possible competitor between the death of Spenser and the dawn of
Milton. In clear mastery of narrative and presentation, in melodious
ease and simplicity of strength, it is not less pre-eminent than in the
adorable beauty and impeccable perfection of separate lines or
passages.

The place and the value of Christopher Marlowe as a leader among English
poets it would be almost impossible for historical criticism to
overestimate. To none of them all, perhaps, have so many of the greatest
among them been so deeply and so directly indebted. Nor was ever any
great writer's influence upon his fellows more utterly and unmixedly an
influence for good. He first, and he alone, guided Shakespeare into the
right way of work; his music, in which there is no echo of any man's
before him, found its own echo in the more prolonged but hardly more
exalted harmony of Milton's. He is the greatest discoverer, the most
daring and inspired pioneer, in all our poetic literature. Before him
there was neither genuine blank verse nor genuine tragedy in our
language. After his arrival the way was prepared, the paths were made
straight, for Shakespeare.

JOHN WEBSTER

There were many poets in the age of Shakespeare who make us think, as we
read them, that the characters in their plays could not have spoken more
beautifully, more powerfully, more effectively, under the circumstances
imagined for the occasion of their utter