r us,
Whilst trumpets clamor with a sound of death."

He has three descriptions of morning, which seem to have been written in
emulation of Shakespeare's in "Hamlet"; two of them being found in the
tragedy which "Hamlet" suggested.

"Is not yon gleam the shuddering morn that flakes
With silver tincture the east verge of heaven?

* * * *

For see the dapple-gray coursers of the morn
Beat up the light with their bright silver hoofs,
And chase it through the sky.

* * * *

Darkness is fled: look; look, infant morn hath drawn
Bright silver curtains 'bout the couch of night;
And now Aurora's house trots azure rings,
Breathing fair light about the firmament."

These last two lines appear feeble enough as contrasted with the
beautiful intensity of imagination in Emerson's picturing of the same
scene:--

"O, tenderly the haughty Day
_Fills his blue urn with fire_."

The most beautiful passage in Marston's plays is the lament of a father
over the dead body of his son, who has been defamed. It is so apart from
his usual style, as to breed the suspicion that the worthy chaplain's
daughter, whom he made Mrs. Marston, must have given it to him from her
purer imagination:--

"Look on those lips,
Those now lawn pillows, on whose tender softness
Chaste modest speech, stealing from out his breast,
Had wont to rest itself, as loath to post
From out so fair an inn: look, look, they seem
To stir.
And breathe defiance to black obloquy."

If among the dramatists of the period any person could be selected who
in disposition was the opposite of Marston, it would be Thomas
Dekkar,--a man whose inborn sweetness and gleefulness of soul carried
him through vexations and miseries which would have crushed a spirit
less hopeful, cheerful, and humane. He was probably born about the year
1575; commenced his career as player and playwright before 1598; and for
forty years was an author by profession, that is, was occupied in
fighting famine with his pen. The first intelligence we have of him is
characteristic of his whole life. It is from Henslowe's Diary, under
date of February, 1598: "Lent unto the company, to discharge Mr. Decker
out of the counter in the powltry, the sum of 40 shillings." Oldys tells
us that "he was in King's Bench Prison from 1613 to 1616"; and the
antiquary adds ominously, "how much longer