[Footnote 5: For a great many months after his death, it was reckoned
indecent in any gentleman to appear splendidly dress'd; the public
mourned him, not with exterior formality, but with the genuine sorrow
of the heart. Of all our poets he seems to be the most courtly, the
bravest, the most active, and in the moral sense, the best.]

[Footnote 6: Camden Brit. in Kent.]

* * * * *


CHISTOPHER MARLOE

Was bred a student in Cambridge, but there is no account extant of his
family. He soon quitted the University, and became a player on the
same stage with the incomparable Shakespear. He was accounted, says
Langbaine, a very fine poet in his time, even by Ben Johnson himself,
and Heywood his fellow-actor stiles him the best of poets. In a copy
of verses called the Censure of the Poets, he was thus characterized.

Next Marloe bathed in Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave sublunary things,
That your first poets had; his raptures were
All air and fire, which made his verses clear;
For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.

His genius inclined him wholly to tragedy, and he obliged the world
with six plays, besides one he joined for with Nash, called Dido Queen
of Carthage; but before I give an account of them, I shall present his