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tion, that they are reducible to law and order, and that the study of biology is an application of the great science of physics and chemistry. Harvey was the first clearly to explain the mechanism of the circulation of the blood, and by that remarkable discovery of his he laid the foundation of a scientific theory of the larger part of the processes of living beings those processes in fact which we now call processes of sustentation and by his studies of development he first laid the foundation of a scientific knowledge of reproduction. But besides these great powers of living beings there remains another class of functions, those of the nervous system, with which Harvey did not grapple. It was indeed left for a contemporary of his, René Descartes, to play a part in relation to the phenomena of the nervous system which is precisely equal in value to that Harvey played in regard to the circulation. You must recollect that this man Descartes was not merely, as some had been, a happy speculator. He was a working anatomist and physiologist, conversant with all the anatomical and physiological law of his time. A most characteristic anecdote of him, and one which should ever put to silence those shallow talkers who speak of Descartes as a hypothetical and speculative philosopher, is that a friend once calling upon him in Holland begged to be shown his library. Descartes led him into a sort of shed, and drawing aside a curtain displayed a dissecting room full of the bodies of animals in course of dissection, and said, "There is my library."

The matters with which we shall treat are such as to require no extensive knowledge of anatomy. I need only premise that what we call the nervous system in one of the higher animals consists of a central apparatus, composed of the brain, which is lodged in the skull, and of a cord proceeding from it, which is termed the spinal marrow, and which is lodged in the vertebral column or spine, and that then from these soft white masses for such they are— there proceed cords which are termed nerves, some of which nerves end in the muscle, while others end in the organs of sensation. The first proposition that you find definitely and clearly stated by Descartes is the view that the brain is the organ of sensation, of thought, and of emotion, using the word " organ "in this sense, that certain changes which take place in the matter of the brain are the essential antecedents of those states of consciousness which we term sensation, thought, and emotion. If your friend disagrees with your opinion, runs amuck against any of your pet prejudices, you say, "Ah! poor fellow, he is a little touched here," by which you mean that his brain is not doing its business properly — that he is not thinking properly thereby implying that his brain is some way affected. It remained down to the time of Bichat a question whether the passions were or were not located in the abdominal viscera. In the second place, Descartes lays lays down the proposition that all the movements of the animal bodies are affected by the change of form of a certain part of the matter of their bodies, to which he applies the general term of muscle. That is a proposition which is now placed beyond all doubt whatever. If I move my arm, that movement is due to the change of this mass in front called the biceps muscles; it is shortened till it becomes thicker. If I move any of my limbs the reason is the same. As I now speak to you the different tones of my voice are due to the exquisitely accurate adjustments and adjusted contractions of a multitude of such particles of flesh; and there is no considerable and visible movement of the animal body which is not, as Descartes says, resolvable into these changes in the form of matter termed muscle. But Descartes went further, and he stated that in the normal and ordinary condition of things these changes in the form of muscle in the living body only occur under certain conditions; and the essential condition of the change was, says Descartes, the motion of the matter contained within the nerves, which go from the central apparatus to the muscle. Descartes gave this moving material a particular name the animal spirits. Nowadays we should not say that the animal spirits existed, but we should say that a molecular change takes place in the nerve, and that

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that molecular change is propagated at a certain velocity which has been measured from the central apparatus to the muscle. Modern physiology has measured the rate of the change to which I have referred.

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Next, Descartes says that, under ordinary circumstances, this change in the contents of a nerve, which gives rise to the contraction of a muscle, is produced by a change in the central nervous apparatus, as, for example, the brain. We say at the present time exactly the same thing. Descartes said that the animal spirits were stored up in the brain, and flowed out from the motor nerve. We say that a molecular change takes place in the brain that is propagated along the motor nerve. Further, Descartes stated that the sensory organs which give rise to our feelings, gave rise to a change in the sensory nerves, to a flow of animal spirits along those nerves, which flow was propagated to the brain. If I look at this candle before us, the light falling on the retina of my eye gives rise to an affection of the optic nerve, which affection Descartes described as a flow of the animal spirits to the brain; but the fundamental idea is the same. In all our notions of the operations of nerve we are building upon Descartes's foundation. He says that when a body which is competent to produce a sensation touches the sensory organs, what happens is the production of a mode of motion of the sensory nerves. mode of motion is propagated to the brain. That which takes place in the brain is still nothing but a mode of motion. But in addition to this mode of motion, there is, as everybody can find by experiment for himself, something else which can in no way be compared to motion, which is utterly unlike it, and which is that state of consciousness which we call a sensation. Descartes insists over and over again upon this total disparity between the agent which excites the state of consciousness and the state of consciousness itself. He tells us that our sensations are not pictures of external things, but that they are symbols or signs of them; and in doing that he made one of the greatest possible revolutions, not only in physiology but in philosophy. Till his time it was the notion that visible bodies, for example, gave from themselves a kind of film which entered the eye and so went to the brain, species intentionales as they were called, and thus the mind received an actual copy or picture of things which were given off from it. In laying down that proposition upon what I imagine to be a perfectly irrefragable basis, Descartes laid the foundation of that form of philosophy which is termed idealism, which was subsequently expanded to its uttermost by Berkeley, and has taken all sorts of shapes since.

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But Descartes noticed not only that under certain conditions an impulse made by the sensory organ may give rise to a sensation, but that under certain other conditions it may give rise to motion, and that this motion may be effected without sensation, and not only without volition, but even contrary to it. I know in no modern treatise of a more clear and precise statement than this of what we understand by the automatic action of the brain. And what is very remarkable is that in speaking of these movements which arise by a sensation being as it were reflected from the central apparatus into a limb- - as, for example, when one's finger is pricked and the arm is suddenly drawn up, the motion of the sensory nerve travels to the spine and is again reflected down to the muscles of the arm - Descartes uses the very phrase that we at this present time employ. And the last great service to physiology of the nervous system which I have to mention as rendered by Descartes was this, that he first, so far as I know, sketched out the physical theory of memory. What he tells you in substance is this, that when a sensation takes place, the animal spirits travel up the sensory nerve, pass to the appropriate part of the brain, and there, as it were, find their way through the pores of the substance of the brain. And he says that when the particles of the brain have themselves been shoved aside a little by the single passage of the animal spirits, that the passage is made easier in the same direction for any subsequent flow of animal spirits, and that the repetition of this action makes it easier still, until at length it becomes very easy for the an

imal spirits to move these particular particles of the brain, the motion of which gives rise to the appropriate sensation, until at length the passage is so easy that almost anything, especially an associated flow which may be set going, allows the animal spirits to flow into these already open pores more easily than they would flow in any other direction; and in this way a flow of the animal spirits recalls the image - the impression made by a former sensory act. That, again, is essentially, in substance, at one with all our present physical theories of memory. In one respect Descartes proceeded further than any of his contemporaries, and has been followed by very few of his successors in later days. Descartes reasoned thus: "I can account for many such actions, many reflex actions taking place without the intervention of consciousness, and even in opposition to the will." So far these occur, as, for example, when a man in falling mechanically puts out his hands to save himself. "In these cases," Descartes said, "I have clear evidence that the nervous system acts mechanically without the intervention of consciousness, and without the intervention of the will, it may be in opposition to it." Why, then, may I not extend this idea further? As actions of a certain amount of complexity are brought about in this way, why may not actions of still greater complexity be so produced? Why, in fact, may it not be that the whole of man's physical actions are mechanical, his mind living apart, like one of the gods of Epicurus, but unlike them occasionally interfering by means of his volition?

And it so happened that Descartes was led by some of his speculations to believe that beasts had no soul, and consequently, according to his notion, could have no true mental operation, and no consciousness; and thus, his two ideas harmonizing together, he developed that famous hypothesis of the automation of brutes, which is the main subject of my present discourse. What Descartes meant by this was that animals are absolutely machines, as if they were mills or barrel organs; that they have no feelings; that a dog does not hear, and does not smell, but that the impression which thus gave rise to those states of consciousness in the dog gave rise, by a mechanical reflex process, to actions which correspond to those which we perform when we do smell, and do taste, and do see. Suppose an experiment. Suppose that all that is taken away of the brain of a frog is what we call the hemisphere, the most anterior part of the brain. If that operation is properly performed, very quickly and very skilfully, the frog may be kept in a state of full bodily vigor for months, or it may be for years; but it will sit forever in the same spot. It sees nothing; it hears nothing. It will starve sooner than feed itself, although if food is put into its mouth it swallows it. On irritation it jumps or walks; if thrown into the water it swims. But the most remarkable thing that it does is this- -you put it in the flat of your hand, it sits there, crouched, perfectly quiet, and would sit there forever. Then if you incline your hand, doing it very gently and slowly, so that the frog would naturally tend to slip off, you feel the creature's fore paws getting a little slowly on to the edge of your hand until he can just bold himself there, so that he does not fall; then, if you turn your hand, he mounts up with great care and deliberation, putting one leg in front and then another, until he balances himself with perfect precision upon the edge of your hand; then if you turn your hand over he goes through the opposite set of operations until he comes to sit in perfect security upon the back of your hand. The doing of all this requires a delicacy of coordination and an adjustment of the muscular apparatus of the body which is only comparable to that of a rope-dancer among ourselves; in truth a frog is an animal very poorly constructed for rope-dancing, and on the whole we may give him rather more credit than we should to a human dancer. These movements are performed with the utmost steadiness and precision, and you may vary the position of your hand, and the frog so long as you are reasonably slow in your movements - will work backward and forward like a clock. And what is still more remarkable is this, that if

you put him on a table, and put a book between him and the light, and give him a little jog behind, he will jump — take a long jump very possibly - but he won't jump against the book; he will jump to the right or to the left, but he will get out of the way, showing that although he is absolutely insensible to ordinary impressions of light, there is still a something which passes through the sensory nerve, acts upon the machinery and his nervous system, and causes it to adapt itself to the proper action.

I need not say that since those days of commencing anatomical science when criminals were handed over to the doctors, we cannot make experiments on human beings, but sometimes they are made for us, and made in a very remarkable manner. That operation called war is a great series of physiological experiments, and sometimes it happens that these physiological experiments bear very remarkable fruit. A French soldier, a sergeant, was wounded at the battle of Bareilles. The man was shot in what we call the left parietal bone. The bullet, I presume, glanced off, but it fractured the bone. He had enough vigor left to send his bayonet through the Prussian who shot him. Then he wandered a few hundred yards out of the village, where he was picked up and taken to the hospital, where he remained some time. When he came to himself, as usual in such cases of injury, he was paralyzed on the opposite side of the body, that is to say, the right arm and the right leg were completely paralyzed. That state of things lasted, I think, the better part of two years, but sooner or later he recovered from it, and now he is able to walk about with activity, and only by careful measurement can any difference between the two sides of his body be ascertained. At present this man lives two lives, normal life and an abnormal life. In his normal life he is perfectly well, cheerful, and a capital hospital attendant, does all his work well, and is a respectable, well conducted That normal life lasts for about seven and twenty days, or thereabouts, out of every month; but for a day or two in each month generally at intervals of about that time he passes into another life, suddenly, and without warning or intimation. In this life he is still active, goes about just as usual, and is to all appearance just the same man as before; undresses himself and goes to bed, gets up, makes his cigarette and smokes it, and eats and drinks. But in this condition he neither sees, nor hears, nor tastes, nor smells, nor is he conscious of anything whatever, and has only one sense organ in a state of activity—namely, that of touch, which is exceedingly delicate. If you put an obstacle in his way he knocks against it, feels it and goes to the one side. If you push him in any direction he goes straight on, illustrating, as well as he can, the first law of motion. You see I have said he makes his cigarettes, but you may make his tobacco of shavings or of anything else you like, and still he will go on making his cigarettes as usual. His action is purely mechanical. As I said, he feeds voraciously, but whether you give him aloes or assafœtida or the nicest thing possible, it is all the same to him.

man.

The man is in a condition absolutely parallel to that of the frog, and, no doubt, when he is in this condition the functions of his cerebral hemisphere are at any rate largely annihilated. He is very nearly- I don't say wholly, but very nearly in the condition of an animal in which the cerebral hemispheres are not entirely extirpated, but very largely damaged. And this state is wonderfully interesting to me, for it bears on the phenomena of mesmerism, of which I saw a good deal when I was a young man. In this state he is capable of performing all sorts of actions on mere suggestions — as, for example, he dropped his cane, and a person near him put it into his hand, and the feeling of the end of the cane evidently produced in him those molecular changes of the brain which, had he possessed consciousness, would have given rise to the idea of his rifle; for he threw himself on his face, began feeling about for his cartouche, went through the motions of touching his gun, and shouted out to an imaginary comrade, "Here they are, a score of them; but we will give a good account of them." This paper to which I refer is full of the most remarkable examples of this kind, and what is the most

remarkable fact of all is the modifications which this injury has made in the man's moral nature. In his normal life he is one of the most upright and honest of men. In his abnormal state, however, he is an inveterate thief. He will steal everything he can lay his hands upon, and if he cannot steal anything else, he will steal his own things and hide them away. Now, if Descartes had had this fact before him, need I tell you that his theory of animal automatism would have been erroneously strengthened? He would have said, "Here I show you a case of a man performing actions evidently more complicated and mostly more rational than any of the ordinary operations of animals; and yet you have positive proof that these actions are merely mechanical. What, then, have you to urge against my doctrine that the whole animal world is in that condition, and that to use the very correct words of Father Malebranche' Thus in dogs, cats, and other animals there is neither intelligence nor spiritual soul as we understand the matter commonly; they eat without pleasure, they cry without pain, they sorrow without knowing it; they desire nothing, they know nothing; and if they act with dexterity and in a manner which indicates intelligence, it is because God, having made them with the intention of preserving them, has constructed their bodies in such a manner that they escape organically, without knowing it, everything which could injure them, and which they seemed to fear." "

But I must say for myself, looking at the matter on the ground of analogy, taking into account that great doctrine of continuity which forbids one to suppose that any natural phenomena can come into existence suddenly and without some precedent, gradual modification tending toward it-taking that great doctrine into account (and everything we know of science tends to confirm it), and taking into account, on the other hand, the incontrovertible fact that the lower animals which possess brains at all possess, at any rate, in rudiments a part of the brain, which we have every reason to believe is the organ of consciousness in ourselves, then it seems vastly more probable that the lower animals, although they may not possess that sort of consciousness which we have ourselves, yet have it in a form proportional to the comparative development of the organ of that consciousness, and foreshadow more or less dimly those feelings which we possess ourselves. I think that is, probably, the most rational conclusion that can be come to. It has this advantage, that it relieves us of the very terrible consequences of making any mistake on this subject. I must confess that, looking at that terrible struggle for existence which is every where going on in the animal world, and considering the frightful quantity of pain which must be given and received in every part of the animal world, I say that it is a consideration which would induce me wholly to adopt the view of Descartes. I must confess I think it on the whole much better to err on the right side, and not to concur with Descartes on this point. But let me point out to you that, although we may come to the conclusion that Descartes was wrong in supposing that animals are insensible machines, it does not in the slightest degree follow that they are not sensitive and conscious automata; in fact, that is the view which is more or less clearly in the minds of every one of

us.

When we talk of the lower animals being provided with instinct, and not with reason, what we really mean is, that although they are sensitive, and although they are conscious, yet they do act mechanically, and that their indifferent states of consciousness, their sensations, their thoughts (if they have them), their volitions (if they have them), are the products and consequences of the mechanical arrangements. I must confess that this popular view is to my mind the only one which can be scientifically adopted. We are bound by everything we know of the operations of the nervous system, to believe that when a certain molecular change is brought about in the central part of the nervous system that that change, in some way utterly unknown to us, causes that state of consciousness that we term a sensation. It is not to be doubted that the impression excited by those motions which give rise to sensation leaves in the

brain molecular changes which answer to what Haller called "vestigia rerum," and which that great thinker, David Hartley, termed "vibratiuncles," which we might term sensigenous molecular, and which constitute the physical foundation of memory. Those same changes gave rise naturally to conditions of pleasure and pain, and to those emotions which in ourselves we call volition. I have no doubt that is the relation between the physical processes of the animal and his mental processes. In each case it follows inevitably that these states of consciousness can have no sort of relation of causation to the motions of the muscles of the body. The volition of animals will be simply states of emotion which precede their actions. The only conclusion, then, at which there seems any good ground for arriving is that animals are machines, but that they are conscious machines.

That

I might with propriety consider what I have now said as the conclusion of the observations which I have to offer concerning animal automatism. So far as I know the problem which we have hitherto been discussing is an entirely open one. I do not know that there is any reason on the part of any person, whatever his opinions may be, that can prevent him, if he be so inclined, from accepting the doctrine which I have just now put before you clearly. So far as we know, animals are conscious automata. doctrine is perfectly consistent with any view that we may choose to take on a very curious subject of speculation whether animals possess souls or not, and whether, if they possess souls, those souls are immortal or not; the doctrine to which I have referred is not inconsistent with the perfectly strict and literal adherence to the Scripture text concerning the beast that perisheth, nor on the other hand, so far as I know, does it prevent any one from entertaining the amiable convictions ascribed by Pope to his untutored savage, that when he passed to the realms of the blessed his faithful dog should bear him company. In fact, all these accessory questions to which I have referred, involve problems which cannot be discussed by physical science as such, as they lie not within the scope of physical science, but come within the scope of that great mother of all science, philosophy. Before any direct answer can be given upon any of these questions, we must hear what philosophy has to say for and against the views that may be held. I have now laid these facts before you. I do not doubt that that fate will befall me which has befallen better men, and I shall have to bear in patience the reiterated assertion that doctrines such as I have put before you have very evil tendencies. I should not wonder if you were told that my intention in bringing this subject before you is to lead you to apply the doctrine I have stated to man as well as brutes, and it will then certainly be further stated that the logical tendency of such a doctrine is Fatalism, Materialism, and Atheism.

Now let me ask you to listen to another product of that long experience to which I have referred. The logical consequences are very important; but in the course of my experience I have found that they were the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men. Logical consequences can take care of themselves. The only question for any man to ask is this: "Is this true or is it false ?" No other question can possibly be taken into consideration until that one is settled. Undoubtedly I do hold that the view I have taken of the relations between the physical and mental faculties of brutes, applies in its fulness and entirety to man; and if it was true that the logical consequences of that belief must land me in all these terrible things, I do not hesitate in allowing myself to be so landed. I should conceive that if I refused I should have done the greatest and most abominable violence to everything which is deepest in my moral nature. But now I beg leave to say that, in my conviction, there is no such logical connection as is pretended between the doctrine I accept and the consequences which people profess to draw from it. Many years ago I had occasion, in dealing with the philosophy of Descartes, and some other matters, to state my conviction pretty fully on those subjects, and, although I know by experience how futile it is to endeavor to escape from those

nicknames which many people mistake for argument, yet if those who care to investigate these matters in a spirit of candor and justice will look into those writings of mine, they will see my reasons for not imagining that such conclusions can be drawn from such premises. To those who do not look into these matters with candor and with a desire to know the truth, I have nothing whatever to say, except to warn them on their own behalf what they do; for assuredly if, for preaching such doctrine as I have preached to you to-night, I am cited before the bar of public opinion, I shall not stand there alone. On my one hand I shall have, among theologians, St. Augustine, John Calvin, and a man whose name should be well known to the Presbyterians of Ulster, Jonathan Edwards — unless, indeed, it be the fashion to neglect the study of the great masters of divinity, as many other great studies are neglected nowadays. I should have upon my other hand, among the philosophers, Leibnitz; I should have Père Malebranche, who saw all things in God; I should have David Hartley, the theologian as well as philosopher; I should have Charles Bonnet, the eminent naturalist, and one of the most zealous defenders Christianity has ever had. I think I should have, within easy reach at any rate, John Locke. Certainly the school of Descartes would be there, if not their master; and I am inclined to think, in due justice, a citation would have to be served upon Emmanuel Kant himself. In such society it may be better to be a prisoner than a judge; but I would ask those who are likely to be influenced by the din and clamor which are raised about these questions whether they are more likely to be right in assuming that those great men I have mentioned the fathers of the church and the fathers of philosophy - knew what they were about, or that the pigmies who raise this din know better than they did what they meant. It is not necessary for any man to occupy himself with problems of this kind unless he so choose. Life is full enough, filled amply to the brim, by the performance of its ordinary duties: but let me warn you, let me beg you to believe that if a man elect to give a judgment upon these great questions; still more, if he assume to himself the responsibility of attaching praise or blame to his fellow-men for the judgments which they may venture to express, I say that, unless he would commit a sin more grievous than most of the breaches of the decalogue, let him avoid a lazy reliance upon the information that is gathered by prejudice and filtered through passion. Let him go to these great sources that are open to him as to every one, and to no man more open than to an Englishman; let him go back to the facts of nature, and to the thoughts of those wise men who for generations past have been the interpreters of nature.

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CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.

As one of the great forerunners of the most glorious era in English literature, Christopher Marlowe would be deserving of recognition and consideration if from that circumstance alone. When this scholar of Cambridge University first began to sing those numbers which were afterwards to make him justly distinguished, the rich full song of old Dan Chaucer had well-nigh died away, or at least was almost exclusively cherished by those whose tastes and pursuits were of a purely literary character. Shakespeare, though living, had as yet given no intimation of that majestic strength of wing which he afterwards attained. The speculation may, we believe, be accepted as indubitably correct, that the fame of the work of Marlowe had reached his ear before he attempted the writing of tragedy; but the death of the subject of this article occurred before the production of most of those dramas certainly the ripest of them which are now associated with the name of the sublime poet of Stratford. That the author of "Hamlet" was more than acquainted with Marlowe's name is an assured fact, not only because the ruling literary spirit of that age, Ben Jonson, had passed upon him a high encomium, but for the reason that Shakespeare himself made

quotations of certain expressions in his plays. It must be admitted that of all the poets immediately introductory to the Elizabethan period, Marlowe exhibited the largest promise, and developed the highest genius. In truth, to read his works and remember at the same time that the writer had "shuffled off this mortal coil" at the age of twenty-nine, we are struck not only with the wondrous fulness of his mind, but with the wealth of his intellectual and poetic gifts. To be the author, when a mere youth, of several plays which are worthy of being associated with those of the world's greatest dramatist may well entitle him to reverential regard. But, in addition to the claim he has upon us as the principal link between a bygone and a coming age, there is another light in which Marlowe may be viewed, and honor put upon his name. His "mighty line' has been referred to again and again by historians and critics since it first earned the praise of that learned brother of the dramatic craft already cited; but as a well-ascertained matter it was the only "line" of blank verse warranting the name till his immediate successors raised the art of dramatic poetry to its most exalted height. Halting and defective to the last degree as was the blank verse in vogue at the period when Marlowe first began to write, he speedily showed it to be capable of a perfection which had never yet been dreamt of. His verse is frequently noticeable for its dignity and impressiveness, and but very rarely for its weakness and gracelessness. Óccasionally, as with most writers, he leaves the impression that he has not fully grasped his subject before committing himself to its treatment, and his work loses in proportion and symmetry; but, upon the whole, his dramas are, to an exceedingly small degree only, open to the objection of crudity and meanness. He can tread the stage as a king, when the monarch's step is required.

A benignant face looks out upon us as we contemplate the countenance of this early dramatist. He seems invested with a calm which is in strange keeping with his brief and tragic career. Eyes which beam softly as those of woman shine beneath a noble expanse of brow, and the whole face is full of conscious power and repose. Yet he spent his time, as we are informed, between inditing dramas and fighting in pothouses at least such are the two salient facts preserved for posterity in his meagre biography. But we cannot help thinking that great injustice is done to him from the fact that so few details of his life are known. While his sanguine temperament, quick passions, and probable devotion to the bottle at sundry seasons, would be sufficient to account for the miserable quarrel which led to his untimely death, there may, after all, have been a substratum of nobility of heart and life for which he has received no credit. It is impossible to believe, even without pinning our faith to a positive reading of character by physiognomical signs, which we should refuse to do, after studying the man's work, generous impulses, and eloquent features, that he could have been the mere sensualist he has been sometimes described, a being in whom the brute ever held the dominant sway. There is no evidence whatever that he was irretrievably depraved, but much indirect yet strong evidence to the contrary. Distinguished at a very early age for his learning, and the author of so much ripe work at a period when most men only begin to take the pen in hand, it is a matter of sheer incompatibility that he could have served at the shrine of Bacchus and that of the drama with equal fervor. A temporary aberration might now and then have seized him, which in fact is thus duly recorded, when the madness of intoxication filled the brain: a thing not very strange in a time when the veins of literary men generally were too often heated by the blood of the grape. Marlowe unquestionably has the reputation of having been both a free and an evil liver; but in dealing with these accusations, and weighing them with candor, it must not be forgotten that by far the major part of them were preferred by his personal enemies. To support him in his theory as regards the peculiar manifestations of genius at the commencement of the period of the Renaissance, M. Taine has adopted the worst of the charges made against the dramatist, and

in the most wholesale manner. From these charges he has ably instituted a comparison between the character of the man and his works. The comparison is very ingenious, and somewhat subtle; but inasmuch as it is not necessarily, but only problematically, true, it must stand for little more than a mere curiosity of criticism. The tendency to discover the influence of personal idiosyncrasy and psychological impressions left upon the works of English authors, is one that is very strong in M. Taine, and it is too frequently seen carried to excess. His criticism on Marlowe, summed up into one sentence, if we may exercise the hardihood of thus summarily dealing with it, is to the following effect: He was a wild, fiery spirit, utterly incapable of self-government, or of being governed by anybody else; and his work reflects the bombast, the recklessness, and the violence of his own nature. To a great extent this may be true of Marlowe, but it must not be accepted as exhaustive of either side of the question. Just as there is a great deal more in his writings than M. Taine has indicated, so also there may have been a great deal more in the man than those salient characteristics which, when observed at all anywhere, are beheld in very glaring prominence. He had a tolerable endowment of noisy vice, but he may also have possessed a sufficient amount of quiet virtue. That is the point we care to contend for at the present moment; and as something more must be said touching Marlowe's character and religious views at a later stage, we shall halt as regards the matter at this juncture.

Born exactly two months before Shakespeare, Marlowe first looked out upon the world at Canterbury on February 26, 1564. In that most attractive of cathedral cities his father resided, pursuing, according to some assurances that we have, the humble trade of a shoemaker. Other authorities, however, whose evidence is more worthy to be relied upon, describe him as the clerk of St. Maries. Christopher was one of five children, the others being two sons and two daughters. It is just possible that the father's employment in connection with the church was of some assistance to him in procuring education for his children, in addition to the other advantages which residence in a cathedral city affords in this respect. Several centuries ago the latter consideration was one of much importance, as a school was a necessary adjunct to the cathedral. Marlowe, too, may also have found friends amongst the clergy of Canterbury, who divined in him more than ordinary intelligence, and who determined to assist in its cultivation accordingly. But, be that as it may, he was not one to lose the natural advantages amidst which he was placed. He had within reach all the pleasures of the country life respecting which the poets sing so freely, and at the same time there were grand architectural beauties constantly in view which could not fail to leave upon his soul impressions of awe and grandeur. There are certain points in connection with Marlowe's life at Canterbury which remain in a state of dubiousness even to this day, notwithstanding the efforts of Dyce, Cunningham, and others to elucidate them. The first-named biographer quotes an extract fron the Treasurer's accounts of the King's School which proves that Marlowe was a scholar from Michaelmas, 1578, to Michaelmas, 1579. To demonstrate the difficulties of constructing history, or of tracing it, however, it is stated that the accounts themselves for the greater part of this very year named, and for the preceding and subsequent years, are all missing. It is somewhat cheering, nevertheless, amidst this Sahara of unascertained and unascertainable knowledge, to come upon the basis of positive assurance that our dramatist was entered at Benet (Corpus Christi) College, Cambridge, in the year 1580; that is, when he was sixteen years of age. Because of what might be simply an imperfect entry in the College books, as Colonel Cunningham points out (and it is to this compiler we are principally indebted for our biographical facts), the conclusion has been hastily arrived at, that Marlowe missed gaining one of the two scholarships which attached to the school at Canterbury in which he was educated. The world cares little for such matters as this now; the fame of the scholar is decreed, and the silence of his detractors is as utter and com

plete as oblivion can make it. But it is interesting to note that when only just over seventeen years of age Marlowe matriculated as pensioner of his College; that two years later he proceeded B. A.; and that in 1587 he commenced M. A. Nash and Greene were the only two of his contemporaries at Cambridge who afterwards attained to literary laurels. It is suggested, and with a reasonable amount of plausibility, that Marlowe spent an interregnum of some two or three years, of which we have no account, in travelling abroad, and that possibly he joined the forces of Leicester and Sidney engaged in the wars of the Low Countries. He has numerous references in his works which might support this theory. But whether travelling, fighting, or remaining at home, he must have cultivated his affection towards literature, and have been laying in at this time those stores of information which for a brief span only he was afterwards to illuminate by the sun of his genius. Collier, indeed, asserts that both parts of "Tamburlaine the Great" had been publicly performed in London in the year 1587, which was the date at which, as we have seen, Marlowe commenced M. A. This fact alone will serve to show the amazing strength of his intellectual nature. That one who had barely attained his majority should write two such tragedies which, with all their faults, possess an actuality of power and pathos truly surprising seems almost incredible. The fact might well excite doubt were it not corroborated by the still more extraordinary one that in six years (or little more) from this very time, the brain was stilled forever which had conceived "Dr. Faustus" and revelled in the Elegies of Ovid. Some idea of the pleasant amenities indulged in by literary men of the olden time may be gathered from the tirade of abuse which was indirectly heaped upon the head of Marlowe by Nash in a preface to a work by Greene, his bosom friend. The incensed and probably jealous Nash refers to "those idiot art masters who intrude themselves to our ears as the alchymists of eloquence, who (mounted on the stage of arrogance) think to outbrave better pens by the swelling bombast of braggart blank verse;" and the writer also chastises "those who commit the digestion of their choleric incumbrances to the spacious volubility of a drumming decasyllabon." From all which it will be perceived that Nash exhibits a tavern-like ability and freedom in the use of hard adjectives, but also that the invective in which they are imbedded is not really much in advance of the eloquence of the tavern as regards real powers of satire. As no work has yet been written which is absolutely perfect, so there was just a little foundation afforded by the weaknesses of Marlowe's style for the onslaughts of those who, if they could never hope to rival him, had the refuge always made use of by ignoble minds - that of vituperation and vilification. There can be little question that Nash and others must have been startled by the potency of the new writer, and alarmed at the prospect that their own names must suffer a speedy eclipse in the splendor of the more powerful aspirant; and from their point of view it was all-important that the new-comer should be pierced by their arrows in every joint of his armor which could be discovered assailable. Accordingly, it was hoped to damage Marlowe irretrievably, because his common characters were made occasionally to talk the language of the gods; his bombast afforded excellent footing as a ladder wherewith to drag him down from the height of fame to which he had already reached. He was so great, that he had been able to throw away all the traditional notions of his art and to strike out upon an original path; he had dared to be true to a new light which he felt that he possessed; and whenever a man thus resolves, of course he gains as many enemies as friends - the former generally regarding him with the keener interest of the two. But genius was never yet killed by ridicule; the man sometimes may be, but his work never. The world teems with instances where what is now hailed as the great outcome of great minds, was once assailed with a malignity which nothing could daunt, and a persistency which seemed to forebode destruction; but the work survives, and the assailants, where are they? The very writings of Marlowe which were so ruthlessly attacked by his

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