Let us now look a little more closely at Marlowe as a dramatist. Here also he has an importance less for what he accomplished than for what he suggested to others. Not only do I think that Shakespeare’s verse caught some hints from his, but there are certain descriptive passages and similes of the greater poet which, whenever I read them, instantly bring Marlowe to my mind. This is an impression I might find it hard to convey to another, or even to make definite to myself; but it is an old one, and constantly repeats itself, so that I put some confidence in it. Marlowe’s “Edward II.” certainly served Shakespeare as a model for his earlier historical plays. Of course he surpassed his model, but Marlowe might have said of him as Oderisi, with pathetic modesty, said to Dante of his rival and surpasser, Franco of Bologna, “The praise is now all his, yet mine in part.” But it is always thus. The path-finder is forgotten when the track is once blazed out. It was in Shakespeare’s “Richard II.” that Lamb detected the influence of Marlowe, saying that “the reluctant pangs of abdicating royalty in Edward furnished hints which Shakespeare has scarce improved upon in Richard.” In the parallel scenes of both plays the sentiment is rather elegiac than dramatic, but there is a deeper pathos, I think, in Richard, and his grief rises at times to a passion which is wholly wanting in Edward. Let me read Marlowe’s abdication scene. The irresolute nature of the king is finely indicated. The Bishop of Winchester has come to demand the crown; Edward takes it off, and says:-- “Here, take my crown; the life of Edward too: Two kings of England cannot reign at once. But stay awhile: let me be king till night, That I may gaze upon this glittering crown; So shall my eyes receive their last content, My head the latest honor due to it, And jointly both yield up their wishèd right. Continue ever, thou celestial sun; Let never silent night possess this clime; Stand still, you watches of the element; All times and seasons, rest you at a stay-- That Edward may be still fair England’s king! But day’s bright beam doth vanish fast away, And needs I must resign my wishèd crown. Inhuman creatures, nursed with tiger’s milk, Why gape you for your sovereign’s overthrow?-- My diadem, I mean, and guiltless life. See, monsters, see, I’ll wear my crown again. What, fear you not the fury of your king? * * * * * I’ll not resign, but, whilst I live, be king!” Then, after a short further parley:--