they love. Nor is the analogy close even here. The love which Barabas professes for his child fails to humanize him to us, because it does not prevent him from making her the abhorrent instrument of his wanton malice in the death of her lover, and because we cannot believe him capable of loving anything but gold and vengeance. There is always something extravagant in the imagination of Marlowe, but here it is the extravagance of absurdity. Generally he gives us an impression of power, of vastness, though it be the vastness of chaos, where elemental forces hurtle blindly one against the other. But they are elemental forces, and not mere stage properties. Even Tamburlaine, if we see in him--as Marlowe, I think, meant that we should see--the embodiment of brute force, without reason and without conscience, ceases to be a blusterer, and becomes, indeed, as he asserts himself, the scourge of God. There is an exultation of strength in this play that seems to add a cubit to our stature. Marlowe had found the way that leads to style, and helped others to find it, but he never arrived there. He had not self-denial enough. He can refuse nothing to his fancy. He fails of his effect by over-emphasis, heaping upon a slender thought a burthen of expression too heavy for it to carry. But it is not with fagots, but with priceless Oriental stuffs, that he breaks their backs. Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus” interests us in another way. Here he again shows himself as a precursor. There is no attempt at profound philosophy in this play, and in the conduct of it Marlowe has followed the prose history of Dr. Faustus closely, even in its scenes of mere buffoonery. Disengaged from these, the figure of the protagonist is not without grandeur. It is not avarice or lust that tempts him at first, but power. Weary of his studies in law, medicine, and divinity, which have failed to bring him what he seeks, he turns to necromancy:-- “These metaphysics of magicians And necromantic books are heavenly. * * * * * Oh, what a world of profit and delight, Of power, of honor, of omnipotence, Is promised to the studious artisan! All things that move between the quiet poles Shall be at my command. Emperors and kings Are but obeyèd in their several provinces, Nor can they raise the winds or rend the clouds; But his dominion that exceeds in this Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man; A sound magician is a mighty god: Here, Faustus, tire thy brains to gain a deity.” His good angel intervenes, but the evil spirit at the other ear tempts him with power again:-- “Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky, Lord and commander of these elements.” Ere long Faustus begins to think of power for baser uses:--