It was from this poem that Keats caught the inspiration for his “Endymion.” A single passage will serve to prove this:-- “So fair a church as this had Venus none: The walls were of discolored jasper stone, Wherein was Proteus carved; and overhead A lively vine of green sea-agate spread, Where by one hand light-headed Bacchus hung, And with the other wine from grapes outwrung.” Milton, too, learned from Marlowe the charm of those long sequences of musical proper names of which he made such effective use. Here are two passages which Milton surely had read and pondered:-- “So from the East unto the furthest West Shall Tamburlaine extend his puissant arm; The galleys and those pilling brigantines That yearly sail to the Venetian gulf, And hover in the straits for Christians’ wreck, Shall lie at anchor in the isle Asant, Until the Persian fleet and men of war Sailing along the Oriental sea Have fetched about the Indian continent, Even from Persepolis to Mexico, And thence unto the straits of Jubaltar.” This is still more Miltonic:-- “As when the seaman sees the Hyades Gather an army of Cimmerian clouds, Auster and Aquilon with wingèd steeds, * * * * * All fearful folds his sails and sounds the main.” Spenser, too, loved this luxury of sound, as he shows in such passages as this:-- “Now was Aldebaran uplifted high Above the starry Cassiopeia’s chair.” And I fancy he would have put him there to make music, even had it been astronomically impossible, but he never strung such names in long necklaces, as Marlowe and Milton were fond of doing. Was Marlowe, then, a great poet? For such a title he had hardly range enough of power, hardly reach enough of thought. But surely he had some of the finest qualities that go to the making of a great poet; and his poetic instinct, when he had time to give himself wholly over to its guidance, was unerring. I say when he had time enough, for he, too, like his fellows, was forced to make the daily task bring in the daily bread. We have seen how fruitful his influence has been, and perhaps his genius could have no surer warrant than that the charm of it lingered in the memory of poets, for theirs is the memory of mankind. If we allow him genius, what need to ask for more? And perhaps it would be only to him among the group of dramatists who surrounded Shakespeare that we should allow it. He was the herald that dropped dead in announcing the victory in whose fruits he was not to share. III WEBSTER