ies. The uncertainty of priority in time encourages a
comparison between Kyd and Marlowe. It is fairly clear that the former
was not much influenced by the latter, or he would have caught the taint
of rant and bombast which infected Greene and Peele. If, then, Kyd's
blank verse is an original development of the verse of _Gorboduc_ and
other Senecan plays, and if he is the author of _Jeronimo_--the verse of
which, as may have been seen from the quotations offered, is very much
freer than that of _The Spanish Tragedy_--he must share some of the
honour accorded to Marlowe as the father of dramatic blank verse. The
two men are not on the same level as poets. Marlowe's muse soars
repeatedly to heights which Kyd's can only reach at rare moments.
Nevertheless, a comparison of Kyd's better passages with those of
Sackville and Hughes will demonstrate how much blank verse might have
owed to his creative spirit had not Marlowe arisen at the same time to
eclipse him by his greater genius. Isolated extracts offer a poor
criterion, but the following--to be read in conjunction with those
selected from _Jeronimo_ and _Soliman and Perseda_--will help the reader
to form at least an idea of Kyd's originality and ability:

(1)

[ISABELLA _rejects all medicine for her grief._]

_Isabella._ So that you say this herb will purge the eye,
And this the head. Ah, but none of them will purge the heart!
No, there's no medicine left for my disease,
Nor any physic to recure the dead. [_She runs lunatic._
Horatio! O, where's Horatio?

_Maid._ Good madam, affright not thus yourself
With outrage for your son Horatio;
He sleeps in quiet in the Elysian fields.

_Isabella._ Why, did I not give you gowns and goodly things?
Bought you a whistle and a whipstalk[65] too,
To be revenged on their villanies?

_Maid._ Madam, these humours do torment my soul.

_Isabella._ My soul, poor soul; thou talk'st of things--
Thou know'st not what: my soul hath silver wings,
That mount me up unto the highest heavens:
To heaven! ay, there sits my Horatio,
Back'd with a troop of fiery cherubims,
Dancing about his newly-healed wounds,
Singing sweet hymns, and chanting heavenly notes,
Rare harmony to greet his innocence,
That died, ay, died a mirror in our days.
But say, where shall I find the men, the murderers,
That slew Horatio? Whither shall I run