the fear of
derision and the unreadiness of our vocabulary may freeze its expression
on our lips; and he trusted to the hearts of his hearers to understand
and appreciate the intense humanness of the feelings that forced
themselves to the surface in that form. Nor was he mistaken. His
'raptures' are more truly natural, more sympathetic and truthful
expressions of human emotion than the most stately and reasonable
declamations of those earlier writers who clung to what they believed to
be natural. Often quoted as it has been, Drayton's eulogy of Marlowe may
be quoted again--it merits a place in every discussion of Marlowe's
verse--as the finest appreciation of his poetry.

Next Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave translunary things
That the first poets had; his raptures were
All air and fire, which made his verses clear;
For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.

(_An Elegy: Of Poets and Poesie._)

From _Tamburlaine_ one could extract passages to illustrate Marlowe's
fondness for classical allusions, his use--Miltonic, if we may
anticipate the term--of the sonorous effect of names, his introduction
of sustained similes, his trick of repeating a sound at intervals (a
trick borrowed by Greene later), his habit of letting a speaker refer to
himself in the third person (Tamburlaine loves to boast the greatness of
Tamburlaine), and his occasional slovenliness, especially in the
insertion of a few lines of prose into the midst of his verse. All these
and others are minor features which the student will search out for
himself. Some of them, however, may be detected in the following excerpt
from the Second Part:

[TAMBURLAINE _is in his chariot drawn by captive kings._ TECHELLES
_has just urged that the armies should hasten to the siege of
Babylon._]

_Tamburlaine._ We will, Techelles.--Forward, then, ye jades!
Now crouch, ye kings of greatest Asia,
And tremble, when ye hear this scourge will come
That whips down cities and controlleth crowns,
Adding their wealth and treasure to my store.
The Euxine sea, north to Natolia;
The Terrene, west; the Caspian, north north-east;
And on the south, Sinus Arabicus;
Shall all be loaden with the martial spoils
We will convey with us to Persia.
Then shall my native city, Samarcanda,
And crystal wav