In Shirley and Chapman's tragedy of Philip Chabot, 1639, Act iv., we meet with precisely the same figure, similarly expressed: 'Like crowes and carrion birds 'They fly ore flowrie meades, cleare springs, fair gardens, 'And stoope at carcasses.' One metaphor in this production has received extraordinary praise: it is said by Hawkins, in his Origin of the English Drama, to be worthy of Eschylus.' 'At him the thunder shall discharge his bolt, 'And his fair spouse, with bright and fiery wings, 'Sit ever burning on his hateful bones.' The beauty of this expression consists in terming lightning the spouse' of thunder; and if this be good, which I do not deny, the next line is evidently bad, inasmuch as it would represent lightning as fixed and stationary: the spouse of thunder must be admitted by all to be a very volatile lady. The following speech by David, in favour of Absalom, is a fair specimen of the general style of the piece. 'But now, my lords and captains, hear his voice • For my sake spare the young man Absalon. Joab, thyself didst once use friendly words ''Friend him with deeds, and touch no hair of him; 'Not that fair hair with which the wanton winds 6 Delight to play, and love to make it curl, 'Wherein the nightingales would build their nests, 'O, spoil not, Joab, Jove's fair ornaments, And dried again with coals of lightning. Oh, Lord! thou seest the proudest sin's poor slave, These lines, it will be remarked, are like all the rest of Peele's blank-verse, exhibiting much smoothness, but with a degree of sameness in the rhythm which fatigues the ear. The only variations upon which he ventures (with the exception of the use of a few more trochees at the ends of the lines) are the occasional insertion of a redundant syllable, and the rare employment of a word where the accent varies the ordinary monotony. * This line, as printed by the Rev. Mr. Dyce, exhibits almost the solitary verbal blemish of his edition: it there stands, 'And with his bridle pull'st him to the grave:' as if David, addressing the Lord, said, ' Thou pull'st man to the grave with the bridle of sin;' whereas the meaning is, that 'sin with his bridle pulls man to the grave.' The passage would read better, could we alter and in the last line to who. 205 ON THOMAS KYD AND HIS WORKS. THOMAS KYD was an author of great celebrity, and his Spanish Tragedy went through more editions than perhaps any play of the time: it is to be recollected, however, that after 1602, the impressions were accompanied by the supplemental scenes and speeches of Ben Jonson, which added so much to the force and beauty of the play, that Kyd's portion of the tragedy is read to some disadvantage*. Ben Jonson was paid for some of them in September, 1601, and for others in June, 1602 †; but it is clear, from a passage in his Cynthia's * Hawkins, when he printed this piece in his Origin of the English Drama, was not aware that these additions were penned by so distinguished a poet as Ben Jonson; and he treats them without ceremony, asserting that they were 'foisted in by the players,' and not saying a single syllable in their praise, though he felt bound to subjoin them in a note. It is singular also that Gifford, in his edition of Ben Jonson's Works, should pass over these very striking and characteristic additions almost without notice: they represent Ben Jonson in rather a new light, for certainly there is nothing in his own entire plays equalling in pathetic beauty some of his contributions to The Spanish Tragedy. In his verses upon Shakespeare he calls our author 'sporting Kyd,' an epithet to which he seems to have been led, rather by its punning applicability to the name of Kyd, than because it was characteristic of his style. † See Malone's Shakespeare by Boswell, iii, 334. On the 25th of 6 Revels, played in 1600, that at that date The Spanish Tragedy was not in its original shape, as it came from the hands of Kyd: Another swears down all that sit ' about him, that the old Hieronimo, as it was first acted, was the only best and judiciously penned play ' of Europe *. Besides the Jeronimo and The Spanish Tragedy, Kyd was the translator of Cornelia, from the French of Garnier †. Whether he was older or younger than Marlow, we are without the means of determining; but it seems likely that he was older, and that before he adopted blank-verse, in pursuance of Marlow's example, he had written some plays either September, 1601, Ben Jonson was paid 40s. for 'writing his additions' in Jeronymo; and on the 22d of June, 1602, 107. 'in earnest ' of a book called Richard Crookeback, and for new additions for Jero'nimo.' Henslowe, in both cases, refers to The Spanish Tragedy as the second part of the older play of Jeronimo. The precise amount of the additions to The Spanish Tragedy is ascertained by comparing the older printed copy of 1599 with that of 1602, which professes to be 'newly corrected, amended, and enlarged with the new additions of the painter's part and others.' The painter's part was, consequently, the last improvement made by Ben Jonson. * Reed thought that this expression had reference to the play called on the title The first part of Jeronimo, (also, doubtless, the work of Kyd,) and not to The Spanish Tragedy; but the discovery of Henslowe's papers leads to a contrary conclusion, and must set the point at rest. + It has been suggested by Hawkins, (Origin of the English Drama, ii. 198,) that Kyd also wrote Soliman and Perseda, 1599, and Malone has assigned to him, upon conjecture, the old Taming of a Shrew, 1594: they proceed, however, upon no facts, and there certainly is not anything like sufficient resemblance in point of style to warrant the belief, that Kyd was concerned in their authorship. in rhyme or prose. His oldest extant play, the first part of Jeronimo, (not published until 1605,) has about as much rhyme in it as blank-verse, and Kyd does not seem to have ventured then to run the risk of relinquishing a popular attraction. It is to be gathered from another passage in Cynthia's Revels, that the first part of Jeronimo' was brought upon the stage about the year 1588. Kyd was a poet of very considerable mind, and deserves, in some respects, to be ranked above more notorious contemporaries: his thoughts are often both new and natural; and if in his plays he dealt largely in blood and death, he only partook of the habit of the time, in which good sense and discretion were often outraged for the purpose of gratifying the crowd. In taste he is inferior to Peele, but in force and character he is his superior; and if Kyd's blankverse be not quite so smooth, it has decidedly more spirit, vigour, and variety. As a writer of blankverse, I am inclined, among the predecessors of Shakespeare, to give Kyd the next place to Marlow. The first part of Jeronimo' was only once printed, and certainly never attracted half the attention that was directed to The Spanish Tragedy. It is the first play upon record that bears evidence of having been written for a particular performer, a man of unusually small stature, and in many places this circumstance is brought forward*. The story is wanting in incident, * Hence it is evident, that if there be any truth in Dekker's assertion, |