The re-edition of the classics of our literature proceeds apace
this year. Vol. III. of Messrs. Methuen's issue of the Works and Life of Christopher Marlowe has now appeared. It contains The Jew of Malta and The Massacre at Paris, both plays being edited by H. S. Bennett. These two plays have hitherto been much less accessible than the almost hackneyed Faustus and Edward II. As the editor says, " into The Jew Marlowe has poured much of his tremendous energy : the play is everywhere alive, even at these moments at which it most conflicts with our modern prepossessions." The first mention we have of both these plays is in the diary of that gossipy Elizabethan impresario Philip Henslowe, Alleyn's father-in-law, and the same worthy who jotted on the back of a letter, " Bought Shakespeare's Sonnets for fivepence." In this same spirit of enterprise he apparently was the first to produce these plays. In spite of their vigour, and of the demon-possessed genius of the poet who scribed them with a brush of comets' tail, they would make too blood-curdling a scene on the stage to please our modern stoniachs. The volumes are issued at 10s. 6d. each.
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