Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 002.djvu/29

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1817.]

On the Early English Dramatists.

21

quest by Messrs Cavendish and Gilpin, both of whom, it is remarkable, died before it was completed. It was of wood. But the first time it was sent to the depth of 300 fathoms, the wood swelled, opened, and became leaky, and the plate glass illuminators rent through the middle, whereby it was rendered useless. I therefore made a model of a similar instrument, got it cast in brass. It was well finished, and was a beautiful apparatus: it was provided with Six’s thermometer, and the valves of the original instrument. I cannot say whether the failure of the experiment, or the loss of the instrument, gave me the most concern. The line which broke was the thickest, and apparently the strongest of the whole series in use. A small portion, however, scarcely two inches in length, proved to have been injured by accidental moisture, and was rotten. Had it been as good as it appeared, it would have supported thrice the weight. The strain on the line certainly exceeded what I had calculated. The rope being thoroughly wetted, became nearly half as heavy in water as it was before in air. Thus terminates my experiments on the temperature of the sea at great depth.

I fear I shall have wearied you with this elaborate account of my mishap.

On account of the singular openness of the Greenland seas, I have twice (during my last voyage) penetrated to the longitude of 10° W. when the weather was foggy, and once to 10½° W. when the weather was Clear; on which last occasion (July 29-30) the coast of West Greenland, rarely before seen by any British Navigator, was in sight. According to our best, and indeed only authorities, the Dutch, the east coast of W. Greenland is laid down in longitude 4° or 5° W. from Greenwich, in the latitude of 75° to 76½°; its situation, by the Dutch, is very erroneous. I had good sight of the chronometer in 5¼°, 7½°, and 9° 33 W. immediately previous to each of the occasions in which we penetrated so far as 10° and 10½° W. Hence I am assured, that the land lies further to the westward than 11° W. in each parallel of latitude between 74° and 76° N. It is probably as far west as 14-15° in the parallel of 74°, which I saw it. The ice in this situation was mostly muddy, and black with dirt on the edges, as it had recently rubbed against the shore. We were sixteen days navigating between the meridians of 5½° and 10° W. without even being able to see four miles for fog; and frequently the mist was so thick for forty-eight hours together, that we could not see objects at the distance of a hundred yards. At these times, when we had light winds, we sometimes groped as it were through the ice for a few hours in the day, but generally moved in the evening, and in fresh winds. It was in longitude 4° 44 W. that I lost my marine diver and apparatus.—I am, my dear sir, your most obedient servant, Wm Scoresby, jun.

ANALYTICAL ESSAYS ON THE EARLY ENGLISH DRAMATISTS.

No II.

Edward II.—Marlow.^[1]

[We have been promised, by a gentle man distinguished for his knowledge of old English Literature, a series of Essays on the early Dramatists. The first essay of the series (on the "Faustus" of Marlow) appeared in the fourth Number of the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, and they will be regularly continued in this publication.]

This, we think, is decidedly the best of all Marlow’s plays, and is entitled to rank with the finest historical

↑ Christopher Marlow was born in the reign of Edward VI., and, according to Oldys, educated at Bennet College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of Master of Arts in 1587. His parentage is unknown, and also the reasons which induced him to leave the University—to abandon the destination for which he seems, from the nature of his education, to have been intended—and to try his fortune on the stage. Langbaine says, generally, that "he trod the stage with applause;" but it does not appear that he was greatly distinguished as an actor. Few men have received such lofty encomiums from contemporary Wits; and high as his poetical powers unquestionably were, they seem to have been somewhat over-rated. Ben Jonson, in his lines to the memory of Shakespeare, speaks of Marlow's "mighty line," an expression which Schlegel, the celebrated German critic, thinks altogether unapplicable. Ben Jonson held rather singular critical opinions on many subjects; and certainly the epithet "mighty" cannot, with peculiar propriety, be applied to the character either of his thought or ex-

[1] Christopher Marlow was born in the reign of Edward VI., and, according to Oldys, educated at Bennet College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of Master of Arts in 1587. His parentage is unknown, and also the reasons which induced him to leave the University—to abandon the destination for which he seems, from the nature of his education, to have been intended—and to try his fortune on the stage. Langbaine says, generally, that "he trod the stage with applause;" but it does not appear that he was greatly distinguished as an actor. Few men have received such lofty encomiums from contemporary Wits; and high as his poetical powers unquestionably were, they seem to have been somewhat over-rated. Ben Jonson, in his lines to the memory of Shakespeare, speaks of Marlow's "mighty line," an expression which Schlegel, the celebrated German critic, thinks altogether unapplicable. Ben Jonson held rather singular critical opinions on many subjects; and certainly the epithet "mighty" cannot, with peculiar propriety, be applied to the character either of his thought or ex-

[1]