Part 14

He would have continued, but Peele interrupted: “Hold! you have put similar language in the mouth of Edward II, descriptive of his desire for the shortening of time before battle. I recollect it well; thus:

‘Gallop apace, bright Phoebus, through the sky; And dusky night in rusty iron car, Between you both shorten the time, I pray, That I may see that most desired day.’”

“Well?” exclaimed Marlowe.

“You must change it,” said Shakespere.

“Why should I?” retorted Marlowe, “a man cannot commit plagiary on his own writings; and, although the style of composition is similar, and the figure is used in both places to rail against the slowness of time, you must acknowledge that they are both appropriate in their places.”

“Now this has brought me to the very subject which I came here to talk over with you,” responded Peele.

“Ah, so you are the first one to draw the sword? Has the presentment of my latest drama at the Rose awakened thy unfavorable opinion? Was the fault with the players or with myself?”

“Your work improves with every line you write,” said Peele, enthusiastically, “but still with all the increase of learning displayed, the growing compactness of expression, the sustained fire, the maturity of thought, the diverseness of opinion, the wondrous expanse of human horizon disclosed,--thy style is stamped indisputably upon every passage.”

“So! I have labored to change it.”

“Marry, but thou hast not” [note 41].

“Then it is like my skin, a part of me.”

“No more to be changed than thy countenance, it seems, which with age and experience may get new lines and grow wiser looking, but still shows the old familiar expressions with every change of feeling.”

“Then there is no help.”

“But thou must change thy methods of treatment of some subjects.”

“Again I ask, why should I?”

Peele surveyed him like a father might his recreant son, and Shakespere slowly shook his head as though the case were one beyond all cure, exclaiming as he did so: “Why, man, for thine own safety.”

“Is that in danger?”

“It will be,” continued Peele, “Gabriel Harvey and George Chapman were in my hearing discussing the drama of Titus Andronicus as presented by the Earl of Sussex’ actors at the Rose, a week since; and, although the play was sold to Henslowe, as one written by Shakespere, Harvey swore it must be thine.”

“And what said Chapman,” interrupted Marlowe.

“He said, ‘Most damnably like Marlowe’s, but certain it is that it was not among his posthumous effects, and it was never presented under his name, nor before his death.’”

“And what said Harvey?”

“He said truly that if thou didst not write it, then this fellow Shakespere had caught thy very trick of hand.”

At this remark, Shakespere laughed so heartily that even the others had to join with him.

“Apt critics, these,” said Marlowe, “’tis strange that they should see resemblances between that play and any of my acknowledged works.”

“Bah,” returned Peele, “no one so blind as a mother to the faults of her child. Strange? Why that play is full of thine old spirit. Here, give me thy copy of it, and of thy Jew of Malta.”

Marlowe turned to a chest beside his table and drew forth two rolls of manuscript. He handed them to Peele, who opened the Jew of Malta at the second act, and read:

“As for myself I walk abroad o’ nights And kill sick people groaning under walls: Sometimes I go about and poison wells:

* * * * *

And always kept the sexton’s arms in ure With digging graves and ringing dead men’s knells:

* * * * *

And every moon made some or other mad, And now and then one hang himself for grief. Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll How I with interest tormented him.”

“And now,” he continued, “see how thou hast imitated thy early and immature work almost to an echo.”

He unrolled the manuscript of Titus Andronicus at the fifth act, and read:

“Oft have I digged up dead men from their graves And set them upright at their dear friends’ doors, Even when their sorrows almost were forgot; And on their skins as on the bark of trees, Have with my knife carved in Roman letters, ‘Let not your sorrow die though I am dead.’ Tut! I have done a thousand dreadful things, As willingly as one would kill a fly.”

“Now in this same play, thou hast given us the very echo of Tamburlaine and his queen Zenocrate. The scene where Tamora first appears to the emperor is couched in identical language with the one where Zenocrate is given the crown by the king; and again in the first act of the first part of Henry VI you treat the death of Joan in the same manner as you do the death of Zenocrate. No servile imitator could have more carefully copied his master.”

“His very trick of hand,” drawled Shakespere.

Marlowe did not reply, but continued a rapt listener while his friend went on with increasing ardor:

“In act II of Titus Andronicus you write of the golden sun galloping ‘the zodiac in his glistening coach,’ as though in your ears still rattled ‘ugly darkness with her rusty coach,’ as you have described the night in act V of the first part of Tamburlaine and again in Edward II. If thou must take the most striking passages of thy Tamburlaine, and cut from them scraps and pieces upon which to pad out these later dramas, thou should be more circumspect in their use. If thou art not, one of two things will surely follow, thy friend here, who stands as thy mask, will be dubbed a plagiarist of vilest sort, or all these plays will be proclaimed thine.”

“Save me from such a calumny,” exclaimed Shakespere, “and Peele speaks truth, for a tempest has already begun to brew. But that is my story, and I must not break the thread of Peele’s argument.”

“Well! And what if the plays are proclaimed mine as you mention?” asked Marlowe.

“Why, thy existence will be discovered, for both Chapman and Nash know the full list of your works. Perhaps more know it. The report of thy death is loose and has not been widely circulated. Harvey attributed it to the plague.”

“Yes,” said Shakespere, “he wrote that ‘gogle-eyed sonnet’ about you in September, 1593, containing the line, ‘He and the plague contended for the game,’ and how the ‘graund disease’ smiled at your ‘Tamburlaine contempt,’ and ‘sternly struck home.’”

“Enough of that!” exclaimed Marlowe, impatiently, “I shall yet get even with that villainous sonneteer.”

“But to return to that description of night in act V of the first part of Tamburlaine,” said Peele, “there, the horses that drag the night, ‘from their nostrils breathe rebellious winds and dreadful thunder claps;’ while in the second part of Henry VI, the same old horses ‘from their misty jaws breathe foul contagious darkness in the air.’ The method of description and the figures of speech are the same, and you personify the same objects.”

“Well, it is a favorite description of mine for night, and as my attention is called to it, I now remember that in my Hero and Leander, ‘the night * * * heaved up her head and breathed darkness forth.’[28] This is the last time that I shall use the figure.”

“Well, that passage from Henry VI,” resumed Peele, “that I have just alluded to is also like another in Tamburlaine, beginning: ‘Black is the beauty of the brightest day’” [note 42].

“Possibly they are open to criticism. I shall revise, and in future labor toward perfection in word condensation,” said Marlowe, “but I cannot destroy all the well turned lines. For instance, there is the same spirit breathing through the verses for the friar Laurence, beginning ‘The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning light;’ but how can I curtail, how remodel with hope of preserving their beauty? You may assert that such lines echo with the music of Hero and Leander, and with them draw a close parallel to the passage in the latter, where Apollo’s golden harp aroused Hesperus, but I shall not change them. The critics may have food for thought and they may grow strong enough upon it to be formidable, but so long as I write of love, the lines must be cast in the purest mould that I am capable of using.”

“Then destroy thy Ovid and Homer, and go back to Seneca; read Plutarch and Holinshed. Thou hast written love tragedies and historical plays; take thy Faustus for the model of a drama of stern and darkened life.”

“Shall it be tragedy?”

“Yes, the darkest picture of thy mind.”

“My own bitter experiences.”

“Have it so if thou wilt,” returned Peele, “it is only he who has drained the cup of deepest sorrow and felt the tooth of adversity, that can draw such a picture.”

And so the figure of the melancholy Dane arose, the perfect embodiment at that period of the oppressed writer. Not at one stroke did it rise into its present almost palpable form, but under the labor of years in which the less intense plays were produced.

It was now suggested that the remainder of the evening be spent in Tamworth’s room, and as it then appeared too late for any of the lawyer’s friends to seek admittance, the three men passed into the king’s chamber. It was empty, but the burning lamp showed that Tamworth had withdrawn for a short time only. After having admitted Peele and Shakespere, he had gone to a neighboring ordinary for a late repast. The fire had smoldered to ashes on the hearth, but its recent blaze had so cut the chill of the room that it was on an even temperature with that of the fire-lighted oratory. They gathered around the black table below the suspended lamp.

“Now,” said Marlowe, addressing Shakespere, “what is thy report from Henslowe upon the two acts of Romeo and Juliet and its proposed completion?”

“Unfavorable,” answered Shakespere, “he has flatly refused to accept it.”

“Why, ’tis surely stronger and more dramatic than Titus Andronicus, for which he paid us ten pounds, and that has now been on the boards of the Rose for two months. It must be that Henslowe is not only losing the little ability of criticism he once possessed, but his business sense as well. What has brought about the change? Hast thou any idea?”

“I went in to him, as heretofore,” began Shakespere, “and in great easy chairs, where full the blazing light of a crackling chimney-fire fell upon them, sat Henslowe and the late strolling-player, Jonson. I know not by what means Jonson hath the ear, and aye, the heart, of the manager of the Rose; but clear proof of it was shown. Henslowe waved me to a chair, but Jonson ignored my presence.” ‘Mr. Shakespere,’ said Henslowe, nodding to Jonson, and then the latter said, ‘I have heard of him,’ and I, ‘Ben Jonson, late returned from the Low Countries,’ and at that Jonson glared at me as though my presence were scarcely sufferable and my voice intolerable.

“‘Prut!’ exclaimed Henslowe, noticing the ill manner of his companion and showing disapproval. Then turning his attention to the servant, he said, ‘Fill one more. Our friend must crush a cup of wine with us.’ This the servant did from a bottle of finest canary from the sideboard which blazed with gilded, silver and gold ware.

“Henslowe had a cup of yellow wine close beside him, and so had Jonson. The face of the former appeared unusually complacent; and nothing, through the medium of his eyes alone could have disturbed his supreme felicity, for thou knoweth the richness of the tapestries of that pleasing den of the opulent manager of the Rose; the works of art upon its walls; the grand display of his costly libraries of unread books; the softness of its Turkish carpets and of its upholstered furniture. The insidious workings of canary wine were for peace and rest.

“I would fain have withdrawn, but being there on thy behalf, I put on a face of unconcern, and sat with back toward Jonson. Methinks the wine had stirred his wits and made him keen for controversy.”

“And fairly gifted he is in such line.”

“As I soon discovered, for before I had time to say to Henslowe the words, ‘To thy good health,’ as I drank, Jonson said, ‘And what cares he for blood when wine will quench his thirst.’ Thus beginning with a sly sneer at Tamburlaine.”

“He evidently considers Shakespere an imitator of the dead Marlowe,” said Peele, looking at Marlowe.

“Not necessarily,” remarked Marlowe, “I hardly think that the passage from Tamburlaine was in his mind. He had evidently just read the first scene of Romeo and Juliet, where the prince rebukes his subjects for quenching their rage ‘With purple fountains issuing from your veins.’”[29]

“Ah! there it is again,” exclaimed Peele.

“Well, I paid no attention to Jonson, but addressed myself to Henslowe. The upshot of the matter was that he wanted no more plays with plots laid in foreign lands.”

“You are right,” interrupted Marlowe, “he is under Jonson’s influence.”

“Jonson had much to say in the conversation. At one time he asked me if I did not think I was following too closely the ‘mighty lines’ of Marlowe to ever be deemed anything more than a mere imitator, and he whipped out this paper, which he said I might keep for future reference, and as a warning that his eyes were open. He either knew that what he had read of Romeo and Juliet was written by thee, Marlowe, or he wanted no thefts to be made from his own plays. This is his arraignment:

‘If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.’

--Romeo and Juliet, ii, 1.

Love moderately, long love doth so.

--Romeo and Juliet, ii, 6.

Love goes toward love.

--Romeo and Juliet, ii, 2.

And what love can do, that dares love attempt.

--Romeo and Juliet, ii, 2.

Whoever loved that loved not at first sight.

--Hero and Leander.

Love me little, love me long.

--Jew of Malta, iv.

With love and patience let your true love die.

--II Tamburlaine, ii, 4.

‘Poor Poet-Ape, that would be thought our chief, Whose works are e’en the frippery of wit, From brockage is become so bold a thief, As we, the robbed, leave rage, and pity it.’

* * * * *

He marks not whose ’twas first; and after-times May judge it to be his, as well as ours. Fool! as if half eyes will not know a fleece From locks of wool, or shreds from the whole piece!

--Ben. Jonson.”

“Then following this exhibition, Jonson said, ’Thou hast not yet begun to put thyself forward publicly as a dramatist, Mr. Shakespere, for I notice that Titus Andronicus has been printed with no name of author on the title page. Art thou afraid of acknowledging it? Edward II is also out, but Marlowe’s name is on it’ [notes 27 and 28]. At this I turned upon him and said, ‘I like not thy insinuations; and thy questions are impertinent. It is too plain that this rejection of my play is due to your influence. Some one is blind to his own interests, and that is you, Henslowe.’ The latter did not stir, and I continued, ‘I know what enormous profits have been reaped upon plays of this character, and there are other theatrical managers, thank God! in London.’”

“Good,” exclaimed Peele.

“And what manager hadst thou in mind,” asked Marlowe.

“Myself,” said Shakespere, quietly.

“Thou!” exclaimed the others.

“Yes. I shall at once lease the Green Curtaine that is now closed, and produce thy plays there, Marlowe. A fortune can soon be reaped from such venture” [note 43].

At this moment the sound of a key turning in the lock of the door came to their ears. It was Tamworth returning, they thought. Then, the door swung back, and the figures of four men appeared at the open threshold and crowded into the room.

DEATH TO THY CLIENT OR MINE.

_Go, wander, free from fear of tyrant’s rage,_ _Removed from the torments and the hell,_ _Wherewith he may excruciate thy soul._

--_I Tamburlaine, iii, 3._

_Go cross the seas,_ _And live with Richmond from the reach of hell._ _Go, hie thee, hie thee, from this slaughter house_ _Lest thou increase the number of the dead._

--_Richard III, iv, 1._

Although the jury had decided against Bame, their verdict had not swayed his counsel, Eliot, in his opinion that the prisoner was innocent and that there was still an avenue of escape. But this avenue must be opened. The key would undoubtedly be found in newly discovered evidence. None could be produced except that of the mysterious man who was in the chantry with Bame. It might be that he had lost his life amid the flames of the church, but Eliot was hopeful of the contrary.

As narrated, the barrister had sought this absent witness before the trial, but without avail. Now, having procured a stay of the execution of the sentence, pending proceedings for a new trial, he began an exhaustive search. The sexton of the church stated that the door to the burial plot had been locked on the night of the fire, and so had the front entrance on the Old Jewry. There had been no other outer doors. The windows had been too high for entrance and most difficult for exit. Had there been any other passage way? The sexton knew of none. A search was instituted for the body of the missing man. None was discovered in the chantry, whose marble floor still remained intact. Here the matter rested for a short time. What the searching party failed to discover, a blundering workman brought to light. In clearing the ruins, he broke, with a blow of his pick, a marble slab into a hundred pieces. This was in the chancel and was the slab covering the passage to the Prince’s wardrobe. Eliot was at once informed of the discovery, and he succeeded in keeping the matter quiet while he placed a sleepless watcher at the further end of the passage. The report was soon made to Eliot that some stranger inhabited with Tamworth the apartments wherein the passageway terminated. The reason of this stranger’s seclusion was not apparent; but Eliot became fixed in his idea that the witness for Bame was within reach. He laid his plans accordingly, and one evening he entered the Red Lion ordinary on Cattes street, where he had been informed that Tamworth was eating a late supper. Presuming upon a slight acquaintance, Eliot accosted him and accepted his invitation to sit and drink. Two men, who had closely followed him in, seated themselves at a table at some distance directly behind him.

The barristers had been talking for some time on town and state topics, and Tamworth had nearly finished his repast, when Eliot suddenly dropped their discussion over a late rigorous enactment of Parliament, and said:

“Who is the man who lives with you in the Prince’s Wardrobe?”

If a cocked pistol had been presented at the head of Tamworth by this man who sat opposite him across the narrow table, it would have created in his mind little, if any, more commotion. He lost his grasp on his knife and fork and gazed fixedly at his fellow barrister. The latter’s frame was joggled by a low explosion of satisfaction which sounded like “Huh!”

He returned Tamworth’s gaze, and asked: “Well?”

“Pardon me,” said Tamworth, “I failed to hear your remark or question. I just noticed the Duke of Essex drive by in his imported carriage. Hark the cries you now hear are from workingmen cursing the patronage of foreign manufacturers.”

“Are you sure it was not my question that disconcerted you?” asked Eliot, with a smile.

“You are amusing,” returned Tamworth. “Do you not notice the open door behind you? Look, and you will see the link lights borne above the passing carriage.”

“That is of no importance,” responded Eliot. “There is little need to ask again who is with thee at the wardrobe, for thy face shows that the subject is of much concern.”

“There is no one with me there except on occasions when friends drop in,” answered Tamworth, who had not recovered from the effect of Eliot’s startling question. Then he asked with composure:

“Why do you ask?”

“Have you ever heard of Richard Bame?” returned Eliot.

“Yes,” answered Tamworth, feeling as though the table were sinking under his elbows, “as I have heard of his late trial in the Old Bailey. In what way is that name connected with the subject of our conversation?”

“I am his counsel,” answered Eliot.

“And!--” ejaculated Tamworth.

“As such I am looking for the sole witness who can testify to his innocence.”

“From the report of the trial,” said Tamworth, “I suppose that the man you seek is the one who was within the lighted chantry, as seen by the boy witness. Is it not more than probable that he did not escape from the burning church?”

“He did escape,” interrupted Eliot, and with a face upon which a knowing expression was displayed, he continued looking at Tamworth.

“Then why did the police not capture him?” inquired Tamworth, as though the question were a poser.

“He did not pass out by the front entrance,” said Eliot.

“Ah, by a window, then? Or by the door into the church-yard.”

“Nay,” said Eliot, “his escape could possibly have been by such means of exit, but there was another avenue for flight and he used it.”

“So,” exclaimed Tamworth, “this is interesting; go on!”

“Not as interesting as the recital would be to the ignorant,” said Eliot, with voice which did not, like his expanded nostrils, give evidence of his superior position in the discussion.

“What do you mean?” demanded Tamworth, indignantly.

“I have already gone too far,” answered Eliot. “May I accompany you to your lodgings?”

Excellent actor though he was, Tamworth could not prevent his face displaying the disconcertion of his mind. A pallid hue spread over his forehead and cheeks. It was evident to him that either the keepers of the building, of which he was a tenant, had been gossiping concerning their suspicions that he was not alone in the chamber of the king, or the workmen amid the ruins of the leveled church had discovered the secret passage. In either case, was Eliot talking upon actual knowledge that Marlowe was within the Prince’s Wardrobe, or was he seeking for such knowledge? There was no doubt that Eliot had well founded suspicions. In this state of mind, Tamworth answered:

“You say you have proceeded too far. If you mean in talk, it is idle to dispute such assertion, for there is nothing yet to talk about; if, on the contrary, you refer to the distance that you have come from your home to this ordinary, there is still no answer necessary, for in the latter case you speak truth.”

Eliot returned no answer, but looking over his shoulder, motioned to the two men who had followed him in and were seated at a distant table. They seemed on the alert for this signal, for they immediately arose and came toward him. They were attired in the garb of the police, or watchmen, only upon this occasion they wore short swords instead of carrying halberds, and a heavy pistol was strapped to the waist of each. Tamworth saw them approach, and attempting a smile, he asked Eliot:

“What does this mean?”

“Oh, not for thee, most assuredly,” answered Eliot. “I asked if I might go with you to your quarters. The purpose is to find the man who was with Bame in the church of St. Olave. The secret passageway was discovered a few days ago, and it has been explored to the heavy door which closes it, and which I have ascertained is directly below your windows. I also know that a man answering to Bame’s description of his companion on that eventful night is one of the occupants of the king’s ancient chamber. We have fair information as to just how the corridors run and the rooms are located, and could proceed without thee. You will come with us, will you not?”

During this recital Tamworth’s face became the picture of despair, and at the close he exclaimed, decidedly, “Not one step!”

“Then we go alone, and shall use force if necessary.”

“At your peril,” responded Tamworth, “I do not propose to have my home ransacked on such frivolous pretext. And, again, you have no warrant for such proposed outrage.”

“Here is the search warrant,” said one of the officers, displaying the writ.