The Press. — 1856-05-31 (London, England)

MAY 31, 1856.  itt atur t.  The Works of John Marston. Reprinted from the Earliest Editions. With Notes, and some Account of his Life and Writings, by J. 0. Halliwell, F.R.S , F.S.A. Three Vols. London : John Russell Smith. (Second Notice.) Floating reminiscences, rather than imitations, of Shakespeare may he frequently detected in Marston, as in nearly all these writers. Lamb says that the situation of Andrugio and Lucia, in Antonio and Mellida, when the banished Duke is cast upon the territory of his enemy, resembles that of Lear and Kent. But the resemblance is faint ; nor can Marston be charged with copying Shakespeare in this instance, Antonio and Mellida having appeared some three or four years before Lear. A much nearer resemblance may be traced in the Second Part of the same play, where the ghost of Antonio's father rises and exhorts his son to revenge his murder. This situation, which is finely conceived and exe• euted, was obviously suggested by Hamlet, upon which there can be no doubt the main idea of the tragedy is founded. Occasionally there are verbal echoes of familiar passages in Shakespeare, showing how current his words had become even in his own day. Whets Syphax soliloquises upon the wound his " reputation " has suffered, the lamentation of Cassia, although of a dilerent complexion, instantly recurs to the reader; and thus also we are reminded of Richard 111. when Massinissa rushes in wounded after a fatal charge, "in his "gorget and shirt," calling out for another horse : Mount us again; give us another horse ! Give me horse ! Know I sin Carthage every creature, and am graced That I may bleed for them. Give me fresh horse ! Again, when Gisco, the surgeon who has been employed to poison Massinissa, returns, having failed of his purpose : Ardroball. Gisco, is 't done ? Gisco. Your pardon, worthy lord, It is not done ; my heart sunk in my breast : His virtue mimed me, faintness seized nie all— Some god's in kings that will not let them fall. The speech of the King in Hamlet seems at once to suggest the original : Do not fear our person ; There's such divinity loth hedge a King, That treason can but peep to what it would, Acts little of his will. Turiiin,g from these slight points of resemblance, of which there are many examples, we will touch upon some peculiarities in Marston, for which it would not he very easy, we suspect, to find any parallels in Shakespeare. One of these peculiarities consists in a certain curtness of phrase by which he pounces, as it were, upon his object, producing rather a ludicrous effect when the subject happens to be serious. Thus Asdruball exclaims at the appioach of Gisco, See him by whom Massinissa is not; meaning thereby, see the man by whom Massinissa has ceased to live. This is a favorite form of expression. When Sophonisba discovers that she has been betrayed by her tire-woman, she calls upon Syphax to negative the young woman's existence, and Syphax re Joins in the same language : Sophonisba. Let her not be. Sypha.r. She is not! That is to say—" Kill her;" to which the other replies, "Consider it done !" Very often, too, in the haste of writing for the actors without any view to publication, Marston repeats himself. We have an instance of this in the two following passages:— Darkness is fled. Look! infant morn bath drawn Bright silver curtains 'bout the couch of night; And now Aurora's horse trots azure rings, Breathing fair light about the firmament. :The black jades of swart night trot foggy rings Bout heaven's brow. The same image, relieved of the verbal repetition, is given elsewhere with exquisite beauty of expression : For see, the dapple grey coursers of the morn Beat up the light with their bright silver hooves, And chase it through the sky.