We are not aware that any old English version of this “History of Dr. Faustus” is now extant; that from which Mr. Dyce quotes is of 1648.  Marlowe’s tragedy was first entered in the Stationers’ books in 1600-1, but brought upon the stage many years before.  In 1597, it had already been played so often that additions were required.  Philips, who wrote about fifty years later, remarks, that, “of all that Marlowe hath written to the stage, his ‘Dr. Faustus’ has made the greatest noise with its devils and such-like tragical sport.”  In course of time it was “made into a farce, with the Humors of Harlequin and Scaramouch,” and represented through the whole kingdom, like similar compositions, with immense applause.

Marlowe’s “Faustus” has been judged rather favorably by modern English critics.  Mr. Hazlitt calls it, “though an imperfect and unequal performance, Marlowe’s greatest work.”  Mr. Hallam remarks,—­“There is an awful melancholy about Marlowe’s Mephistopheles, perhaps more impressive than the malignant mirth of that fiend in the renowned work of Goethe.”  Charles Lamb even preferred Marlowe’s “Faustus,” as a whole, to the latter!  Mr. Collier calls it “a drama of power, novelty, interest, and variety.”  So, indeed, it is; but all that power, interest, novelty, and variety do not belong to Marlowe, but to the prose romance, after which he wrote.  Indeed, he followed it so closely,—­as every reader can see for himself, by reading the play in Dyce’s edition, and comparing it with the notes under the text,—­that sometimes whole scenes are copied, and even whole speeches, as, for instance, that of the Emperor Charles V. The coarse buffoonery, in particular, of which the work is full, is retained word for word.  Of the countless absurdities and prolixities of the Volksbuch, Marlowe has, of course, omitted a great deal, and condensed the story to the tenth part of its original length; but the fundamental idea, the plot, and the characters, belong exclusively to the original.  Marlowe’s poetical merit lies partly in the circumstance that he was the first to feel the depth and power of that idea, partly in the thoughts and pictures with which some speeches, principally the monologues of Faustus himself, are interwoven.  The Faustus of Marlowe is the Faust of the legend, tired of learning because it is so unproductive, and selling his soul, not for knowledge, but for wealth and power.  His investigating conversations with Mephistopheles, his inquiries, and the answers of the latter, are almost as shallow and childish as those in the People’s Book; and Faustus himself remarks, on the information which his companion gives him,—­

  “Those slender trifles Wagner could decide;
  Has Mephistopheles no greater skill?”