The scene of these two plays, which are substantially one, takes in the whole period of time from the hero’s first conquest till his death; so that the action ranges at large over divers kingdoms and empires.  Except the hero, there is little really deserving the name of characterization, this being a point of art which Marlowe had not yet reached, and which he never attained but in a moderate degree, taking Shakespeare as the standard.  But the hero is drawn with grand and striking proportions, and perhaps seems the larger, that the bones of his individuality stand out in undue prominence; the author lacking that balance of powers which is requisite, to produce the symmetry and roundness met with in the higher forms of Nature.  And he knew not, apparently, how to express the hero’s greatness in word, but by making him bethump the stage with tempestuous verbiage; which, to be sure, is not the style of greatness at all, but only of one trying to be great, and trying to be so, because he is not so.  For to talk big is the instinct of ambitious littleness.  But Tamburlaine is also represented in act as a most magnanimous prodigy:  amidst his haughtiest strides of conquest, we have strains of gentleness mingling with his iron sternness; and he everywhere appears lifted high with generous passions and impulses:  if he regards not others, he is equally ready to sacrifice himself, his ease, pleasure, and even life, in his prodigious lust of glory.

As to the rest, this drama consists rather of a long series of speeches than any genuine dialogue.  And the persons all speak from one brain, the hero talking just like the others, only more so; as if the author had no way to discriminate character but by different degrees of the same thing:  in which respect the work has often reminded me of divers more civilized stage preparations, such as Addison’s Cato, Young’s Revenge, et id genus omne.  For the proper constituent of dramatic dialogue is, that the persons strike fire out of each other by their sharp collisions of thought, so that their words relish at once of the individual speaking and the individual spoken to.  Moreover the several parts of this work are not moulded together in any thing like vital unity; the materials seem bundled up arbitrarily, and for stage effect, instead of being assorted on any principle of organic coherence; every thing thus going by the author’s will, not by any law of reason or art.  But this is a high region, from which there was in that age but one man big enough to be seen; so it’s no use speaking of the rest.  Therewithal the work affects us, throughout, as a dead-level of superlatives; everywhere we have nearly the same boisterous wind of tragical storm-and-stress:  so that the effect is much like that of a picture all foreground, with no perspective, no proportionateness of light and shade, to give us distinct impressions.