The first great English poet was the father of English tragedy and thecreator of English blank verse. Chaucer and Spenser were great writersand great men: they shared between them every gift which goes to themaking of a poet except the one which alone can make a poet, in theproper sense of the word, great. Neither pathos nor humor nor fancy norinvention will suffice for that: no poet is great as a poet whom no onecould ever pretend to recognize as sublime. Sublimity is the test ofimagination as distinguished from invention or from fancy: and the firstEnglish poet whose powers can be called sublime was Christopher Marlowe.
The majestic and exquisite excellence of various lines and passages inMarlowe's first play must be admitted to relieve, if it cannot beallowed to redeem, the stormy monotony of Titanic truculence whichblusters like a simoom through the noisy course of its ten fierce acts.With many and heavy faults, there is something of genuine greatness in"Tamburlaine the Great"; and for two grave reasons it must always beremembered with distinction and mentioned with honor. It is the firstpoem ever written in English blank verse, as distinguished from mererhymeless decasyllabics; and it contains one of the noblestpassages—perhaps, indeed, the noblest in the literature of theworld—ever written by one of the greatest masters of poetry in lovingpraise of the glorious delights and sublime submission to theeverlasting limits of his