Notes and Queries, Number 176, March 12, 1853 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.

The Rev. Mr. Dyce omits the play of Lust's Dominion, or the Lascivious Queen , from the excellent, and (in all other respects) complete edition of Marlowe's Works which he has lately published, considering it to have been distinctly shown by Mr. Collier that it could not have been the work of that poet. I must say, however, that the argument for its rejection does not appear to me by any means conclusive. It runs thus: in the first act is presented the death of a certain King Philip of Spain; and this King Philip must be Philip II., because in a tract printed in the Somers' Collection , giving an account of the last words of that monarch, are found passages which are plainly copied in the play. Now, Philip II. did not die till 1598, and the tract was not published till 1599, whereas Marlowe's death took place in 1593. Ergo , Marlowe could not have written Lust's Dominion . But we know that it was the constant custom of managers to cause acting plays to be altered and added to from time to time: the curious Diary of Manager Henslowe is full of entries of the payment of sums of twenty shillings or so, to the authors whom he kept, for adycyons to the works of others. And surely it is no forced hypothesis to suppose that some literary cobbler employed to touch up Marlowe's work, finding a King Philip in it, should have thought to improve and give it an air of historic truth, by introducing the circumstances furnished by the pamphlet into the death-scene. Apart from these particulars, the king is neither Philip I. nor Philip II., but a mere King Philip of Spain in general, quite superior to historical considerations. The positive evidence in support of Marlowe's authorship is tolerably strong, though not absolutely conclusive. The earliest extant edition of the play bears his name at full length on the title-page. It is true that the date of that edition is 1650, sixty-six years after his death: still the publisher must have had some reasonable ground for attributing the work to him; and in all cases comparatively little value ought to be attached to negative, when opposed by positive evidence. We