The impression he made upon the men of his time was uniform; it was that of something new and strange; it was that of genius, in short. Drayton says of him, kindling to an unwonted warmth, as if he loosened himself for a moment from the choking coils of his Polyolbion for a larger breath:—
“Next Marlowe bathèd in the Thespian springs
Had in him those brave translunary things
That the first poets had; his raptures were
All air and fire, which made his verses clear;
For that fine madness still he did retain
Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain.”
And Chapman, taking up and continuing Marlowe’s half-told story of Hero and Leander, breaks forth suddenly into this enthusiasm of invocation:—
“Then, ho! most strangely intellectual fire
That, proper to my soul, hast power to inspire