That is 'brilliant' but this is 'great,' indeed magnificent, of the Sea:—
"Loe the Sea that fleets about the Land,
And like a girdle clips her solide waist,
Musicke and measure both doth vnderstand;
For his great chrystall eye is always cast
Vp to the Moone, and on her fixèd fast;
And as she daunceth in her pallid spheere,
So daunceth he about her Center heere." (p. 179.)
I know not where, outside of Milton, to match that personification of the Sea, with its "great chrystall eye"; and 'palid' is as tenderly delicate as the other is grand. Coleridge must have carried it in his omniverous memory, for surely one of the most memorable of the stanzas in his "Ancient Mariner" drew its inspiration thence, as thus:—
"Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the Moon is cast—
If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him." (Pt. VI.)
At this point it may interest some to read Sir John Harington's welcome to the Poet on the publication of 'Orchestra', thus:—
Of Master John Dauies Booke of Dancing. To Himselfe.
While you the Planets all doe set to dancing,
Beware such hap, as to the Fryer was chancing:
Who preaching in a Pulpit old and rotten,
Among some notes, most fit to be forgotten:
Vnto his Auditory thus he vaunts,
To make all Saints after his pype to dance:
It speaking, which as he himselfe aduances,
To act his speech with gestures, lo, it chances,
Downe fals the Pulpit, sore the man is brusèd,
Neuer was Fryer and Pulpit more abusèd.
Then beare with me, though yet to you a stranger,
To warne you of the like, nay greater danger.
For though none feare the falling of those sparkes,
(And when they fall, t'will be good catching Larkes)
Yet this may fall, that while you dance and skip,
With female Planets, sore your foote may trip,
That in your lofty Caprioll and turne
Their motion may make your dimension burne." (Epigrams, Book II. 67.)
I am tempted to further critical examination of this very remarkable Poetry; but feel constrained by already transgressed limits to withhold them for the present. But I must say something on the Epigrams and Minor Poems. I have 'compunctious visitings' in re-publishing them, even though they have been included by Dyce and by Colonel Cunningham in their successive editions of Marlowe. In my Note (Vol. II., pp. 3-6), I give bibliographical and other details concerning these Epigrams; and I correct a mis-assignation of certain by Dyce to Davies that belong to Henry Hutton. It must be conceded that the Epigrams have dashes of the roughness, even coarseness, of the age. They self-drevealingly belong to the wild-oats sowing of the Poet's youthful period. Nevertheless, I have ventured their reproduction in integrity for four reasons:—
(a) These Epigrams, from their subjects and style, are valuable, as expressing the tone of society at the time.
(b) It would be suppressio veri to withhold them, toward an accurate estimate of their Author. They furnish elements of judgment.