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MARLOWE AND HIS INFLUENCE.

Mr. Peattie Lectures Entertainingly Before the Chautauqua College.

Members of the Chautauqua college who were so fortunate as to attend the session of the society at the parlors of the First Methodist church last night enjoyed a rare literary treat. The principal speaker was Mr. Robert B. Peattie, who, for half an hour, held the attention of the audience to a scholarly and most interesting lecture, entitled: "Marlowe and His Influence on the Contemporary Stage."

In his lecture Mr. Peattie showed how Christopher Marlowe influenced the stage in the time of Elizabeth, and though he preceded Shakespeare and lacked that poet's catholic genius, he held the light which enabled the latter to put the drama in the front rank of English literature.

The boldness, the genius, the master mind of Marlowe were presented. The lecturer claimed for Marlowe the honor of introducing blank verse into English dramatic composition. He gave numerous illustrations and furnished suggestions for further study along this line.

In closing Mr. Peattie had this to say of Marlowe: "If he had lived longer or had not lived at all are contingencies which mean much in considering the Shakespearean drama. He was the son of mean parents, but managed to pick up a smattering of university education. He was a born bohemian and he was a part of the most interesting and disreputable life of the period. His contemporaries and the writers of our own day have showered upon him posthumous praise in verse and prose, but his deathless fame is preserved by the results of his genius."