of it."* — " Possibly," observes Mr. Collier, "one of the ' lying' portions of it, in the opinion of Nash, was that in which an attack was made upon Shakespeare," +—a remark which somewhat surprises me. Nothing can be plainer than that Greene wrote the passage in question with a perfect knowledge that those whom he addressed, viz. Marlowe, Lodge, and Peele, were no less jealous of the "Shakescene " than himself, and that they would relish the sneering allusion to one who had given evidence of possessing a dramatic power which in its full developement might reduce the whole band of earlier play-wrights to comparative insignificance. There is, therefore, no likelihood that Nash, the companion of Greene, Marlowe, Lodge, and Peele, and he too a writer for the stage, would have beheld the bright dawn of Shakespeare's genius with feelings more liberal than theirs. But, however he may have felt towards Shakespeare, I cannot doubt that when he mentioned the Groatsworth of Wit in the terms above cited, he was thinking only of the probable consequences of such a publication to himself: he was vexed and irritated because its disclosures concerning men with whom he was well known to have associated, — the dead Greene, and the still-living Marlowe,· had a strong tendency to injure his own character; and he boldly pronounced it to be a "lying pamphlet," in the hope of shaking its credit with the world.

"A priuate Epistle to the Printer," prefixed to the sec. ed. of Pierce Pennilesse his Supplication to the Diuell, 1592 (I quote from ed. 1595).

+ Introd. to Nash's Pierce Penniless's Supp. &c. p. xvii, ed. Shake. Soc.

+ After Greene's death, Nash was anxious to persuade the public that no great intimacy had subsisted between them; but he was obliged to allow that he had been Greene's companion "at that fatall banquet of Rhenish wine and pickled hearing," of which Greene surfeited and died: see Nash's Strange Newes, &c, 1592, Sigs. E 4, H, L 4.

That Greene's exhortation, " to be warned by his harms" had no effect on Marlowe, is but too certain. Greene had not been a year in the grave, when Marlowe perished by a violent death in the very prime of manhood. This catastrophe occurred at Deptford; where in the burial-register of the parish-church of St. Nicholas may still be read the entry, "Christopher Marlow, slaine by ffrancis Archer, the 1 of June, 1593."*—In Beard's Theatre of God's Judgements, 1597, we have the following account. "Not inferior to any of the former in atheisme and impietie, and equal to al in maner of punishment, was one of our own nation, of fresh and late memorie, called Marlin [in the margin Marlow], by profession a scholler, brought vp from his youth in the Vniuersitie of Cambridge, but by practise a play-maker and a poet of scurrilitie, who by giuing too large a swing to his owne wit, and suffering his lust to haue. the full reines, fell (not without just desert) to that outrage and extremitie, that hee denied God and his sonne Christ, and not onely in word blasphemed the Trinitie, but also (as it is credibly reported) wrote bookes against it, affirming our Sauiour to be but a deceiuer, and Moses to be but a coniurer and seducer of the people, and the holy Bible to bee but vaine and idle stories, and all religion but a deuice of policie. But see what a hooke the Lord put in the nostrils of this barking dogge! So it fell out, that as he purposed to stab one whom he ought a grudge vnto, with his dagger, the other party perceiuing so auoyded the stroke, that withall catching hold of his wrest, hee stabbed his owne dagger into his owne head, in such sort that, notwithstanding all the meanes of surgerie that could bee wrought, hee shortly after died thereof; the manner of his death being so terrible (for hee euen cursed and blasphemed to his last gaspe, and together with his breath an

This entry (which I have myself examined) was first given to the public by a writer in a periodical work called The British Stage (No. for January 1821).

d

oath flew out of his mouth), that it was not only a manifest
signe of Gods judgement, but also an horrible and fearefull
terror to all that beheld him. But herein did the justice of
God most notably appeare, in that hee compelled his owne
hand, which had written those blasphemies, to bee the in-
strument to punish him, and that in his braine which had
deuised the same.' - Meres, in his Palladis Tamia, &c,
1598, after referring to the passage of Beard just quoted,
goes on to say, "As the poet Lycophron was shot to death
by a certain riual of his, so Christopher Marlow was stabd
to death by a bawdy seruingman, a riuall of his in his lewde
loue."+-The story is told somewhat differently by Vaughan
in The Golden Groue, &c, 1600: "Not inferiour to these
was one Christopher Marlow, by profession a play-maker,
who, as it is reported, about 14 yeres agoe, wrote a booke
against the Trinitie. But see the effects of Gods justice!
It so hapned that at Detford, a litle village about three
miles distant from London, as he meant to stab with his
ponyard one named Ingram [Archer?], that had inuited him
thither to a feast and was then playing at tables, hee [Ar-
cher?] quickly perceyuing it, so auoyded the thrust, that
withall drawing out his dagger for his defence, hee stabd this
Marlow into the eye, in such sort that, his braynes comming
out at the daggers point, hee shortly after dyed. Thus
did God, the true executioner of diuine iustice, worke the
ende of impious atheists."-The author of The Returne
from Pernassus, an academic drama which, though acted
before the death of Queen Elizabeth, was not printed till
1606, has these striking lines concerning our poet;
"Marlowe was happy in his buskin['d] Muse,-
Alas, vnhappy in his life and end!

Pitty it is, that wit so ill should dwell,
Wit lent from heauen, but vices sent from hell.
Our theater hath lost, Pluto hath got,

A tragick penman for a driery plot." §

* P. 149, ed. 1631.
Sig. C 4, ed. 1608.

+ Fol. 286.

§ Sig. B 2.

In The Thunderbolt of God's wrath against hard-hearted and stiffe-necked sinners, &c, 1618, Rudierde closely adheres to the narrative of Beard, mixing up with it, however, the erroneous statement that Marlowe was killed" in a streete in London."*-Wood, it is evident, derived his information wholly from Beard and Meres, when, not without a touch of his own quaintness, he related the circumstances of our author's death. +-To the above authorities, I subjoin the MS. Notes of an unknown writer in a copy of Marlowe's Hero and Leander, ed. 1629.† “Feb. 10, 1640. Mr. [here two words in cipher] that Marloe was an atheist, and wrot a booke against [here two words in cipher], how that it was all one mans making, and would haue printed it, but it would not be suffred to be printed. Hee was a rare scholar, and made excellent verses in Latine. Hee died aged about 30.”— "Marloe was an acquaintance of Mr. [here a name in cipher] of Douer, whom hee made become an atheist; so that he was faine to make a recantation vppon this text, "The foole hath said in his heart there is no God."""This [here the name, as before, in cipher] learned all Marloe by heart."-" Marloe was stabd with a dagger, and dyed swearing."

In addition to the various charges of impiety brought against Marlowe in the preceding passages, the reader will

* P. 29.

+ See Ath. Oxon, ii. 7, ed. Bliss. - Compare too the ballad called The Atheist's Tragedie, vol. III, Appendix iv. of the present edition. A couplet in Marston's Satires, 1598, has been supposed, without much reason, to point at Marlowe's death;

"'Tis loose-leg'd Lais, that same common drab,
For whom good Tubrio tooke the mortall stab."

Sat. ii. p. 145, ed. 1764.

Mr. Collier thinks that in the Epistle to the Reader, prefixed to the Second Part of T. B.'s translation of The French Academie, there is an allusion to Marlowe : vide Poet. Decam., ii. 271, sqq. I do not think so.

In the possession of Mr. J. P. Collier.

find in Appendix i. to the present work that "Note" of his "damnable opinions" which, just before the poet's death, was given in, as grounds for a judicial process, by a person named Bame, and which Ritson exultingly drew forth from the Harleian MSS.* in answer to Warton's assertion that Marlowe had no systematic disbelief of religion, and that the Puritans had construed his slight scepticism into absolute atheism.t

How far the poet's freethinking was really carried, I do not pretend to determine. I certainly feel that probability is outraged in several of the statements of Bame, who appears to have had a quarrel with Marlowe, and who, it must not be forgotten, was afterwards hanged at Tyburn; and I can readily believe that the Puritans would not stick at misrepresentation in speaking of a man whose writings had so greatly contributed to exalt the stage: but when I see that the author of The Returne from Pernassus, whom no one will suspect of fanaticism, has painted the character of Marlowe in the darkest colours, while at the same time he bestows a high encomium on his genius; and, above all, when I remember that, before either Bame or the Puritans had come forward as his accusers, the dying Greene had borne unequivocal testimony against him to the very same effect,-it is not easy for me to resist the conviction that Marlowe's impiety was more confirmed and daring than Warton and others have been willing to allow.

It was only to be expected that among the surviving friends of Marlowe there would be some who would mention him §

* It is among the papers of Lord Keeper Puckering.

+ Vide Warton's Hist. of Engl. Poet. iii. 437, ed. 4to. and Ritson's Observations on that work, p. 40.

Be it remembered too that the more offensive part of what Greene had written concerning Marlowe, was omitted by Chettle when he revised the Groat's-worth of Wit: see p. xxxi.

§ Hartley Coleridge, treating of old dramas founded on deeply