his heart, 'There is no God,' should now give glorie unto his greatnesse; for penetrating in his power, his hand lyes heavy upon me, he hath spoken unto me with a voyce of thunder, and I have felt [old ed. left] he is a God that can punish enemies. Why should thy excellent wit, his gift, be so blinded that thou shouldest give no glory to the giver? Is it pestilent Machivilian policie that thou hast studied? O peevish [old ed. punish] follie ! What are his rules but meere confused mockeries, able to extirpate in small time the generation of mankinde? for if sic volo, sic iubeo, holde in those that are able to commaund, and if it be lawfull fas et nefas, to doo any thing that is beneficiall, onely tyrants should possesse the earthe, and they, striving to exceed in tiranny, should ech to other be a slaughterman, till, the mightyest outliving all, one stroke were left for Death, that in one age mans life should end. The brocher of this dyabolicall atheisme is dead, and in his life had never the felicitie he aymed at, but, as he beganne in craft, lived in feare, and ended in dispaire. Quam inscrutabilia sunt Dei judicia! This murderer of many brethren had his conscience seared like Cayne; this betrayer of him that gave his life for him inherited the portion of Judas; this apostata perished as ill as Julian: and wilt thou, my friend, be his disciple? Looke unto mee, by him perswaded to that libertie, and thou shalt finde it an infernall bondage. I know the least of my demerits merit this miserable death; but wilfull striving against knowne truth exceedeth all the terrors of my soule. Deferre not (with mee) till this last point of extremitie; for little

"

knowest thou how in the end thou shalt be visited." Then follow the well-known references to Nashe (or, as some think, Lodge), Peele, and the "upstart crow Shakespeare. Greene died in September 1592, and the tract must have been published immediately afterwards. Its publication caused much excitement, and the rumour went abroad that the pamphlet was a forgery. Some attributed it to Chettle, others to Nashe. Both these writers quickly came forward to disclaim all share in the authorship. In the preface to Chettle's KindHart's Dreame, a tract entered in the Stationers' Books in December 1592 and published immediately afterwards, occurs the following passage :

"About three moneths since died M. Robert Greene, leaving many papers in sundry book-sellers hands; among other, his Groatsworth of Wit, in which a letter written to diver play-makers is offensively by one or two of them taken; and because on the dead they cannot be avenged, they wilfully forge in their conceites a living author; and after tossing it two [to] and fro, no remedy, but it must light on me. How I have all the time of my conversing in printing hindred the bitter inveying against schollers, it hath been very well knowne, and how in that I dealt I can sufficiently proove. With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them [i.e. Marlowe] I care not if I never be : the other [ie. Shakespeare], whome at that time I did not so much spare as since I wish I had, for that as I have moderated the heate of living writers, and might have used my owne discretion (especially in such a case)

the author beeing dead, that I did not, I am as sory as if the originall fault had beene my fault, because myselfe have seene his demeanor no lesse civil than he exclent in the qualitie he professes: besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightnes of dealing which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing that aprooves his art. For the first, whose learning I reverence, and, at the perusing of Greenes booke, stroke out what then in conscience I thought he in some displeasure writ, or, had it beene true, yet to publish it was intollerable, him I would wish to use me no worse than I deserve. I had onely in the copy this share; it was il written, as sometime Greenes hand was none of the best; licensd it must be, ere it could bee printed, which could never be if it might not be read: to be breife, I writ it over, and, as neare as I could, followed the copy, only in that letter I put something out, but in the whole booke not a worde in; for I protest it was all Greenes, not mine, nor Maister Nashes, as some uniustly have affirmed." From Chettle's statement it is plain that the passage about Marlowe in the Groat's Worth of Wit was not printed in its venomous integrity. Chettle had no personal knowledge of Marlowe; he judged only from common report. It is to his credit that, prejudiced as he was, he had the good feeling to temper the virulence of Greene's attack. Nashe, in the "Private Epistle to the Printer," prefixed to Pierce Penilesse (a tract issued at the close of 1592) was more vehement in repudiating all connection with the pamphlet which had given so much offence. "Other newes," he writes, "I am advertised of, that a scald triviall

lying pamphlet, cald Green's Groats-worth of Wit, is given out to be of my doing. God never have care of my soule, but utterly renounce me, if the least word or sillible in it proceeded from my pen, or if I were any way privie to the writing or printing of it." At this time. Nashe was a friend of Marlowe's. In Pierce's Supererogation (which is dated 27th April, 1593), Gabriel Harvey accuses Nashe of disloyalty to his friends, among whom he particularly mentions Marlowe. Doubtless there was

not a word of truth in the charge that Nashe "shamefully and odiously misuseth every friend or acquaintance (as he hath served some of his favorablest Patrons, whom, for certain respects, I am not to name), M. Apis Lapis, Greene, Marlow, Chettle, and whom not?" In Have with you to Saffron Walden, Nashe exclaims indignantly, "I never abusd Marloe, Greene, Chettle, in my life, or anie of my friends that usde me like a friend; which both Marloe and Greene (if they were alive) under their hands would testifie, even as Harry Chettle hath in a short note here;" and then follows a note in which Chettle declares that he never suffered any injury at Nashe's hands. "Poore deceased Kit Marlowe!" are Nashe's words in the Epistle to the Reader prefixed to the second edition (1594) of Christ's Tears over Jerusalem.

The burial-register of the Parish Church of St. Nicholas, Deptford, contains the following entry 1:-" Christopher

1 First printed in January 1821, by a writer in a periodical called The British Stage.

Marlow, slain by ffrancis Archer, the 1 of June 1593." Thomas Beard the Puritan, Oliver Cromwell's tutor, relates the manner of the poet's death as follows::

"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 playmaker 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 oath flew out of his mouth), that it was not only a manifest signe of Gods judgement, but