a French tragical poet did, (being an epicure and an atheist) that he denied God and his son Christ, and not only in word blasphemed the Trinity, but also (as it was credibly reported) wrote divers discourses against it, affirming our Saviour to be a deceiver, and Moses to be a conjuror: the Holy Bible also to contain only vain and idle stories, and all religion but a device of policy." (I quote from good old Anthony Wood, not having immediate access to Beard's Theatre,) he continues: "But see the end of this person, which was noted by all, especially the Precisians. For so it fell out, that he (Marlow) being deeply in love with a certain woman, had for his rival a bawdy serving-man, one rather fit to be a pimp, than an ingenious Amoretto, as Marlow conceived himself to be. Whereupon Marlow, taking it to be an high affront, rush'd in upon, to stab him with his dagger: but the serving man being very quick so avoided the stroke, that with all catching hold of Marlow's wrist, he stab'd his own dagger into his own head, in such sort, that notwithstanding all the means of surgery that could be wrought, he

shortly after died of his wound, before the year 1593."

This account of Beard's is the foundation of all that has been laid to the charge of Marlow, it was in part copied and referred to by Meres in his Wit's Treasury; it was followed by Wood, and by all succeeding writers. William Vaughan, another puritan, published a little common place book, called the Golden Grove, about the year 1600, in which, among other instances of God's judgment upon atheists, &c. he relates with some variation of circumstances the same catastrophe*; and in the same work will be found a

* "Christopher Marlow, by profession a play-maker, who, as it is reported, about fourteen years ago wrote a book against the Trinity: but see the effects of God's justice; it so happen'd, that at Deptford, a little village about three miles distant from London, as he meant to stab with his poniard one named Ingram, that had invited him thither to a feast, and was then playing at tables; he quickly perceiving it, so avoided the thrust, that withall drawing out his dagger for his defence, he stab'd this Marlow into the eye, in such sort, that his brains coming out at the dagger's point, he shortly after died. Thus did God, the true executioner of divine justice, work the end of impious atheists."

chapter entitled, "Whether Stage-players ought to be suffered in a Commonwealth!!" which is to the full as liberal in its conclusions.

A late writer has supposed that Thomas Beard

* See "The Poetical Decameron, by I. P. Collier. Edinburgh, 1820, vol. ii. p. 128.-An advertisement states that these volumes contain "A popular view of that brilliant era of English Poetry, during which Shakspeare, Spenser, Ben Jonson, &c. flourished." It also sets forth that they include the concentrated essence of the Censura, Restituta, &c. " together with much new information, and many valuable notices not hitherto generally known!" -and finally, that "the work resembles in its plan the elegant dialogues of Bishop Hurd!!"

In its plan then be it, certainly not in its spirit; a more undiscriminative, prolix piece of verbosity about antiquarian trifles, quisquiliæ, scarcely could have graced or disgraced the heaviest of those periodicals from which it is compiled. How Mr. Dibdin must chuckle when he glances his eye from the Templar's Decameron to his own brisk publications! However he must not plume himself too much on his fancied superiority. If he has erected an eighth mundane wonder in producing on the supposed arid, jejune subject of Bibliography, two works replete with life, vivacity, and curious anecdote; (the honestly-filled "Bibliomania,” and the beautifully-decorated "Decameron") a less Alcidean task was not achieved by his rival in turning, with magic pen, "the fruitage fair" of poetry into "bitter ashes, which our offended jaws with spattering noise reject.”

also points at Marlow in another work translated by him, and published in 1594, under the title of "The French Academic," in which is also to be found the following bitter philippic against players: "It is a shameful thing to suffer amongst us, or to lose our time, that ought to be so precious unto us, in beholding and in hearing players, actors of interludes and comedies, who are as pernicious a plague in a commonwealth as can be imagined. For nothing marreth more the behaviour, simplicity, and natural goodness of any people than this, because they soon receive into their souls a lively impression of that dissoluteness and villany which they see and hear, when it is joined with words, accents, gestures, motions, and actions, wherewith players and jugglers know how to enrich by all kind of artificial sleights, the filthiest and most dishonest matters, which commonly they make choice of. And to speak freely, in few words we may truly say, that the theatre of players is a school of all unchasteness, uncleanness, whoredom, craft, subtilty, and wickedness."

Is it to be wondered at, that one who was both

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player and play-writer, and who had ventured "to dally with interdicted subjects," should be obnoxious to the censure of such writers as this, or have his memory traduced, and his tragic exit accounted a special visitation of the wrath of God?

True it is that among the papers of Lord Keeper Puckering, in the Harleian collection* at the British Museum, a paper exists which may be considered evidence of his heretical, and as it styles them, "damnable” opinions. The writer, one Richard Bome, who appears to have taken a note of his conversation for the purpose of giving information against him, at the conclusion of his diabolical catalogue, says, "These things, with many other, shall by good and honest men be proved to be his opinions and common speeches, and that this Marloe per

* No. 6853. This paper will be found printed at large in the splenetic Ritson's "Observations upon Warton's History of Poetry," 4to. 1782, p. 40.—It is a singular circumstance that Ritson, of all men, should have sought to substantiate the charges against Marlow! The very bitterness and excess of depravity in this document render the veracity of the writer suspicious.