The delightful song "Come live with me, and be my love" was first printed, without the fourth and sixth stanzas, in the Passionate Pilgrim, 1599. It is well known that, though Shakespeare's name is on the titlepage, the pieces in this collection are by various hands. The complete song first appeared, with the author's name, C. Marlowe, subscribed, in that most charming of Elizabethan anthologies, England's Helicon, 1600. Of all pastoral ditties, "Come live with me" is the best and most popular. Sir Hugh Evans trolled snatches from it in the Merry Wives of Windsor; and all lovers of the Complete Angler remember how Maudlin sang to Piscator and his pupil the "smooth song made by Kit Marlowe," her mother following with the reply of Sir Walter Raleigh (if his it be): "They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good." Donne and Herrick tried-but all in vain-to recapture the fresh dainty notes. An exquisite fragment of Marlowe's, beginning, "I walked along a stream for pureness rare," is preserved in England's Parnassus, 1600. Dyce thought that the lines were extracted from some printed composition now unknown; but I do not share Dyce's confidence that the editor of the anthology, Robert Allot, never resorted to manuscript sources.

It is now time to set down what is known of Marlowe's personal history. One thing it is pleasant to record,— that he was under the patronage of Sir Thomas Walsingham. To this worthy patron Hero and Leander was dedicated in 1598 by Edward Blunt, the publisher, in language which showed a genuine regard for the deceased

poet's memory.

I give the dedication in full, as it has not received due attention from Marlowe's editors :"Sir,-We think not ourselves discharged of the duty we owe to our friend when we have brought the breathless body to the earth; for albeit the eye there taketh his ever-farewell of that beloved object, yet the impression of the man that hath been dear unto us, living an afterlife in our memory, there putteth us in mind of farther obsequies due unto the deceased; and namely of the performance of whatsoever we may judge, shall make to his living credit and to the effecting of his determinations prevented by the stroke of death. By these meditations (as by an intellectual will) I suppose myself executor to the unhappily deceased author of this poem; upon whom knowing that in his lifetime you bestowed many kind favours, entertaining the parts of reckoning and worth which you found in him with good countenance and liberal affection, I cannot but see so far into the will of him dead, that whatsoever issue of his brain should chance to come abroad, that the first breath it should take might be the gentle air of your liking; for since his self had been accustomed thereunto, it would prove more agreeable and thriving to his right children that any other foster-countenance whatsoever." conventional in such language as this. Edward Blount had a sincere admiration and pity for Marlowe. "The impression of the man that hath been dear unto us!" Surely these are tender and pathetic words! When vials of venom were being poured on the dead man's head, it required some courage to speak

VOL. I.

There is nothing
It is plain that

out generously and manfully; and, therefore, let us give honour to the magnanimous publisher.

The name "atheist" has a very ugly sound. 'Agnostic," "materialist," and the like, are gentleman-like designations, but a person who styles himself "atheist" is regarded in polite society as blunt and boorish. In Marlowe's time there were no fine distinctions. Any who ventured to impugn the authenticity of the biblical narrative spoke and wrote at their own deadly peril. In February 1589 Francis Kett, fellow of Benet College, Cambridge, the College of which Marlowe had been a member, was burnt at Norwich for holding unorthodox views about the Trinity and about Christ's divinity. Such being the state of society, prudence would naturally have dictated that each man should keep his private views to himself, or at least that he should have explained them only to his most intimate friends. "In divinity I keep the road," says that champion of orthodoxy, Sir Thomas Browne, who exposed the vulnerable points in the scriptural narrative with more acumen and gusto than the whole army of "free-thinkers" from Antony Collins downwards. It would have been well if Marlowe had "kept the road." Unfortunately he seems to have lost no opportunity of expounding his heretical opinions. The passage referring to Marlowe in Greene's Groat's Worth of Wit, that crazy death-bed wail of a weak and malignant spirit, has been often quoted before, but must be given here once again :- -"Wonder not (for with thee will I first beginne), thou famous gracer of tragedians, that Green, who hath said with thee, like the foole in

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 divers 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)