scholars of his age, became, according to Phillips and Warton, at once an actor and a writer for the stage. Malone, however, is of opinion, that there is no sufficient authority for the assertion, that Marlowe was ever on the stage, as he is not mentioned as an actor by any of his contemporaries. He has been equally the subject of high panegyric, and the sport of scurrilous abuse, esteemed for his verse and hated for his life--the favorite of the learned and witty, and the horror of the precise and religious. The praise applies to his intellectual and the censure to his moral character; what the latter really was : may be difficult at this time to determine with accuracy, although the accusations are not of a nature to be entitled to any great weight. Marlowe's familiar appellative was Kit, which may be considered as evidence of a kind disposition, or a companionable nature. “ That elemental wit Kit Marlowe" is the expression of one writer, and Thomas Heywood, in his. Hierarchy,' informs us that “ Marlowe renowned for his rare art and wit,) The testimonies of his contemporary poets in his favour are numerous and highly laudatory. Nash, speaking of Hero and Leander, expresses himself thus:-“ Of whom divine Musæus sung, and a diviner Muse than he Kit Marlowe;" and Heywood calls him “ the best of poets.” Peele, in his Honour of the Garter, thus speaks of him : Unhappy in thine end, In The Return from Parnassus he is characterised in these words: “ Marlowe was happy in his buskined muse, Drayton describes him in a still higher and finer strain : “ Next Marlowe bathed in the Thespian springs, Which rightly should possess a poet's brain." We will now exhibit the reverse of the picture, from which, if the representation be correct, we must conclude Marlowe to be a blasphemer and an atheist, a scoffer of God, and a standing monument of his justice. Thomas Beard, in The Theatre of God's Judgments*, a zealous puritan, and an arch-dialectician, holds him up as a notable example of the danger of speaking lightly of religious mysteries. “ Not inferior,” says he, “ to any of the former in atheism and impiety, and equal to all in manner of punishment, was one of our own nation of fresh and late memory, called Marlowe, by profession a scholar, brought up from his youth in the University of Cambridge, but by practice a play-maker, and a poet of scurrility, who by giving too large a swing to his own wit, and suffering his lust to have the full reins, fell (not without just desert) to that great outrage and extremity that he denied God and his son Christ, and not only in word blasphemed the Trinity (but also as it is credibly reported) wrote books against it, affirming our Saviour to be a deceiver, and Moses but to be a seducer of the people, and the Holy Bible to be but vain and idle stories, and all religion but a device of policy. But see what a hook the Lord put in the nostrils of this barking dog : so it fell out that as he purposed to stab one whom he ought a grudge unto with his dagger; the other party perceiving, so avoided the stroke that withal catching hold of his wrist, he stabbed his own dagger into his own head, in such sort that not withstanding all the means of surgery that could be wrought he shortly after died thereof, the manner of his death being so terrible (for he even cursed and blasphemed to his last gasp, and together with his breath an oath flew out of his mouth) that it was not only a manifest sign of God's judgment, but also an horrible and fearful terror to all that beheld him. But herein did the justice of God most notably appear in that he compelled his own hand which had written those blasphemies to be the instrument to punish him, and that in his brain which had devised the same.” William Vaughan, another of the same class, in a book called the Golden Grove, published in 1600, gives a somewhat different version of this story. “ Christopher Marlowe,” says he, “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 happened that at Deptford, a little village about three miles distant from London, as he meant to stab with his poinard 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 stabbed this Marlowe 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." From the Register of Burials for the Parish of St. Nicholas, Deptford, it appears that the name of this person was Archer and not Ingram. The entry is as follows:-“ 1st June, 1593, Christopher Marlowe , slain by Francis Archer.” The earliest authority for the manner of Marlowe's death is that of Francis Meres in his · Wits' Treasury,' 8vo. 1598, who observes, “ As the poet Lycophron was shot to death by a rival of his, so Marlowe was stabbed to death by a bawdy serving man, a rival of his lewd love." Anthony Wood introduces Beard's story into his Athænæ Oxonienses, with this addition on the authority of Meres, “ that he 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 Marlowe conceived himself to be.” The opinions ascribed to Marlowe probably originated in a string of accusations, which appear to have been preferred against him by a man of the name of Richard Bame or Banes. This document is amongst Lord Keeper Puckering's papers* and is * Harl. MSS. No. 6853. |