The Reputation of Christopher Marlozve. 355 



Francis Meres incorporated Beard's account and his moral in 

 the Palladis Taiiiia (1598) : 



As lodellc, a French tragical poet beeing an Epicure, and an Atheist, made 

 a pitifull end: so our tragicall poet Marlozv for his Epicurisme and 

 Atheisme had a tragicall death ; you may read of this Marlozv more at large 

 in the Theatre of Gods iitdginaifs, in the 25. chapter entreating of Epicures 

 and Atheists. 



Hereupon Aleres adds a further account, discordant with that in 

 Beard, and unsubstantiated by any other authority : 



As the poet Lycophron was shot to death by a certain riual of his : so 

 Christopher Marlow was stabd to death by a bawdy Seruing man, a riuall 

 of his in his lewde loue. 



This is the only record relating to Marlowe which accuses him 

 of lewdness. It was taken over, a century later, and embroidered 

 by Anthony Wood,'' and has, not surprisingly, proved vastly attrac- 

 tive to modern imaginative 'restorers' of the poet's life history. 



against Hard-Hearted and stiffe-necked sinners (1618), which reads as 

 follows (chapter xxii,^ p. 29) : 



'We read of one Martin, a Cambridge Scholler, who was a Poet, and a 

 filthy Play-maker, this wretch accounted that meeke seruant of God Moses 

 to be but a Coniurer, and our sweete Sauiour but a seducer and a deceiuer 

 of the people. But harken yee braine-sicke and prophane Poets, and Players, 

 that bewitch idle eares with foolish vanities : what fell vpon this prophane 

 wretch, hauing a quarrell against one whom he met in a streete in London, 

 and would haue stabd him : But the partie perceiuing his villany preuented 

 him with catching his hand, and turning his owne dagger into his braines, 

 and so blaspheming and cursing, he yeelded vp his stinking breath : marke 

 this yee Players, that Hue by making fooles laugh at sinne and wickednesse.' 



'^ Athena e Oxonienses (1691), article on Thomas Newton, ed. 1815, vol. ii. 

 column 9 : 



'But in the end, so it was, that this Mario giving too large a swing to his 

 own wit, and suffering his lust to have the full reins, fell to that outrage 

 and extremity, as Jodelle 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* [*See in Tho. Beard's 

 Theatre of God's Judgments, lib. i. chap. 23.] reported) wrote divers dis- 

 courses against it, affirming our Saviour to be a deceiver, and Moses to be a 

 conjurer: The holy Bible also to contain only vain and idle stories, and all 

 religion but a device of policy. But see the end of this person, which was 

 noted by all, especially the precisians. For so it fell out, 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 Mario conceived 

 himself to be. Whereupon Mario taking it to be an high affront, rush'd in 



