It is singular that no response appears to have been made to these inquiries; and the communication seems to have been left to pass unnoted into oblivion. That Marlowe wrote the twaddle cited is utterly improbable, but whether the lines were forged in the sixteenth or nineteenth century does not appear difficult of solution: they have a remarkably modern air, yet are evidently the work of a man acquainted with the Elizabethan period. No trace can be found of 'Paul Thompson,' not even in the original manuscript of Henry Howard's translation in the British Museum, Cottonian Collection. There were two Seagers, brothers, well-known portraitpainters of the Shakespearian period, who are frequently referred to in contemporary works. No sonnet by Marlowe has ever been identified, but it is not improbable that some of those which pass under the name of Shakespeare are by him. Who 'Bonnyboots' was is still a matter of speculation, but numerous madrigals and songs, including some set to music by Thomas Morley, the well-known Elizabethan composer, have this unknown personage for their hero.138

In 1600 a line-for-line translation of Lucan's First Book was issued, with Marlowe's name as author upon the title-page. The Introduction, written in a sarcastic vein, and professedly by Thomas Thorpe, the piratical publisher of Shakespeare's Sonnets, is dedicated to Edward Blunt, the publisher who spoke of Marlowe after his decease in such friendly and

eulogistic terms. really by Marlowe, it was not only a posthumous publication, but had evidently never received the translator's final supervision; although it is considered as equal to the original, it was a wasted labour for such a poet as was the author of Hero and Leander to have undertaken.

If this version of Lucan were

CHAPTER VI

LIFE'S LAST YEARS

ONCE more reverting to the personal history of Marlowe, it becomes necessary to investigate the recently promulgated account of his association with the author of that once famous drama, The Spanish Tragedy. The story of Kyd's alleged intimacy with Marlowe is founded upon the contents of certain manuscripts preserved in the British Museum. These documents should be examined in a critical, if not a sceptical, spirit. They form a portion of the celebrated collection made by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, and left by him to the nation. These manuscripts are more noted than known, and probably the authenticity of none of them has as yet been impugned. The question must now be asked, Are some of them of any more historical value than the notorious literary forgeries put forth by Ireland, Collier, and others of their sort? Such evidence as can be adduced in answer to the query will be furnished further on. (Vide Appendix B.)

Amongst these documents are many which Lord Oxford purchased from the well-known antiquary and nonjuror, Thomas Baker, a Fellow of St.

John's College, Cambridge, who lived in the reigns of James the Second and William and Mary. Baker is asserted to have obtained possession of the official, the State papers of Sir Thomas Puckering, Lord Keeper to Queen Elizabeth. How he managed to obtain such papers and how he subsequently disposed of the bulk of them has never been explained. An alleged portion of them are those now in question. Originals or copies, the authenticity of some of them is presumed to deeply affect the life-story and reputation of Christopher Marlowe. Those purporting to refer to Marlowe's acquaintance with Thomas Kyd, the writer, shall be commented upon now; others, relating to the infamous Baines Libel,' later on. All of these manuscripts are always spoken of as original genuine documents of the period in which the poet lived, even by those writers who question the truth of the statements ascribed to Baines, although Baker himself asserts that they were 'copies' of the originals made in his own handwriting, 199

According to one of these manuscripts, a facsimile of which has recently been published, Marlowe was intimately acquainted with Kyd about 1591. Following the story suggested by this document, a letter supposed to have been written by Kyd to Sir John Puckering, in the summer of 1593, the writer refers to 'some occasion of our' (Marlowe and Kyd) 'writing in one chamber two years since,' at which suggested period, it should be recalled to mind,

Marlowe was at the zenith of his popularity, and his position and prospects were apparently very prosperous his dramatic writings were in request, and his income should have been sufficient for his needs. He was associating with men of rank and wealth, men able and willing to have assisted him, were it needed, by money and influence, and when it is not improbable that he had a share in some of the theatrical ventures of the time.

On the other hand, Kyd appears to have been hard put to to live, and is seen to have been turning his pen at that very period to any hack work, however derogatory, in order to obtain subsistence. Yet, strange to relate, Kyd, according to this recentlydiscovered letter from him to Puckering, was then, and had been for some time, in the service of a highly respected and honoured but unnamed noble

Apparently this nobleman, who is represented by the letter to be a devout, or, at any rate, punctiliously careful citizen, was the one man in London ignorant of the fact that his trusted dependant, the sharer in the 'devyne praiers used duelie in his L'ps house,' was none other than the notorious writer of 'catchpenny,' tracts about 'secret murthers,' and the poisoning of citizens, concerning which the whole city must have been chattering. This 'penny-a-liner' is the man who is represented as speaking of Marlowe with contemptuous scorn, and as denying that he 'shold love or be familer frend with one so irreligious,'