To THE MASTER FELLOWS AND SCHOLARS OF Corpus Christi College CAMBRIDGE THIS RECORD OF AN ILLUSTRIOUS SON OF THAT ANCIENT HOUSE IS INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR PREFACE FOR upwards of three centuries the brightness of Marlowe's name has been dimmed by libel and slander. One writer after another has copied the legends of his predecessors, generally adding his own myth to the mixen, until a long list of authorities can be adduced as testimony against the poet; but repetition is not confirmation, and the only basis for imputing 'hellish sins' to him is puritanical malice-supported by libel and forgery. The following pages will show that the remembrance and references of every one who knew Marlowe personally are favourable to his character. He is seen moving in all that was best, noblest, and most intellectual of English society of those days. Received as a friend in the Raleigh and Walsingham households; mixing with the scientific and learned men of the time; on intimate terms with Chapman, Drayton, and such men of honoured and honourable position; apparently working with, and certainly deeply admired by, Shakespeare, and respected vii or envied by his literary contemporaries. Could such a man, 'haughty man,' as the vapid Gabriel Harvey styles him, have been leading a profligate life, disregarding the decencies of society, and herding with rogues, vagabonds, and outcasts, such as were the associates of Robert Greene? During During Marlowe's lifetime Greene alone ventured to try and depreciate his merits, and then only by innuendo and sneers. The slanders on his fair name were invented by succeeding generations. Biographers of Marlowe have been startled and unnerved by the term of Atheist,' applied so freely to the poet by those who hated his freedom of thought and speech. All who read in the literary and political writings of Elizabeth's reign must know how lavishly this appellation was bestowed upon opponents by all sects and parties, irrespective of belief, and that to deny any dogma of the Church as by State established, was atheism and treason; and either crime punishable by death. Although not an atheist Marlowe was a freethinker, a would-be-reformer, and, by the mouths of his dramatis persona, dared to say what others scarcely ventured to whisper. He was no respecter of persons: even the round and top of sovereignty' did not shield the wearer from his keen shafts; nor did he falter when priestcraft was in question. He represents the revolutionary spirit of his age. |