and callings," &c.: "newly translated into English by T. B. The third Edition. Londini Impensis Geor. Bishop, 1594." The name of the original author was Peter de la Primaudaye, a Frenchman.

ELLIOT. One would not be inclined to accuse any man of carelessness in passing a work from the French with that title, without supposing that it contained any thing about Nash or Greene.

BOURNE. And you would be mistaken if you thought that what I refer to is to be found in the body of the work. It is divided into two parts or volumes, to each of which the translator T. B. (whose initials I have not been able to apply) prefixes an Epistle: that entitled "To the Christian Reader, Grace and Peace," before the second part, contains the curious matter to which I allude. I should inform you, however, before I show it to you, that the writer has been cautious enough not to mention any names, but the inferences are tolerably clear and satisfactory. It also touches upon the subject of stage-plays, and notices the very rare defence of them by Lodge, of which we have before spoken.

MORTON. Such matters are highly interesting: let us look at them immediately, and postpone, for a few moments only, Lodge's tract upon usury.

ELLIOT. With all my heart: I warn you not to disappoint us; that you lead us out of our road for something worth seeing.

BOURNE. I do not think you will complain, or, at least, have reason to do so. T. B., the author of this epistle, I should tell you, with the usual zeal of his sect, has been inveighing against what one of his fellows terms "the horrible corruptions" of the age; nor can we for a moment blame the vigour with which he attacks atheism, which he contends was fast growing in this country.

MORTON. Thos. Beard, you know, in his "Theatre of God's Judgments," first printed, I believe, in 1598, mentions Christopher Marlow as a professed atheist.

BOURNE. What you allude to is here, and with a view to what T. B. says of atheists, it is material to quote Beard's words, for it is quite clear to me, that Marlow is alluded to in the remarks of T. B.

ELLIOT. For aught we know, T. B. the translator of" the French Academy," was no other than Thomas Beard, author of " the Theatre of God's Judgments." BOURNE. That plausible and obvious conjecture never occurred to me before.

Beard uses these

remarkable expressions concerning Marlow: "Not inferior to any of the former in Atheisme, and impietie, and equall to all in maner of punishment, was one of our own nation, of fresh and late memorie, called Marlin" (so spelt, but the name "Marlow" is inserted in the margin), "by profession a scholler, brought vp from his youth in the vniuersitie of Cambridge, but by practise a Play-maker, and a Poet of scurrilitie, who by giuing too large a

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swinge to his owne wit, and suffering his lust to haue the full reines, fell (not without just desert) to that outrage and extremitie, that he denied God and his sonne Christ, and not onely in word blasphemed the Trinitie, but also (as is credibly reported) wrote bookes against it, affirming our Sauiour to be but a deceiuer, and Moses to be but a coniurer and seducer of the people, and the holy Bible to be but vaine and idle stories, and all religion but a deuice of pollicie."

ELLIOT. The very Tom Paine of the reign of Elizabeth; nothing short of it. Are any of the books Marlow is "credibly reported" to have so written, now extant?

BOURNE. None that I have ever heard of; but, if I am not much mistaken, I can furnish a quotation from one of them on the authority of T. B.: he has just been speaking of Ligneroles, a French courtier and atheist, adding that there was a parallel to him in England, and continuing thus: "This bad fellowe whose works are no lesse accounted of among his followers, than were Apollos Oracles among the Heathen, nay then the sacred Scriptures are among sound Christians, blusheth not to belch out these horrible blasphemies against pure religion, and so against God the Author thereof, namely, That the religio of the heathen made them stoute and courageous, whereas Christian religion maketh the professors thereof base-minded, timerous and fitte to become a

pray to every one: that since men fell from the religion of the Heathen, they became so corrupt, that they would beleeue neither God nor Deuill: that Moses so possessed the land of Iudea as the Gothes did by strong hand vsurpe part of the Romane Empire. These and such like positions are spued out by this hel-hound," &c.

MORTON. That certainly corresponds very much with what Beard says of Marlow; besides, if he be not alluded to, upon whom can we fix the quotation he gives from some work or other, and obviously not the offspring of mere invention? There is only one objection to it, though it must be allowed to be one of some importance, if it be true that Marlow was killed before 1593 (as is asserted), and it is this, that T. B. writing in 1594 speaks of him in the present tense as still living.

BOURNE. Formidable as that remark may seem, it is easily answered, for you will observe that this edition of the French Academy of 1594, purports to be the third: it was first printed some time earlier, though I am not now prepared with the precise date. What makes it the more likely that Marlow is alluded to, is the fact that T. B. almost immediately afterwards proceeds to notice Robt. Greene; at least that is the conclusion I draw from what is said, and, I believe, you will think it a fair one: he is referring to such persons in England" as treade in the steppes of Lamech," and "walke in the wayes of Ismael.”

He observes, "That there are such amongst vs, euen in these times wherein we liue, let the testimonie which one of that crew gave lately of himselfe, when the heauy hand of God by sicknesse summoned him to giue an accompt of his dissolute life. He being one day admonished of his friendes to leaue his badde course of life, which otherwise woulde bring him to vtter destruction, scoffingly returned them this answere: Tush (quoth he) what is hee better that dieth in his bedde then he that endeth his life at Tiburne? And being further vrged to doubt the losse of his soule in Hell fire for euer although hee feared not death in this worlde, hee replied; Hell? What talk you of Hell to mee? I knowe if I once come there I shall haue the company of better then my selfe: I shall also meete with some knaues in that place, and so long as I shall not sit there alone, my care is the lesse. But you are madde folkes (quoth hee) for if I feared the Iudges of the Bench no more then I dread the iudgements of God, I woulde before I slept diue into one karles bagges or other, and make merrie with the shelles I found in them so long as they would last. The voyce of a meere Atheist, and so afterwardes hee pronounced of himselfe when he was checked in conscience by the mightie hand of GoD. And yet this fellow in his life time and in the middest of his greatest ruffe, had the Presse at commaundement to publish his lasciuious Pamphlets, whereby hee infected the