Page:Hero and Leander - Marlowe and Chapman (1821).pdf/29

Rh 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 reported) wrote divers discourses against it, affirming our Saviour to be a deceiver, and Moses to be a conjuror: the Holy Bible also to contain only vain and idle stories, and all religion but a device of policy." (I quote from good old Anthony Wood, not having immediate access to Beard's Theatre,) he continues: "But see the end of this person, which was noted by all, especially the Precisians. For so it fell out, that he (Marlow) 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 Marlow conceived himself to be. Whereupon Marlow, taking it to be an high affront, rush'd in upon, to stab him with his dagger: but the serving man being very quick so avoided the stroke, that with all catching hold of Marlow's wrist, he stab'd his own dagger into his own head, in such sort, that notwithstanding all the means of surgery that could be wrought, he