suadeth men to atheism, willing them not to be afraid of bugbears and hobgoblins, and utterly scorning both God and his ministers, as I Richard Bome will justify, both by my oath, and the testimony of many honest men, and almost all men with whom he had conversed any time will testify the same. And, as I think, all men in Christianty ought to endeavour that the mouth of so dangerous a member may be stopped." Probably Marlow was aware of the character of those whom he thus irritated by his unlicensed speech, and did it out of bravado and wantonness, or to excite admiration of his spirit and courage in worrying a puritanical informer to desperation. Be this as it may, I do not mean to defend the act, but only to show what may probably have given rise to it. Of one part of the charge against Marlow, that of having written books against the Trinity, he must stand acquitted, and the reader will no doubt have seen how cautiously his accusers qualify their assertion by the convenient phrase, "as it is reported[1]."
- ↑ There is good ground for suspecting that Marlow was highly offended at Greene's noted address to him in
