Christopher Marlowe, the first great English poet, was the father of English tragedy and the creator of English blank verse. He is, by general consent, identified with the first person addressed by Greene, “With thee will I first begin, thou famous gracer of tragedians, who hath said in his heart there is no God. Why should thy excellent wit, His gift, be so blinded that thou should give no glory to the giver?” The second person referred to is identifiable with Thomas Nash, “With thee I join, young juvenall, that byting satyrist,” though not with equal accord, as the first with Marlowe, as some few persons prefer to name Thomas Lodge. This predilection for Lodge is based on their having been co-authors in the making of a play (“That lastlie with me together writ a comedie”). This fact, however, signifies very little, for it is generally conceded that Marlowe, Nash, Peele, Lodge and Greene mobilized their literary activities in the production of not a few of the earlier plays called Shakspere’s. We are convinced that Lodge was not the person addressed by Greene as young juvenall. He was absent from England at the date of Greene’s letter, having left in 1591 and did not return till 1593. Moreover, he had declared his intention long before to write no more for the theatre. In 1589 he vowed “to write no more of that whence shame doth grow.” At Christmas time in 1592 he was in the Straits of Magellan. Born in 1550, Lodge led a virtuous and quiet life. He was seventeen years older than Nash, and four years older than Greene, who would not, in addressing one four years his senior, have used these words, “Sweet boy might I advise thee.” The youthfulness of Nash fits well. He was boyish in appearance. Born in Nov., 1567, he was seven years younger than Greene, and was the youngest member of their fellowship. The mild reproof “for his too much liberty of speech” contained in the letter, justifies the belief that Thomas Nash was referred to as “young juvenall, that byting satyrist, who had vexed scholars with bitter lines.”