As Henry Chettle had been brought into some discredit by the publication of Greene’s celebrated letter, and his admission that he re-wrote it, we know that the letter must have been surreptitiously procured as evidenced by its contents. The letter is as authentic, doubtless, as any garbled or mutilated document may be; but Chettle’s foolish statement contained in his preface to “Kind Hearts Dreams” has awakened the suspicion, in regard to the authorship of “Groats Worth of Wit,” that, while the letter (or as much as Chettle chose to have published) is genuine, “I put something out,” the pamphlet “Groats Worth of Wit” is spurious, and evidently not the work of Robert Greene. Who can be content to believe Chettle’s statement that Greene placed this criminating letter in the hands of printers, or that it was left in their hands by others at his request? A private letter, written to three friends, who have been co-workers in drama-making, calling them to repentance, charging one (Marlowe) with diabolical atheism! This was a very serious charge in those times, when persons were burnt at the stake for professing their unbelief in the doctrine of the Trinity. Chettle was the first to make current the charge of atheism against Marlowe, the one of them that took offense, and whose acquaintance he (Chettle) did not seek. Chettle reverenced Marlowe’s learning, and would have his readers believe that he did greatly mitigate Greene’s charge, but the contents of the letter as transcribed by Chettle and printed by the bookmakers, discredit Chettle’s statement, as the charge of diabolical atheism was not struck out, and was, if proven, punishable by death. There is no evidence adduced to show that Marlowe was indignant because of Greene’s admonition, contained in a private letter written to three play-makers of his own fellowship, but resented the public charge of atheism, for which he, Chettle, as accessory and transcriber, was chiefly responsible in making public. We know that Marlowe was in retreat at the time of his death at Deptford, for in May, 1593, following the publication of Greene’s letter printed at the end of the pamphlet, “Groats Worth of Wit,” the Privy Council issued a warrant for Marlowe’s arrest. A copy of Marlowe’s blasphemies, so called, was sent to Her Highness, and endorsed by one Richard Bame, who was soon after hanged at Tyburn for some loathsome crime. But a few days later, before Marlowe’s apprehension, they wrote in the parish-book at Deptford on June 1st “Christopher Marlowe slain by Francis Archer.” At the age of thirty, he, “the first and greatest inheritor of unfulfilled renown,” went where “Orpheus and where Homer are.”