“Of his free soul whose living subject stood Up to the chin in the Pierian flood.” Henry Chettie’s act of placation is offered to one of two of the three play-makers addressed, and not to the actor referred to, who was not one of those addressed; therefore, “upstart crow” could not have been the recipient of Chettle’s apology, or placation, in whose behalf (“upstart crow”) Chettle retracts nothing. The following reference is to one of the offended playmakers pointed at in Greene’s address, whom Chettle wishes to placate, “The other whome at that time I did not so much spare as since I wish I had—that I did not I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault because myself have seen his demeanor no less civil excellent in the qualities he professes; besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty and his factitious grace in writing that approves his art.” With the votaries of Shakspere, however, these words of Chettle chime with their dreams of fancy; for there is a pre-inclination and a predetermination to read Shakspere into them, as if the words of Greene and Chettle were not accessible to all inquirers—words that can be made to comprehend only one of the two playmakers that take offense, who must be one of the three (Marlowe, Nash and Peele) admonished by Greene, and who were of his fellowship. The reader, after studying Elizabethan literature and history, is content to believe that the least celebrated of the three playmakers pointed at in Greene’s address (Marlowe, Nash and Peele), stood high enough in the scale of literary merit in 1592 to be the recipient of Chettle’s praise.