19/38 He was said to have been tainted with atheism, to have denied God and the Trinity; had he lived he might have had trouble with the Star Chamber. The free-voyaging intellect of the age found this one way of outlet, but if literary evidences are to be trusted sixteenth and seventeenth century atheism was a very crude business. The _Atheist's Tragedy_ of Tourneur (a dramatist who need not otherwise detain us) gives some measure of its intelligence and depth. Says the villain to the heroine, "No? I will do't." to which she: "Supposed Protector! Are you an atheist, then I know my fears and prayers are spent in vain." Marlowe's very faults and extravagances, and they are many, are only the obverse of his greatness. |