Marlowe Lives!
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Blount's Preface to
"Hero
and Leander" (1598)
Edward
Blount was a respected publisher of fine literature, who happened
to publish both Marlowe and (the
concealed author) Shakespeare. The dedicatory epistle below, when
considered in the context of fellow publisher Thomas Thorpe's letter
to him two years later, suggests that Christopher might have
authored some uncredited poems or plays.
| To the
Right
Worshipful,
Sir Thomas Walsingham, Knight
We think not ourselves discharged of the duty we owe to our friend, when we have brought the breathless body to the earth; for albeit the eye there taketh ever farewell of that beloved object, yet the impression of the man, that hath been dear to us, living after life in our memory, there puts us in mind of farther obsequies due unto the deceased. And namely of the performance of whatsoever we may judge shall make to his living credit, and to the effecting of his determinations prevented by the stroke of death. By these meditations (as by an intellectual will) I suppose myself executor of the unhappily deceased author of this Poem, upon whom knowing that in his lifetime you bestowed many kind favors, entertaining the parts of reckoning and worth which you found in him, with good countenance and liberal affection: I cannot but see so far into the will of him dead, that whatsoever issue of his brain should come abroad, that the first breath it should take might be the gentle air of your liking: For since his self had been accustomed thereunto, it would prove more agreeable & thriving to his right children, than any other foster countenance whatsoever. "
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