Biographers of Marlowe have been startled and unnerved by the term of 'atheist,' applied so freely to the poet by those who hated his freedom of thought and speech. All who read in the literary and political writings of Elizabeth's reign must know how lavishly this appellation was bestowed upon opponents by all sects and parties, irrespective of belief, and that to deny any dogma of the Church as by State established, was atheism and treason; and either crime punishable by death. Although not an atheist Marlowe was a free thinker, a would-be-reformer, and, by the mouths of his dramatic persona, dared to say what others scarcely ventured to whisper. He was no respecter of persons: even the round and top of sovereignty did not shield the wearer from his keen shafts; nor did he falter when priestcraft was in question. He represents the revolutionary spirit of his age.