28 MAY 1593

Two days

I have a great respect for Marlow as an ingenious poet, but I have a much higher regard for truth and justice; and will therefore take the liberty to produce the strongest (if not the whole) proof that now remains of his diabolical tenets, and debauched morals… The [attached] paper is transcribed from an old [manuscript] in the Harleian library… and was never before printed.

JOSEPH RITSON, ‘OBSERVATIONS ON THE THREE FIRST VOLUMES OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY’ (FIRST PUBLICATION OF ‘THE BAINES NOTE’), 1782