Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/305

 ship in the ‘Seven Deadly Sinnes.’ ‘The Batchelors Banquet,’ 1603, 4to, reprinted in 1604, 1630, 1660, 1661, and 1677, is founded on the fifteenth-century satire, ‘Les Quinze Joyes de Mariage;’ but the subject is treated with such whimsical ingenuity of invention that Dekker is entitled to claim for his brilliant tract the merit of originality. ‘Patient Grissil,’ 1603, 4to, was written in conjunction with Haughton and Chettle. The songs have been unanimously ascribed to Dekker, and there can be little doubt that the old play owes to him rather than to his associates its many touches of tenderness. Of the ‘Magnificent Entertainment given to King James’ three separate editions were published in 1604, two at London and one at Edinburgh. The ‘Honest Whore,’ 1604, reprinted in 1605, 1615, 1616, and 1635, and the ‘Second Part of the Honest Whore,’ 1630, contain powerful and pathetic scenes, marred by coarseness and exaggeration. ‘The Seuen Deadly Sinnes of London,’ 1606, 4to, described on the title-page as ‘Opus Septem Dierum,’ is a notable example of Dekker's literary agility. ‘Newes from Hell. Brought by the Diuells Carrier,’ 1606, 4to, reprinted with additions in 1607 under the title of ‘A Knights Coniuring, Done in Earnest, Discouered in Jest,’ 4to, is written in imitation of ‘ingenious, ingenuous, fluent, facetious T. Nash.’ An anonymous attack (in verse) on the Roman catholics, ‘The Double P.P., a Papist in Armes, Bearing Ten seuerall Sheilds, encovntered by the Protestant,’ &c., 1606, 4to, has been ascribed to Dekker. There is extant a presentation copy with his autograph (, Bibl. Cat. i. 197). In 1607 appeared ‘Jests to make you Merie. … Written by T[homas?] D[ekker?] and George Wilkins,’ 4to; the ‘Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyat. … Written by Thomas Dickers and John Webster,’ 4to, a corrupt abridgment of the two parts of ‘Lady Jane;’ two comedies, written in conjunction with Webster, ‘Westward Ho,’ 4to (composed in or before 1605, as there is a reference to it in the prologue to ‘Eastward Ho,’ published in that year), and ‘Northward Ho,’ 4to; and an allegorical play of little value, ‘The Whore of Babylon,’ 4to, setting forth the virtues of Queen Elizabeth and the ‘inueterate malice, Treasons, Machinations, Vnderminings, & continuall bloody stratagems of that Purple whore of Rome.’ ‘The Dead Tearme, or Westminsters Complaint for long Vacations and short Tearmes,’ 1608, 4to, dedicated to Sir John Harington, is a hasty piece of patchwork. The ‘Belman of London: Bringing to Light the Most Notorious Villanies that are now practised in the Kingdome,’ 4to, which passed through three editions in 1608, is partly taken, as Samuel Rowlands noticed in ‘Martin Markall, Beadle of Bridewell,’ from Harman's ‘Caveat or Warneing for Common Cursitors,’ 1566 and 1567. It gives a lively description of the practices of the rogues and sharpers who infested the metropolis. At the end of ‘The Belman’ Dekker promised to write a second part, which should ‘bring to light a number of more notable enormities (dayly hatched in this Realme) then euer haue yet beene published to the open eye of the world.’ The second part was published in 1608, under the title of ‘Lanthorne and Candlelight, or the Bell-mans Second Nights Walke,’ 4to. Two editions appeared in 1609, and a fourth, under the title of ‘O per se O, or a new cryer of Lanthorne and Candlelight. Being an addition or Lengthening of the Bell-mans Second Night-walke,’ 4to, in 1612. Between 1608 and 1648 there appeared eight or nine editions of the second part, all differing more or less from each other. ‘The Ravens Almanacke, Foretelling of a Plague, Famine, and Ciuill Warre,’ 1609, 4to, was intended as a parody on the prognostications of the almanac makers. There are no grounds for ascribing to Dekker the anonymous tract, ‘The Owles Almanacke,’ 1618, 4to. In 1609 appeared ‘The Guls Hornebooke,’ 4to, which gives a more graphic description than can be procured elsewhere of the manners of Jacobean gallants. The tract is to some extent modelled on Dedekind's ‘Grobianus,’ and Dekker admits that it ‘hath a relish of Grobianisme.’ It had been his intention to turn portions of ‘Grobianus’ into English verse, but on further reflection he ‘altered the shape, and of a Dutchman fashioned a mere Englishman.’ In 1609 also appeared ‘Worke for Armourers, or the Peace is Broken,’ 4to (prose), and a devotional work, of which no perfect copy is extant, ‘Fowre Birds of Noahs Arke,’ 12mo (prose). The vivacious comedy of the ‘Roaring Girl,’ 1611, 4to, was written in conjunction with Middleton, and probably Middleton had the larger share in the composition. ‘If it be not good, the Diuell is in it,’ 1612, 4to, an ill-constructed tragi-comedy, is wholly by Dekker, who in the same year wrote the lord mayor's pageant, ‘Troja Nova Triumphans,’ 4to. ‘A Strange Horse Race, at the end of which comes in the Catchpols Masque,’ 1613, 4to, exposes the rogueries of horse-dealers, and touches on other forms of swindling. From 1613 to 1616, if Oldys's assertion may be credited, Dekker was confined in the king's bench prison. On 12 Sept. 1616 he addressed to Edward Alleyn, from the king's bench, some