intervention in the Poetomachia led Jonson to portray him as Demetrius Fannius 'the dresser of plays' in The Poetaster; that he is also Thersites in Troilus and Cressida is a not very plausible conjecture. Long after, in 1619, Jonson classed him among the 'rogues' (Laing, 4). In 1604, however, he shared with Jonson the responsibility for the London devices at James's coronation entry. About this time began his career as a writer of popular pamphlets, in which he proved the most effective successor of Thomas Nashe. These, and in particular The Gull's Hornbook (1609), are full of touches drawn from his experience as a dramatist. Nor did he wholly desert the stage, collaborating with Middleton for the Prince's and with Webster for Paul's, and writing also, apparently alone, for the Queen's. In 1612 he devised the Lord Mayor's pageant. In 1613 he fell upon evil days. He had always been impecunious, and Henslowe (i. 83, 101, 161) had lent him money to discharge him from the Counter in 1598 and from an arrest by the Chamberlain's in 1599. Now he fell into the King's Bench for debt, and apparently lay there until 1619. The relationship of his later work to that of Ford, Massinger, Day, and others, lies rather beyond the scope of this inquiry, but in view of the persistent attempts to find early elements in all his plays, I have made my list comprehensive. He is not traceable after 1632, and is probably the Thomas Decker, householder, buried at St. James's, Clerkenwell, on 25 Aug. 1632. A Clerkenwell recusant of this name is recorded in 1626 and 1628 (Middlesex County Records, iii. 12, 19).
Collections 1873. [R. H. Shepherd], The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker. 4 vols. (Pearson Reprints). [Contains 15 plays and 4 Entertainments.] 1884-6. A. B. Grosart, The Non-Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker. 5 vols. (Huth Library). [Contains nearly all the pamphlets, with Patient Grissell. A better edition of The Gull's Hornbook is that by R. B. McKerrow (1904); a chapter is in App. H.] 1887. E. Rhys, Thomas Dekker (Mermaid Series). [Contains The Shoemaker's Holiday, 1, 2 The Honest Whore, Old Fortunatus, The Witch of Edmonton.] Dissertations: M. L. Hunt, Thomas Dekker: A Study (1911, Columbia Studies in English); W. Bang, Dekker-Studien (1900, E. S. xxviii. 208); F. E. Pierce, The Collaboration of Webster with Dekker (1909, Yale Studies, xxxvii) and The Collaboration of Dekker and Ford (1912, Anglia, xxxvi, 141, 289); E. E. Stoll, John Webster (1905), ch. ii, and The Influence of Jonson on Dekker (1906, M. L. N. xxi. 20); R. Brooke, John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama (1916); F. P. Wilson, Three Notes on Thomas Dekker (1920, M. L. R. xv. 82).
PLAYS
Old Fortunatus. 1599
S. R. 1600, Feb. 20. 'A commedie called old Fortunatus in his newe lyuerie.' William Aspley (Arber, iii. 156).
