e also wrote some
very beautiful prayers.

Varied and unequal as Dekker's work is, he is one of the hardest among
the Elizabethans to classify. He at times rises to the very heights of
poetic inspiration, soaring above most of his contemporaries, to drop
all of a sudden down to a dead level of prose. But he makes up for his
shortcomings by his whole-hearted, manly view of life, his compassion
for the weak, his sympathy with the lowly, his determination to make the
best of everything, and to show the good hidden away under the evil.

"Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail,"--

these he knew from bitter experience, yet never allowed them to
overcloud his buoyant spirits, but made them serve his artistic
purposes. Joyousness is the prevailing note of his work, mingled with a
pathetic undertone of patience.

FROM 'THE GUL'S HORNE BOOKE'

HOW A GALLANT SHOULD BEHAVE HIMSELF IN POWLES WALK[49]

Now for your venturing into the Walke: be circumspect and wary what
piller you come in at, and take heed in any case (as you love the
reputation of your honour) that you avoide the _serving-man's_ dogg; but
bend your course directly in the middle line, that the whole body of the
Church may appear to be yours; where, in view of all, you may publish
your suit in what manner you affect most, either with the slide of your
cloake from the one shoulder, and then you must (as twere in anger)
suddenly snatch at the middle of the inside (if it be taffata at the
least) and so by the meanes your costly lining is betrayed, or else by
the pretty advantage of complement. But one note by the way do I
especially wooe you to, the neglect of which makes many of our gallants
cheape and ordinary; that you by no means be seen above fowre turnes,
but in the fifth make your selfe away, either in some of the Sempsters'
shops, the new Tobacco-office, or amongst the Bookesellers, where, if
you cannot reade, exercise your smoke, and inquire who has writ against
this divine weede, &c. For this withdrawing yourselfe a little will much
benefite your suit, which else by too long walking would be stale to the
whole spectators: but howsoever, if Powles Jacks be up with their
elbowes, and quarrelling to strike eleven, as soone as ever the clock
has parted them and ended the fray with his hammer, let not the Duke's
gallery conteyne you any longer, but passe away apace in open view. In
which departure, if by chance you either encounter, or aloofe o