fluency than is the lighter dialogue of
the play for such brilliant wit or lambent humor as flashes out in
pleasantries like this:

_King_. What are you, and whence come you?

_Rufman_. From Helvetia.

_Spendola_. What hell says he?

_Jovinelli_. Peace; you shall know hot hell [_sic_] time enough.

"I hope here be proofs" that my strictures on the worst work of a poet
whose best work I treasure so heartily, and whose best qualities I rate
so highly, are rather too sparing than too severe.]

This supernatural and "superlunatical" attempt at serious farce or
farcical morality marks the nadir of Dekker's ability as a dramatist.
The diabolic part of the tragicomic business is distinctly inferior to
the parallel or similar scenes in the much older play of "Grim the
Collier of Croydon," which is perhaps more likely to have been the
writer's immediate model than the original story by Machiavelli. The two
remaining plays now extant which bear the single name of Dekker give no
sign of his highest powers, but are tolerable examples of journeyman's
work in the field of romantic or fanciful comedy. "Match Me in London"
is the better play of the two, very fairly constructed after its simple
fashion, and reasonably well written in a smooth and unambitious style:
"The Wonder of a Kingdom" is a light, slight, rough piece of work, in
its contrasts of character as crude and boyish as any of the old
moralities, and in its action as mere a dance of puppets: but it shows
at least that Dekker had regained the faculty of writing decent verse on
occasion. The fine passage quoted by Scott in _The Antiquary_ and taken
by his editors to be a forgery of his own, will be familiar to many
myriads of readers who are never likely to look it up in the original
context. Of two masks called "Britannia's Honor" and "London's Tempe" it
must suffice to say that the former contains a notable specimen of
cockney or canine French which may serve to relieve the conscientious
reader's weariness, and the latter a comic song of blacksmiths at work
which may pass muster at a pinch as a tolerably quaint and lively piece
of rough and ready fancy. But Jonson for the court and Middleton for the
city were far better craftsmen in this line than ever was Dekker at his
best.

Two plays remain for notice in which the part taken by Dekker would be,
I venture to think, unmistakable, even if no external evidence were
extant of his partnership in either. As