Gifford does that all the indecency is
Dekker's and all the poetry Massinger's." Now the words of Gifford's
note on the dialogue of which I have already spoken, between the saint
and the angel, are these: "What follows is exquisitely beautiful.... I
am persuaded that this also was written by Dekker." And seeing that no
mortal critic but Kingsley ever dreamed of such absurdity as Kingsley
rushes forward to refute, his controversial capacity will probably be
regarded by all serious students of poetry or criticism as measurable by
the level of his capacity for accurate report of fact or accurate
citation of evidence.
There are times when we are tempted to denounce the Muse of Dekker as
the most shiftless and shameless of slovens or of sluts; but when we
consider the quantity of work which she managed to struggle or shuffle
through with such occasionally admirable and memorable results, we are
once more inclined to reclaim for her a place of honor among her more
generally respectable or reputable sisters. I am loath to believe what I
see no reason to suppose, that she was responsible for the dismal
drivel of a poem on the fall of Jerusalem, which is assigned, on the
surely dangerous ground of initials subscribed under the dedication, to
a writer who had the misfortune to share these initials with Thomas
Deloney.
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