That rushing wind of
satire, that storm of resonant invective, that inexhaustible volubility
of contempt, which rages through the controversial writings of the
lesser poet, has sunk to a comparative whisper; the roar of his Homeric
or Rabelaisian laughter to a somewhat forced and artificial chuckle.
This "News from Hell, brought by the Devil's Carrier," and containing
"The Devil's Answer to Pierce Penniless," might have miscarried by the
way without much more loss than that of such an additional proof as we
could have been content to spare of Dekker's incompetence to deal with a
subject which he was curiously fond of handling in earnest and in jest.
He seems indeed to have fancied himself, if not something of a Dante,
something at least of a Quevedo; but his terrors are merely tedious, and
his painted devils would not terrify a babe. In this tract, however,
there are now and then some fugitive felicities of expression; and this
is more than can be said for either the play or the poem in which he has
gone, with feebler if not more uneasy steps than Milton's Satan, over
the same ground of burning marl. There is some spirit in the prodigal's
denunciation of his miserly father: but the best thing in the pamphlet
is the description of the soul of a hero bound for paradise, whose name
is given only in the revised and enlarged edition which appeared a year
later under the title of "A Knight's Conjuring; done in earnest;
discovered in jest.
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