Thomas Dekker, one of the best known of the Elizabethan pamphleteers and dramatists, was born in London about 1570, and began his literary career in 1597-8 when an entry referring to a loan-advance occurs in Henslowe’s Diary. A month later forty shillings were advanced from the same source to have him discharged from the Counter, a debtor’s prison. Dekker was a most voluminous writer, and not always overparticular whence he got, or how he used, the material for his tracts and plays. The Belman of London Bringing to Light the Most Notorious Villanies that are now practised in the Kingdome (1608) of which three editions were published in one year, consists mainly of pilferings from Harman’s Caveat for Common Curselors first published in 1566-7. He did not escape conviction, however, for Samuel Rowlands showed him up in Martin Mark-All. Yet another instance of wholesale “conveyance” is mentioned in the Note to “Canting Rhymes” (ante). In spite of this shortcoming, however, and a certain recklessness of workmanship, the scholar of to-day owes Dekker a world of thanks: his information concerning the social life of his time is such as can be obtained nowhere else, and it is, therefore, now of sterling value.
Lanthorne and Candlelight is the second part of The Belman of London. Published also in 1608, it ran to two editions in 1609, a fourth appearing in 1612 under the title of O per se O, or a new Cryer of Lanthorne and Candlelight, Being an Addition or Lengthening of the Belman’s Second Night Walke. Eight or nine editions of this second part appeared between 1608 and 1648 all differing more or less from each other, another variation occurring when in 1637 Dekker republished Lanthorne and Candlelight under the title of English Villanies, shortly after which he is supposed to have died.
Taken from Musa Pedestris, Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes [1536―1896], collected and annotated by John S. Farmer.
previous * next