elements of his later development may be seen in these plays:
his liking for the romantic and the idealistic which was not
to leave him wholly after it ceased to be popular on the stage,
his inclination towards wholesome realism, and towards both
the comedy of wit and the comedy that consists in a kindly
but humorous interpretation of character. Dialect he con-
tinued to use, feebly in the broken English of the supposed
French and Irish, with power in mixed English and Dutch.
In the group considered as a whole, there are few hints of
Dekker's great power to delineate character, none at all of his
success in depicting certain types of women. In dramatic
technique Dekker had much to learn: structure he never
mastered, but no later play is so incoherent as "Old Fortu-
natus" or so shapeless as "The Whore of Babylon." In
lyrical poetry and in Lylian prose, his power was full-grown,
but he had yet to put into his verse dramatic appropriate-
ness and into his prose the directness of the people's speech.
Enough has been said elsewhere about his permanent tastes,
but a word may be added to note the sympathy that could
pass from the love of the courtly Orleans to the humble duties
of the sexton at Ardres, or from the poverty of the neglected
Catholic scholar or the charm of the despised Irish race to a
rapture over the achievements of Drake.

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