DECKER, or DECKER, THOMAS, flourished as a dramatic author in the reign of James I., though the precise time of his birth and death, like that of many of his contemporaries, is uncertain. He is celebrated for a quarrel with Ben Jellison, who satirised him under the name of Criepinus in his Poetaster ; ' Decker returned the com pliment by writing hie 'Satyromastix,' wherein Jenson is attacked under the name of ' Young Horace.' The author of the Biographia Dramatica ' says that he became more famous from this quarrel than from any merit of his own. Later critics have however been more favourable to Decker, and Mr. Hazlitt pronounced the character of Friscobaldo in the ' Honest Whore' to be perfect in its way, as a picture of a broken-hearted father with a sneer on his lips and a tear drop in his eye. This comedy is written with great power and with a high moral feeling. Decker composed many plays in union with other dramatists; and his name often occurs in connection with Chettle and others in flenslowe's 'Diary' as receiving small sums for playa written or promised. The collected works of Webster, Mes
singer, and Ford exhibit specimens of Decker's partnership-writing, though it is hard to assign the respective portions of productions of this sort to their right authors. Mr. Gifford hati attributed all the gross indecencies of Ifassinger's ' Virgin Martyr' to the hand of Decker; but this is merely a guess, and is hardly a reasonable one. Of the plays written solely by Decker the 'Honest Whore' is the most celebrated, and is printed in Dodsley'e Collection. Besides his dramatic works, Lie ' Gull's Hornbook' has become better known by an edition published a few years ago; it contains much valuable information illustrative of the manners of Decker's time.