_The Shoemaker’s Holiday_ serves well as an instance of Dekker’s realistic method. One sees in it a natural outcome of his prentice life in London, as a shoemaker, a “seamster,” or what not. In coming to _Old Fortunatus_ on the other hand, we have Dekker as pure poet and idealist. Instead of the lusty zest of comedy, we have the romantic spirit in its perfection; the glamour of romance is cast over everything. Founded upon one of those fabulous histories in which the sixteenth century so loved to indulge its imagination, the play appeals directly to the sense of wonder and adventure which the poets, playwrights and story-tellers of the day, could always count upon in their audience. As pointed out in the preliminary note to the play, Dekker’s version is founded upon an earlier one which was performed some three years before he began his. It would be interesting to discover what the character of the original version was, both in its general lines and in its details. In his admirable book, “Studies in the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the sixteenth century,” Mr. C. H. Herford has pointed out the resemblance in certain parts of the original legend and of the play to the story of Faustus. This indirectly leads us to the consideration of how far the writer of the earlier play may have been influenced, if at all, by the dramatic method of Marlowe. For in some parts of Dekker’s version, the resemblance in the structure of the blank verse on occasion, and in the scenic and other detail, to Marlowe is striking. Only, in the verse, it is _Tamburlaine_ rather than _Dr. Faustus_ that is suggested, as for instance in Fortune’s address to Fortunatus, when she appears to him with her array of discrowned kings and kings new-created. “These have I ruined, and exalted those: These hands have conquered Spain: these brows fill up The golden circle of rich Portugal. Viriat a monarch now, but born a shepherd: This Primislaus, a Bohemian King, Last day a carter; this monk Gregory, Now lifted to the Papal dignity.” The preceding passage, beginning “Thou shalt be one of Fortune’s minions,” which contains too a direct reference to-- “that great Scythian swain, Fortune’s best minion, warlike Tamburlaine,” is still more like Marlowe. Dekker’s verse, it is true, does not march mail-clad like Marlowe’s: it has a plasticity and a suppleness which the other’s “mighty line” lacked, while it fails to achieve the same state and sustained dignity. But after all differences are allowed for, there is much in the blank verse in some parts of _Old Fortunatus_, which only Marlowe could have inspired.