SOURCE: “The Social and Moral Philosophy of Thomas Dekker,” in Emporia State Research Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, December 1955, pp. 1-36.

In the following excerpt, Thornton evaluates the relative virtue and integrity of the various strata of society depicted in The Honest Whore.

But gentlemen, I must disarme you then, There are of mad-men, as there are of tame, All humourd not alike: we have here some, So apish and phantasticke, play with a feather, And tho twould grieve a soule to see Gods image So blemisht and defac'd, yet doe they act Such anticke and such pretty lunacies, That spite of Sorrow they will make you smile: Others agen we have like hungry Lions, Fierce as the wilde Bulls, untameable as flies, And these have oftentimes from strangers sides Snatcht rapiers suddenly, and done much harme, Whom if you'l see, you must be weaponlesse. 

The Honest Whore, I (1604)

In...