votedly attached to art, he occupied his leisure hours in painting, and executed several altar-pieces for churches at Antwerp. Having occasion to go to Dunkirk on business, he painted an altar-piece for the convent of English nuns there which pleased them so much that they persuaded him that he could make his fortune as a painter in England. De Keyser, being provided by the nuns with an introduction to Lord Melfort, availed himself of a fair wind and a returning ship and crossed then and there to England. There he was well received by Lord Melfort, who introduced him to James II, and he soon obtained many commissions. He then sent over to Antwerp for his wife and family, with instructions to dispose of his establishment in the jeweller's trade. Soon after their arrival the revolution occurred, and De Keyser found himself deprived of his best patrons; as his affairs got gradually worse, he took to studying the possible discovery of the philosopher's stone. This folly soon brought him to an early grave, and he died in reduced circumstances about 1692, aged 45. He left a daughter, whom he educated with great care from her youth as an artist. She attained some note as a painter of portraits and in copying pictures in small. She married a Mr. Humble, and died in December 1724. Vertue, who knew her personally, states that she had several paintings by her father, including an altar-piece of St. Catherine, commissioned by the queen for Somerset House Chapel, and others which showed him to have studied carefully the style and colouring of the Italian masters.
[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painters, ed. Dallaway and Wornum; Vertue's MSS. (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 23069); Immerzeel's Levens en Werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche Kunstschilders, &c.]
DEKKER, THOMAS (1570?–1641?), dramatist, was born about 1570. His birthplace was London, as he intimates in ‘The Seuen Deadly Sinnes,’ 1600, and in ‘A Rod for Run-awayes,’ 1625. In ‘Warres, Warres, Warres,’ a tract published in 1628, he describes himself as an old man; and in the dedication to ‘Match Mee in London,’ 1631, addressing Lodowick Carlell, he writes: ‘I haue beene a priest in Apollo's temple many yeares, my voice is decaying with my age.’ If a passage in the preface to his ‘English Villainies,’ 1637, in which he speaks of ‘my three score yeares,’ could be taken literally, the date of his birth would be 1577. A ‘Thomas Dycker, gent.,’ had a daughter Dorcas christened at St. Giles's, Cripplegate (near the Fortune Theatre), on 27 Oct. 1594; a daughter of ‘Thomas Dekker’ was buried there in 1598; and a son of ‘Thomas Dekker’ was buried in 1598 at St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate; but it is not clear that these baptismal and burial entries refer to the dramatist's family. On the title-page of a copy (preserved in the British Museum) of the lord mayor's pageant for 1612, ‘Troja Nova Triumphans,’ is written near Dekker's name, in a contemporary handwriting, ‘marchan-tailor;’ but Dekker's connection with the Merchant Tailors' Company has not hitherto been traced.
The first definite notice of Dekker is in Henslowe's ‘Diary,’ under date January 1597–1598: ‘Lent unto Thomas Dowton, the 8 of Jenewary 1597, twenty shillinges, to by a booke of Mr. Dickers, xxxs.’ On 15 Jan. 1597–8 Henslowe paid four pounds ‘to bye a boocke of Mr. Dicker, called Fayeton.’ In February of the same year Dekker was lodged in the Counter, and Henslowe paid forty shillings to have him discharged (Diary, ed. Collier, p. 118). After his release from the Counter his pen was very active. The ‘Diary’ records the titles of eight plays that he wrote single-handed between 1598 and 1602: (1) ‘The Triplicity of Cuckolds,’ 1598; (2) ‘First Introduction of the Civil Wars of France,’ 1598–9; (3) ‘Orestes Furies,’ 1599; (4) ‘The Gentle Craft,’ 1599, published anonymously in 1600 under the title of ‘The Shomaker's Holiday, or the Gentle Craft;’ (5) ‘Bear a Brain,’ 1599; (6) ‘Whole History of Fortunatus,’ 1599, published anonymously in 1600 under the title of ‘The Pleasant Comedie of Old Fortunatus;’ (7) ‘Truths Supplication to Candlelight,’ 1599–1600 (8) ‘Medicine for a Curst Wife,’ 1602. In conjunction with Drayton, Wilson, and Chettle, he wrote: (1) ‘Earl Godwin and his Three Sons’ (‘Goodwine and iij Sones’), 1598; (2) a ‘Second Part of Godwin,’ 1598; (3) ‘Pierce of Exton,’ 1598; (4) ‘Black Bateman of the North,’ 1598. Drayton and Wilson were his coadjutors in (1) ‘The Mad Man's Morris’ (‘the made manes mores’), 1598; (2) ‘Hannibal and Hermes, or Worse feared than hurt,’ 1598; (3) ‘Chance Medley,’ 1598 (to which Chettle or Munday also contributed). In 1598 he also joined Drayton in the authorship of (1) ‘First Civil Wars in France;’ (2) ‘Connan Prince of Cornwall;’ (3) ‘Second Part of the Civil Wars in France;’ (4) ‘Third Part of the Civil Wars in France.’ On 30 Jan. 1598–9 Henslowe paid three pounds ten shillings ‘to descarge Thomas Dickers frome the areaste of my lord chamberlain's men.’ Three plays by Dekker and Chettle were produced in 1599: (1) ‘Troilus and Cressida;’ (2) ‘Agamemnon;’ (3) ‘The Stepmother's Tragedy.’
