 It was probably composed not long before; nineteenth-century speculations that the text was an old play of Dekker's, revised by Ford, have fallen out of favor.The original text may have been revised c. 1638–39; material in the early portion of Act V reflects the dominant political situation at that time.Cyrus Hoy has suggested that the play was revised and revived at that time, as a response to Thomas Nabbes's "Microcosmus" (1636; published 1637).