personage in Jonson's Poetaster, and a copy
of his own Bobadil, whose original the poet had found at "Powles," the
fashionable lounge of that day, is here continued with the same
spirit; and as that character permitted from the extravagance of its
ribaldry, it is now made the vehicle for those more personal retorts,
exhibiting the secret history of Ben, which perhaps twitted the great
bard more than the keenest wit, or the most solemn admonition which
Decker could ever attain. Jonson had cruelly touched on Decker being
out at elbows, and made himself too merry with the histrionic tribe:
he, who was himself a poet, and had been a Thespian! The blustering
captain thus attacks the great wit:--"Do'st stare, my Saracen's head
at Newgate? I'll march through thy Dunkirk guts, for shooting jests at
me." He insists that as Horace, "that sly knave, whose shoulders were
once seen lapp'd in a player's old cast cloak," and who had reflected
on _Crispinus's_ satin doublet being ravelled out; that he should wear
one of _Crispinus's_ "old cast sattin suits," and that _Fannius_
should write a couple of scenes for his own "strong garlic comedies,"
and Horace should swear that they were his own--he would easily bear
"the guilt of conscience." "Thy Muse is but a hagler, and wears
clothes upon best be trust (a humorous Deckerian phrase)--thou'rt
_great_ in somebody's books for this!" Did it become Jonson to gibe at
the histrionic tribe, who is himself accused of "treading the stage,
as if he were treading mortar."[394] He once put up--"a supplication
to be a poor journeyman player, and hadst been still so, but that thou
couldst not set _a good face_ upon't. Thou hast forget how thou
ambled'st in leather-pilch, by a play-waggon in the highway; and
took'st mad Jeronimo's part, to get service among the mimics," &c.

Ben's person was, indeed, not gracious in the playfulness of love or
fancy. A female, here, thus delineates Ben:--

"That same Horace has the most ungodly face, by my fan; it looks for
all the world like a rotten russet-apple, when 'tis bruised. It's
better than a spoonful of cinnamon-water next my heart, for me to hear
him speak; he sounds it so i' th' nose, and talks and rants like the
poor fellows under Ludgate--to see his face make faces, when he reads
his songs and sonnets."

Again, we have Ben's face compared with that of his favourite,
Horace's--"You staring Leviathan! look on the sweet visage of Horace;
look, parboil'd