His face, which, as above mentioned, had scorbutic
marks, is stated to be 'like a rotten russet apple when it is
bruiz'd'; or, like the cover of a warming-pan, 'full of oylet-holes.'
He is called an 'uglie Pope Bonifacius;' also a 'bricklayer;' and
he is asked why, instead of building chimneys and laying down
bricks, he makes 'nothing but railes'--'filthy rotten railes'--upon
which alone his Muse leans. ('Railes' has a double meaning here:
rails for fencing in a house; and gibes.) He is told that his feet
stamp as if he had mortar under them--an allusion to his metrics,
as well as to his ambling walk.
29: Shakspere was already then the proprietor of a house--New
Place, in Stratford. In this scene Horace also asks
Crispinus:--'You have much of the mother in you, sir? Your father
is dead?' John Shakspere, the father, died in the year when
_The Poetaster_ was first performed--in September, 1601.
30: _Twelfth Night_, act iii. sc. 2. _Sir Toby_:--'Let there
be gall in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen.'
31: Here Crispinus threatens Horace with the 'purge' (a word
that may be used as a noun or a verb), which, in _The Return from
Parnassus_, is mentioned as having been administered by Shakspere
to Jonson. It is highly probable that the reconciliation between
Crispinus and Horace, which is described in the beginning of
_Satiromastix_, had taken place between Shakspere and Ben Jonson,
and that, during this period of peace, the performance of _Sejanus_
occurred, in which Shakspere actively co-operated.
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