The
pace of a badger would be a very graphic description of his manner
of walking. Now, Jonson sneers at the word 'brock' in a way not
unfrequent with Shakspere himself, in regard to various words used
by Jonson against him. In _The Poetaster_, Tucca falls out
against the 'wormwood' comedies, which drag everything on to the
stage. We are reminded here of Hamlet's exclamation:--'Wormwood,
wormwood!' when the Queen of the Interlude speaks the two lines he
had probably intercalated:--
In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second but who kill'd the first.
24: 'Cobbler's cock' refers most likely to a drama by Robert
Wilson, entitled: _Cobbler's Prophecy_. In Collier's
_History of the English Drama_ (iii. pp. 247-8) it is thus
described:--
'It is a mass of absurdity without any leading purpose, but here and
there exhibiting glimpses of something better. The scene of the play
is laid in Boeotia which is represented to be ruled by a duke, but
in a state of confusion and disorganisation.... One of the principal
characters is a whimsical Cobbler who, by intermediation of the
heathen god Mercury, obtains prophetic power, the chief object
of which is to warn the Duke of the impending ruin of his state
unless he consents to introduce various reforms, and especially
to unite the discordant classes of his subjects.
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