before them. Cominùs and Eminùs." There are a few other vigorous and
pointed verses in this little patriotic impromptu, but the greater part
of it is merely curious and eccentric doggrel.

The next of Dekker's tracts or pamphlets was the comparatively
well-known "Gull's Hornbook." This brilliant and vivid little satire is
so rich in simple humor, and in life-like photography taken by the
sunlight of an honest and kindly nature, that it stands second only to
the author's masterpiece in prose, "The Bachelor's Banquet," which has
waited so much longer for even the limited recognition implied by a
private reprint. There are so many witty or sensible or humorous or
grotesque excerpts to be selected from this pamphlet--and not from the
parts borrowed or copied from a foreign satire on the habits of slovenly
Hollanders--that I take the first which comes under my notice on
reopening the book; a study which sets before us in fascinating relief
the professional poeticule of a period in which as yet clubs, coteries,
and newspapers were not--or at the worst were nothing to speak of:

If you be a Poet, and come into the Ordinary (though it can be
no great glory to be an ordinary Poet) order yourself thus.
Observe no man, doff not cap to that gentleman to-day at dinner,
to whom, not two nights since, you were beholden for a supper;
but, after a turn or two in the room, take occasion (pulling out
your gloves) to have Epigram, or Satire, or Sonnet fastened in
one of them, that may (as it were unwittingly to you) offer
itself to the Gentlemen: they will presently desire it: but,
without much conjuration from them, and a pretty kind of
counterfeit lothness in yourself, do not read it; and, though it
be none of your own, swear you made it.