out of him in so glorious a triumph; but
disdainfully angry, that she wrought her enlargement through no
more dangers: yet were there bleeding witnesses enow on his
breast, which testified, he did not yield till he was conquered,
and was not conquered, till there was left nothing of a man in
him to be overcome.

That the poet's loyalty and devotion were at least as ardent when
offered by his gratitude to sailors as to soldiers we may see by this
description of "The Seaman" in his next work:

A progress doth he take from realm to realm,
With goodly water-pageants borne before him;
The safety of the land sits at his helm,
No danger here can touch, but what runs o'er him:
But being in heaven's eye still, it doth restore him
To livelier spirts; to meet death with ease,
_If thou wouldst know thy maker, search the seas_.[1]

[Footnote 1: The italics are here the author's.]

These homely but hearty lines occur in a small and mainly metrical
tract bearing a title so quaint that I am tempted to transcribe it at
length: "The Double PP. A Papist in Arms. Bearing Ten several Shields.
Encountered by the Protestant. At Ten several Weapons. A Jesuit Marching
before them. Cominus and Eminus." 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