Decker alludes here to the bastard of Burgundy, who considered himself unmatchable, till he was overthrown in Smithfield by Woodville, Earl Rivers.
Horace acknowledges he played Zulziman at Paris-garden. “Sir Vaughan: Then, master Horace, you played the part of an honest man—”
Tucca exclaims: “Death of Hercules! he could never play that part well in ’s life!”
Among those arts of imitation which man has derived from the practice of animals, naturalists assure us that he owes the use of clysters to the Egyptian Ibis. There are some who pretend this medicinal invention comes from the stork. The French are more like Ibises than we are: ils se donnent des lavements eux-mêmes. But as it is rather uncertain what the Egyptian Ibis is; whether, as translated in Leviticus xi. 17, the cormorant, or a species of stork, or only “a great owl,” as we find in Calmet; it would be safest to attribute the invention to the unknown bird. I recollect, in Wickliffe’s version of the Pentateuch, which I once saw in MS. in the possession of my valued friend Mr. Douce, that that venerable translator interpolates a little, to tell us that the Ibis “giveth to herself a purge.”
This work was not given to the public till 1724, a small quarto, with a fine portrait of Brooke. More than a century had elapsed since its forcible suppression. Anstis printed it from the fair MS. which Brooke had left behind him. The author’s paternal affection seemed fondly to imagine its child might be worthy of posterity, though calumniated by its contemporaries.