Chester survived to be known to Ben Jonson, who has immortalized him as Carlo Buffone, in ‘Every Man Out of His Humour.’ In the character of the persons prefixed to that piece, this buffoon is described as scurrilous and profane; rich in absurd similes and audacious lies; a “good feast-hound or banquet-beagle;” a thorough parasite and glutton, and a stupendous swiller of sack. “His religion is railing, and his discourse ribaldry;” and it is added of this perverse fellow, that he loaded those with the heaviest reproaches whom he had the greatest reason to respect. Such a character accords well with the noisy, evil-tempered fellow depicted by Aubrey (Lives, ii. p. 14), who tells us that the fool so offended a knight at a tavern by his impertinence, that the angry gentleman beat him, and stopped his mouth by sealing his beard and moustachios together with wax! It is, however, to be noted, that Carlo in the play is superior to Carlo as described in the persons of the drama. If Jonson’s picture be a veritable portrait, how exquisitely could this buffoon prattle of the advantage of being in debt--advantage so dear to fools of all classes in this present time! How admirably could he hit off an old over-scented lover, “who has his skin tanned in civet, to make his complexion strong, and the sweetness of his youth lasting in the smell of his sweet lady.” How dashingly he hits off a city gentleman; how frolicsomely he exposes the city wives! He alludes to “standing by the fire in the presence,” as if the ways of Court were familiar to him; and to taking tobacco with nobles, “over the stage in the lords’ room,” as if he had right of entry there. Some of his similes are drawn from his profession, for he describes a man’s shield of arms as being “of as many colours as ever you saw any fool’s coat in your life.” What a _vade mecum_ for asses is his instruction to dolts to show how they may pass for sensible fellows in society! How happily, yet briefly, does he paint a student learning to smoke! With what true fool’s satire does he exclaim, “_Friend!_ is there any such foolish thing in the world?” and what fool’s philosophy is there in the assertion that “Swaggering is a good argument of resolution!” We probably have something of the look of Chester afforded us in the remark of Macilente, “Pork! I think thou dost varnish thy face with the fat on’t, it looks so like a glue-pot.” And what a sharp touch of the jester’s fence is the reply, “True, my raw-boned rogue, and if thou wouldst farce thy lean ribs with it, too, they would not, like ragged laths, rub out so many doublets as they do.” When Puntarvolo seals up his mouth, as Aubrey’s knight did that of the real Chester, we feel that it could not be for the same reason; and when the vain-glorious cavalier tells us that “Carlo comes not at Court,” we are apt to think, that if Chester was of the times and not also of the household of Queen Elizabeth, she lacked a jester fit to rank with Clod.