He next tried the stage. It has been, in all times, the refuge of the unthrifty. But Jonson’s appearance was unfavourable to that attempt. His very ugliness, one would have thought, might have been an advantage. Mr. Gifford repels with fury the imputation on Jonson, that his hero was frightful; yet the description he gives himself of Ben Jonson is by no means attractive. His complexion, which had been clear and smooth in boyhood, was disfigured by a scorbutic humour, and ultimately by scars, from what the Germans are pleased to call the “Englische Krankheit.” His features are said not to have been irregular or unpleasing, but appear in his portraits to be large and coarse. One eye looked askance; his forehead was, however, noble; his person was broad and corpulent--after forty it became unwieldy; and his gait, he himself owned, “ungracious.” In early youth his worst points were not, probably, prominent; he had a delightful voice and emphasis. “I never,” said the Duchess of Newcastle, "heard any man read well but my husband; and I have heard him say, 'he never heard any man read well but Ben Jonson, and yet he hath heard many in his time.’"[201] Footnote 201: Gifford, from the Duchess of Newcastle’s Letters. Nevertheless, “Ben” was not a good actor. Critics differ as to the nature and duration of his theatrical employ. And Gifford, who takes every question relative to his hero as a personal matter, is indignant at the statement that he was a strolling player, or ambled by the side of a waggon, and took _mad Jeronymo’s_ part; but, as most companies were then itinerant, and, as even now, first-rate actors and actresses make provincial tours, there seems little call for the venom and wrath poured out by the indefatigable biographer, who points, with satisfaction, to the bulky figure of Jonson, and asks how he could possibly act “little _Jeronymo_,” that "inch of Spain"?[202] Footnote 202: From the First Part of “Jeronymo,” a popular play. Whatever was his position--whether, as Anthony Wood says, “he did recede to a nursery or obscure playhouse, called the _Green Curtain_,” in Shoreditch; or whether, as Gifford declares, that statement is a mere fable, and that his aims were higher--seemed now of little moment, perhaps, to Jonson himself; for his efforts were interrupted by a duel. His antagonist is supposed to have been a brother-player, who brought to the field a sword ten inches longer than poor Ben’s. They fought, and Ben killed the gentleman with the long sword, but was himself severely wounded in the arm; he was sent to prison, and brought, as he described it, “near to the gallows.” Poor Ben was now, probably, fain to cry out with _Antonio_ in the “Maid of Honour”:-- “But redeem me From this captivity, and I’ll vow Never to draw a sword, or cut my meat hereafter With a knife that has an edge or point; I’ll starve first.”[203] Footnote 203: Massinger’s Works, p. 200.