The third and last of the “comical satires” is “Poetaster,” acted, once more, by the Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson’s only avowed contribution to the fray.  According to the author’s own account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of “Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet,” a dramatic attack upon himself.  In this attempt to forestall his enemies Jonson succeeded, and “Poetaster” was an immediate and deserved success.  While hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces, “Poetaster” is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the “Lexiphanes” of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus, is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary.  In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward “malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit.”  One of the most diverting personages in Jonson’s comedy is Captain Tucca.  “His peculiarity” has been well described by Ward as “a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a walking dictionary of slang.”

It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his reply, “Satiromastix,” and he amplified him, turning his abusive vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding “An immodesty to his dialogue that did not enter into Jonson’s conception.”  It has been held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged professionally, so to speak, to write a dramatic reply to Jonson, he was at work on a species of chronicle history, dealing with the story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus.  This he hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by “Poetaster,” and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply.  The absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the result.  But Dekker’s play is not without its palpable hits at the arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of Jonson-Horace, whose “ningle” or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson’s friend, the poet Drayton.  Slight and hastily adapted as is “Satiromastix,” especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant satire of “Poetaster,” the town awarded the palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence his practice of “comical satire.”  Though Jonson was cited to appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in “Poetaster,” nothing came of this complaint.  It may be suspected that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure playing to the gallery.  The town was agog with the strife, and on no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet,” ii. 2), we learn that the children’s company (acting the plays of Jonson) did “so berattle the common stages. . .that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither.”