both of your persons and munition. Sergeant, call a muster. Serg. A stand! - William Hamerton, pewterer! Ham. Here, captain. Ralph. A corslet and a Spanish pike! 'tis well. Can you shake it with a terror? Ham. I hope so, captain. Ralph. Charge upon me. --'Tis with the weakest. Put more strength, William Hamerton, more strength. As you were again. Proceed, sergeant. Serg. George Greengoose, poulterer! Green. Here! Ralph. Let me see your piece, neighbour Greengoose; when was she shot in ? Green. An't like you, master captain, I made a shot even now, partly to scour her, and partly for audacity.1 Ralph. It should seem so certainly, for her breath is yet inflamed. Besides, there is a main fault in the touch-hole, it runs and stinketh. And I tell you, moreover, and believe it, ten such touch-holes would breed the pox i' th' army. Get you a feather, neighbour, get you a feather, sweet oil, and paper, and your piece may do well enough yet. Where's your powder? Green. Here. Ralph. What, in a paper? As I am a soldier and a gentleman, it craves a martial-court! You ought to die for't. Where's your horn? Answer me to that. Green. An't like you, sir, I was oblivious. Ralph. It like me not you should be so; 'tis a shame for you, and a scandal to all our neighbours, being a man of worth and estimation, to leave your horn behind you; I am afraid 'twill breed example. But let me tell you, no more on't. Stand, till I view you all. What's become o' th' nose of your flask? 1 Sol. Indeed-la, captain, 'twas blown away with powder. Ralph. Put on a new one at the city's charge. Where's the stone2 of this piece? 2 Sol. The drummer took it out to light tobacco. Ralph. 'Tis a fault, my friend; put it in again. You want a nose, and you a stone; sergeant, take a note on't, for I mean to stop it in the pay. Remove and march! [They march.] Soft and fair, gentlemen, soft and fair! Double your files; as you were! faces about! Now, you with the sodden face, keep in there! Look to your match, sirrah; it will be in your fellow's flask anon. So; make a crescent now; advance your pikes; stand and give ear!-Gentlemen, countrymen, friends, and my fellow-soldiers, I have brought you this day from the shops of security, and the counters of content, to measure out in these furious fields honour by the ell, and prowess by the pound. Let it not, oh, let it not, I say, be told hereafter, the noble issue of this city fainted; but bear yourselves in this fair action like men, valiant men, and free men! Fear not the face of the enemy, nor the noise of the guns; for, believe me, brethren, the rude rumbling of a brewer's cart is far more terrible, of which you have a daily experience; neither let the stink of powder offend you, since a more valiant stink is nightly with you. To a resolved mind, his home is everywhere: I speak not this to take away The hope of your return; for you shall see (I do not doubt it), and that very shortly, Your loving wives again, and your sweet children, ACT V.-SCENE III. A Room in Old MERRYTHOUGHT'S House. Mer. Yet, I thank God, I break not a wrinkle more than I had. Not a stoop, boys? Care, live with cats: I defy thee! My heart is as sound as an oak; and though I want drink to wet my whistle, I can sing, [Sings. Come no more there, boys, come no more there; Enter a Boy, and two Men bringing in the coffin, with LUCE in it. Boy. God save you, sir! Mer. It's a brave boy. Canst thou sing? Boy, Yes, sir, I can sing; but 'tis not so necessary at this time. Mer. Sing we, and chaunt it, Whilst love doth grant it. 1 audacity-boldness, bravery. 2 stone-i.e. flint. 1 sort-lot, company. 2 gallifoist-the Lord Mayor's barge. 3 stoop or stoup-a drinking vessel. If her offences have been great against you, Luce. Good Master Merrythought, Mrs. Mer. Why, Master Merrythought, will you be a vex'd thing still? Mer. Woman, I take you to my love again; but you shall sing before you enter; therefore despatch your song, and so come in. Mrs. Mer. Well, you must have your will, when all's done. - Micke, what song canst thou sing, boy? Mich. I can sing none forsooth, but 'A Lady's Daughter of Paris,' properly. [Sings within. It was a lady's daughter, &c. Enter Mrs. MERRYTHOUGHT and MICHAEL, Mer. Come, you're welcome home again. If such danger be in playing, Vent. [Within.] Are you within, sir? Master Merrythought! Jasp. It is my master's voice; good sir, go hold him Oh, Master Merrythought, these are the weights Will smk me to my grave! Forgive me, sir. Mer. Why, sir, I do forgive you; and be merry! And if the wag in's lifetime play'd the knave, Can you forgive him too? Vent. With all my heart, sir. Mer. Speak it again, and heartily. Now, by my soul, I do. Mer. [sings.] With that came out his paramour; Enter LUCE and JASPER. With that came out her own dear knight, Sir, if you will forgive 'em, clap their hands together; there's no more to be said i' th' matter. Vent. I do, I do. 'Cit. I do not like this: peace, boys! Hear me, one of you! everybody's part is come to an end but Ralph's, and he's left out. 'Boy. "Tis long of yourself, sir; we have nothing to do with his part. Cit. Ralph, come away! Make [an end] on him, as you have done of the rest, boys; come! "Wife. Now, good husband, let him come out and die. Cit. He shall, Nell. - Ralph, come away quickly, and die, boy. 'Boy. 'Twill be very unfit he should die, sir, upon no occasion; and in a comedy too. Cit. Take you no care of that, Sir Boy; is not his part at an end, think you, when he's dead? -Come away, Ralph!' Enter RALPH, with a forked arrow through Ralph. When I was mortal, this my costive corps Did lap up figs and raisins in the Strand; awl, And underground he vamped many a boot: [Exit with LUCE. Many achievements, and did lay on ground In talk, whilst we convey ourselves into Some inward room. Mer. What are you? are you merry ? You must be very merry, if you enter. Vent. I am, sir. Mer. Sing then. Vent. Nay, good sir, open to me. Mer. Sing, I say, Or, by the merry heart, you come not in! Vent. Well, sir, I'll sing. Fortune my foe, &c. Enter VENTERWELS. Huge Barbaroso, that insulting giant, Then honour prick'd me from my native soil Of Pompiona, his beloved daughter; But yet proved constant to the black-thumb'd maid, [Sings. Susan, and scorn'd Pompiona's love; Mer. You're welcome, sir; you're welcome! You see your entertainment; pray you be merry. Vent. Oh, Master Merrythought, I'm come to ask you Forgiveness for the wrongs I offer'd you, I do confess my hardness broke his heart, For which just Heaven hath giv'n me punishment Or in the grave, 'tis yet uncertain to me. With hat and feather, and with leading staff, And train'd my men, and brought them all off clear, Save one man that bewrayed him with the noise. But all these things I Ralph did undertake, Only for my beloved Susan's sake. Then coming home, and sitting in my shop With apron blue, Death came into my stall 1 lingell-a shoemaker's thread. To cheapen aquavitæ; but ere I Could take the bottle down, and fill a taste, And sprinkled all my face and body o'er, And in an instant vanished away. Cit. 'Tis a pretty fiction, i'faith!' Ralph. Then took I up my bow and shaft in hand, And walked into Moorfields to cool myself; (My pain increaseth) I shall never more Wife. Well said, Ralph! Do your obeisance to the gentlemen, and go your ways. Well said, Ralph!' [Exit RALPH. Mer. Methinks all we, thus kindly and unexpectedly reconciled, should not depart without a song. Vent. A good motion. Mer. Strike up then! Cit. Come, Nell, shall we go? the play's done. 'Wife. Nay, by my faith, George, I have more manners than so; I'll speak to these gentlemen first. I thank you all, gentlemen, for your patience and countenance to Ralph, a poor fatherless child ! and if I might see you at my house, it should go hard but I would have a pottle of wine and a pipe of tobacco for you; for truly I hope you do like the youth; but I would be glad to know the truth: I refer it to your own discretions whether you will applaud him or no; for I will wink, and, whilst, you shall do what you will.-I thank you, with all my heart. God give you good night!-Come, George.' [Exeunt. JOHN WEBSTER. [IN the case of nearly every one of the dramatists already noticed, we have had to lament the scantiness of biographical materials; but in no instance is this scantiness more lamentable than in the case of the 'noble-minded' John Webster. Regarding this author, nearly all that is known for certain is, that he was contemporary with most of the dramatists already mentioned, and that he wrote certain dramas of a high order, some of which are still extant. On the title-page of one of his works he is styled 'merchant-tailor,' and in the dedication to the same work he describes himself as 'one born free of the Merchant-Tailors' Company.' Gildon, who wrote about 1698, asserts that Webster was clerk of the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn; but Dyce, after careful search of the registers and other documents relating to that church, could not find the dramatist's name mentioned. The same industrious editor found the names of three John Websters who had been made free of Merchant-Tailors' Company between 1571 and 1617, but none of these can be identified with the dramatist. It has also been conjectured that, like many of his contemporaries, he was an actor as well as a writer of plays. This exhausts nearly all that is known or has been conjectured concerning this shadowy but highly-gifted dramatist, except the allusions made to him in Henslowe's diary, the first of which occurrs in 1601 in connection with a play entitled The Guise; but whether this was a work of Webster's own, or an old play which he had 'doctored' for the stage, it is now impossible to say. To be as definite as we dare, we may state that Professor Masson gives the dates of Webster's life and death approximately as 1570-1640. Webster wrote a number of dramas in conjunction with some of his contemporaries. In 1607 were printed The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt, Westward Hoe, and Northward Hoe, the joint productions of Webster and Decker. The extant dramas undoubtedly Webster's own are The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona (printed 1612); The Duchess of Malfi (published 1623, but first produced about 1616); The Devil's Law Case (1623); Appius and Virginia (first printed in 1654). All who have written on the subject agree in placing Webster in the very highest rank of the second-rate dramatists, i.e. of all those inferior to Shakespeare. His two tragedies, The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, are by far his best; and, according to Hazlitt, 'upon the whole, perhaps, come the nearest to Shakespeare of anything we have upon record.' Webster's genius was of a weird, gloomy, morbid cast, like Marlowe's raised to a higher power; his works are full of rich but 'terrible graces.' Comparing Webster with Decker, Hazlitt says: 'Webster gives more scope to the various combinations and changeable aspects [of the simple uncompounded elements of nature and passion], brings them into dramatic play by contrast and comparisons, flings them into a state of confusion by a kindled fancy, makes them describe a wider are of oscillation from the impulse of unbridled passion, and carries both terror and pity to a more painful and sometimes unwarrantable excess.' Webster delights 'to suggest horrible imaginings,' and to 'adorn his sentiments with some image of tender and awful beauty.' We have selected as a specimen of Webster's dramas, The Duchess of Malfi, in speaking of which Charles Lamb says, the duchess 'has lived among horrors till she has become "native and endowed into that element." She speaks the dialect of despair; her tongue has a snatch of Tartarus and the souls of hell. To move a horror skilfully, to touch a soul to the quick, to lay upon fear as much as it can bear; to wean and weary a life till it is ready to drop, and then step in with mortal instruments to take its last forfeits; this only a Webster can do.'] THE TRAGEDY OF THE DUCHESS OF MALFI. AS IT WAS PRESENTED PRIVATELY AT THE BLACK FRIARS, AND PUBLICLY The perfect and exact copy, with diverse things printed that the length of the play WRITTEN BY JOHN WEBSTER. London. 1623. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE GEORGE HARDING, BARON BERKELEY, OF BERKELEY CASTLE, AND KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF THE BATH eyes to look down upon their sheets of paper, when the poets themselves were bound up in their winding-sheets. The like courtesy from your lordship shall make you live in your grave, and laurel spring out of it, when the ignorant scorners of the Muses, that like worms in libraries seem to live only to destroy learning, shall wither neglected and forgotten. This work and myself I humbly present to your approved censure,1 it being the utmost of my wishes to have your honourable self my weighty and perspicuous comment; which grace so done me shall ever be acknowledged MY NOBLE LORD, -That I may present my ex- By your lordship's in all duty and observance, JOHN WEBSTER. 1 censure-judgment, criticism; from Lat. censeo, to FERDINAND, Duke of Calabria. CARDINAL, his Brother. Dramatis Personx. LORD GRISOLAN. DOCTOR. ANTONIO BOLOGNA, Steward of the Household to The Several Madmen. the Duchess. DELIO, his Friend. DUCHESS OF MALFI. DANIEL DE BOSOLA, Gentleman of the Horse to CARIOLA, her Woman. the Duchess. JULIA, Castruccio's Wife, and the Cardinal's CASTRUCCIO, an old Lord. Mistress. MARQUIS OF PESCARA, Old Lady. COUNT MALATESTI. LORD RODERIGO. SILVIO. Court Officers, Three Young Children, Two SCENE-Italy. |