The Dramatic Works of John Webster
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Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES J gibvavx] 0t ©Itr ^utljotre. THE DRAMATIC WOEKS OF JOHN WEBSTER. EDITED BY AVILLIAM HAZLITT, OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE. IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. I. L X D N. REEVES & TURNER, 1897. Digitized by tlie Internet Arcliive in 2008 witli funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation Iittp://www.arcliive.org/details/dramaticworl<sofj01webs INTRODUCTION. ^ HERE are scarcely any knoAvn materials of Avhich to frame even an outline of the biography of John "Webster. "We know not where he was born, nor, precisely, when ; but there is an entry in the register of the parish church of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch—"Married: John "Webster and Isabell Sutton, 25 July, 1590,"— which Mr. Collier, an author by no means used to jump " to conclusions, identiiies with our poet, adding : our principal reason for thinking that it may refer to him is, that elsewhere in the register he is sometimes called merchant-tailor, a description he himself assumed." ^ Alice, the daughter of this pair, was baptized at St. Leonard's, 9th May, 1 606. Gildon, in his Lives of the Poets, tells us that "Webster Avas clerk of the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn ; and as Gildon's book was published in 1698— conjecturally, but half a century after "Webster's death—he may have proceeded upon valid information in his statement. The name of Webster, it is true, does not occur in the registers of the church of that parish ; but the clerkship being in the gift of the rector, the vestry register could afford no ^ J. P. Collier ; Memoirs of the Principal Acto$s in the Playa of Shakespeare, published by the Shakesi)eare Society, 1846. b 1995052 — — vi INTRODUCTION. direct evidence upon the subject. It does, however, furnish indirect evidence that Webster had ceased, or had not commenced, to be clerk of the parish in 1629 ; for under the date 15th June, 1629, occurs this entry: "It is agreed that Mr. Smith, the clerke of this parisli, shall have a lease," &c. "Webster, in whatever connec- tion, was also a member of the ^Merchant Tailors' com- pany, as he himself informs us on the title-page of his Momiment of H(ynour, which he tliere sets forth as " invented and Avritten by John Webster, Taylor." ]SIr. Dyce's minvite researches liave discovered three John Websters who were made free of this Company between 1571 and 1617 ; but there is no sort of indication by which we may identify any of these three tailors with J:ohn Webster the dramatist. Indeed, as the Monument of Honour was printed in 1624, its author, if one of the three at all, could only have been the John Webster who " Lune Decimo Septimo die Novemb. Anno D'". ;" 1617) was made free by Henry Clinckard his ]\P'. for the next anteceding John Webster dates back so far as 1576. Mr. Dyce, further, produces from the Prerogative Court the will of one John Webster, clothworker, who died 5th August, 1625; but John Webster, the poet, lived, we may abnost venture to affirm, many years after that period. There is another suggestion — not obviously reconcileable with clerkship or clotliworkership,l)utmure probable in itself than either—that he augmented the then small gains of dramatist by the much more proiit- able employment of actor. ^ There remains to be 1 Thus writes, in 1613, Henry Parrott, in his " Laquei Ridiculosi, or Springes for VVoodcockes :" " Theatrum Licentia, "Cotta's become a player, most men know, : INTRODUCTION. vii mentioned one other occupation which Webster is said to have filled—that of College Tutor. In the year 1 654, appeared a tract entitled Academiarum Examen, or the Examinafion of Academies. Wherein is discussed and examined the Matter, Method, and Customes of Aca- demick and Scholasticlc Learning, and the insufficiency thereof discovered and laid open ; As also some Expedients proposed far the Reforminci of Schools, and the perfectinrj and promoting of all land of Science. Ofered to the judgements of all those that love the 2vo- ficiencie of Arts and Sciences, and the advancement of Learning. By Jo. Webster. This John Webster, ]Mr. Collier, in his Poetical Decameron, seeks to show was John Webster, the dramatist; but "Sir. Dyce, upon more elaborate investigation, has, with apparent success, identified him as the John Webster who, after having been in holy orders, became a practitioner in physic at Clitheroe, in Lancashire, and was the author, also, of The Saints' Guide, Hie Displaying of s^ipjposed Witch- craft, and other works. However, one of the two replies to this pamphlet is entitled : Histrio-Mastix. A Wliip for Webster (as 'tis conceived) the Quondam Player, or An examination of one John Webster's Examen of ^-c. Academies, ; and, in its course, occurs the passage "This Mr. Webster {as I su2^pose) is that Poet whose glory was once to be the Author of Stage-plaies (as the Devil's Lair-case) but now the Tutor of Universities." And will no longer take such toylino' paines ; For here's the spring (saith he) whence pleasures flow, And brinjjs them damnable cxres.^ire i/aines.'' It should be added, however, that Mr. Collier, in his Lives of the Actors in Shakes])eare's Plaj'S, while relating^ that Webster lived in Holj'well Street, among the actors, doubts whether he ever trod the stage himself. viii INTRODUCTION. Mr. Dyce has made out a very fair case for proving that the authors of this diatribe, who " conceived " and "supposed" that the Webster whom they were assailing was "Webster the quondam plaier," knew perfectly well "that their adversary was not the dramatist; and threw out the supposition of their being the same person, as a likely means of bringing discredit on the former in times of canting and hypocrisy."^ This, however, is perfectly clear to the present Editor, that the writers of Histrio-Madi.t: would not, for the very " sake of their sneer, have " conceived " or " supposed any such identity as that malignantly suggested, had not John Webster, the quondam player, been still alive, and had he not, also, been connected in some way with one of the universities—perhaps he had been a teacher of elocution there. However, whatever may have been the other occupations by which he made up a living, he must, on the supposition that he Avas in existence so late as 1654, have commenced writing for the stage very early for in Henslowe's Diary- find — ; we this entry : " Lent unto William Jube, the 3 of ISTov- embr, 1601, to bye stamell clothe for a clock for the Gwisse—Webster—iij. li." " The name of Webster (writes Mr. Collier) is inter- lined, perhaps in a different hand ; but there is little doubt that this distinguished dramatist at this date either re-wrote, or made some extensive alterations and additions to, Marlowe's Massacre at Paris ; in the next entry it is called by Henslowe, not the Guise, as ^Memoir prefixed to Dyce's edition of Webster's Works, 1830. 2 The Diary of Philip Hensloive, from 1591 to 1609, printed from the original Manuscript preserved at Dulwich College, edited by J. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A. London, printed for the Shakespeare Society, 1845. INTRODUCTION. ix in the Memorandum before us, but The Massacre of France." It may be observed, indeed, that the name Webster is here written correctly, while in the first entry, where the name occurs in the undoubted manu- script of Henslowe, it is spelt Webester ; but the old curmudgeon's orthograj)hy in the nomenclature, whether of his plays, or his playwrights, or his " littell tayllors," was so irregular in its inaccuracy, that no deduction can be formed from this circumstance. In the dedication to his DeviVs Law Case, "Webster himself mentions that he had written a play called Tlie Ghiise, and this may very possibly have been, as Mr. Collier further on con- ceives, the very piece referred to by Henslowe. A play, recorded by Henslowe as The Guyes, was acted for the first time on 30th Jan. 1593 ; and this Mr. Collier conceives to have been, in all probability. The Massacre of Paris, by Marlowe, who was killed six months after- wards. Whether, however, Henslowe's Guisse of the 3rd Nov. 1601, his Masaker of France, of the next item in his Diary, and his Gwesse of the 8th 'Nov. 1601, was his Guyes of the 30th Jan. 1593, and Marlowe's play, or whether it was a new play by Webster on the same subject, or a reconstruction of Marlowe by Web- ster, so largely augmented and so materially altered that the latter thought himself, in later years, entitled to record Tlie Guise as a play of his own. none now can tell ; for there is extant, or, at least, known to be extant, no play by Webster on the subject.^ The next occasion on which Webster's name appears in Henslowe's Diary, is in the year 1602, when under date " the 22 of Maij," the worthy manager notes that ^ Mr. Gilchrist suggests that this play of Cuj.se may be The Duke oj Gicise, which, as by Henry Shirley, was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company, Sept. 9, 1651. — X INTRODUCTION. he has " Lent unto the Companye, to geve unto Antoney Monday, and jMihell (Michael) Drayton, Webester, Mydelton, and the Rest, in earneste of a Boocke called Sesers Falle, the some of v"." What this Ciesar's Fall may have been, cannot now be deter- mined, for there is no such play among the extant works of Munday, Drayton, Welister, or Middleton.