In the Address to the Reader prefixed to the first edition, published in 1612, of 'The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona,' of JOHN WEBSTER, is the following passage:— "Detraction is the sworn friend to ignorance: for mine own part, I have ever truly cherished my good opinions of other men's worthy labours, especially of that full and heightened style of Master Chapman; the laboured and understanding works of Master Jonson; the no less worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Master Beaumont and Master Fletcher; and lastly (without wrong last to be named), the right happy and copious industry of Master Shakespeare, Master Dekker, and Master Heywood, wishing what I write may be read by their light; protesting that, in the strength of mine own judgment, I know them so worthy, that though I rest silent in my own work, yet to most of theirs I dare (without flattery) fix that of Martial :

'Non norunt hæc monumenta mori."" Webster was formed upon Shakspere. He had no pretensions to the inexhaustible wit, the all-penetrating humour of his master; but he had the power of approaching the terrible energy of his passion, and the profoundness of his pathos, in characters which he took out of the great muster-roll of humanity,

and placed in fearful situations, and sometimes with revolting imaginings almost beyond humanity. Those who talk of the carelessness of Shakspere may be surprised to find that his praise is that of a "right happy and copious industry." It is clear what dramatic writers were the objects of Webster's love. He did not aspire to the "full and heightened style of Master Chapman," nor would his genius be shackled by the examples of "the laboured and understanding works of Master Jonson." He belonged to the school of the romantic Master Beaumont and Master dramatists. Fletcher are "worthily excellent; " but his aspiration was to imitate "the right happy and copious industry of Master Shakespeare, Master Dekker, and Master Heywood, wishing what I write may be read by their light." There were critics at that time who regarded the romantic drama as a diversion for the multitude only; and Webster thinks it necessary to apologize for this deliberate choice "Willingly, and not ignorantly, in this kind have I faulted." He says—" If it be objected this is no true dramatic poem, I shall easily confess it, non potes in nugas dicere plura meas, ipse ego quam dixi; willingly, and not ignorantly, in this kind have I faulted: for should a man present, to such an auditory, the most sententious

tragedy that was ever written, observing all the critical laws, as height of style, and gravity of person, enrich it with the sententious Chorus, and, as it were, 'liven death, in the passionate and weighty Nuntias; yet, after all this divine rapture, O dura messorum ilia, the breath that comes from the uncapable multitude is able to poison it; and, ere it be acted, let the author resolve to fix to every scene this of Horace

Hæc porcis hodie comedenda relinques.” ” As early as 1602, Webster was a writer for Henslow's theatre, in conjunction with Dekker, Drayton, Middleton, Chettle, Heywood, and Wentworth Smith. At a later period he was more directly associated with Dekker alone. His great tragedies of 'The White Devil' and 'The Duchess of Malfi' were produced at the period when Shakspere had almost ceased to write; and it is probably to this circumstance we owe these original and unaided efforts of Webster's genius. There was a void to be filled up, and it was filled up worthily,

Webster has placed his coadjutor DEKKER next to Shakspere. He looked upon the world with an observant eye; and of him it has been said, that his "pamphlets and plays alone would furnish a more complete view of the habits and customs of his contemporaries in vulgar and middle life than could easily be collected from all the grave annals of the times."* He was confident in his powers; and claimed to be a satirist by as indefeasible a title as that of his greater rival Jonson:-"I am snake-proof; and though, with Hannibal, you bring whole hogsheads of vinegar-railings, it is impossible for you to quench or come over my Alpine resolution. I will sail boldly and desperately alongst the shores of the isle of Gulls; and in defiance of those terrible block-houses, their loggerheads, make a true discovery of their wild yet habitable country." + Thomas

Dekker is certainly one of those who gather humours from all men ; but his wit is not of the highest or the most delicate character. He knows the town, and he makes the most of

*Quarterly Review.' Gull's Hornbook.'

| his knowledge. Though he is a "high flyer in wit," as Edward Phillips calls him, yet is he a poet. As he advanced in years, he was wielding greater powers, and dealing with nobler things, than belonged to the satirist. In his higher walk he is of the school of nature and simplicity. Hazlitt speaks of one of his plays, perhaps the best, with true artistical feeling :-"The rest of the character is answerable to the beginning. The execution is, throughout, as exact as the conception is new and masterly. There is the least colour possible used; the pencil drags; the canvas is almost seen through: but then, what precision of outline, what truth and purity of tone, what firmness of hand, what marking of character! . . . . . It is as if there were some fine art to chisel thought, and to embody the inmost movements of the mind in every-day actions and familiar speech."* Dekker acquired some of his satirical propensities, but the tenderness of his heart was also called forth, in the crooked ways and dark places of misfortune. Almost the first record of his life is a memorandum by Henslow of the loan of forty shillings, "to discharge Mr. Dicker out of the Counter in the Poultry." Oldys, in his manuscript notes upon Langbaine, affirms that he was in the King's Bench Prison from 1613 to 1616. His own calamities furnish a commentary to the tenderness of many such passages as the following, in which a father is told of the miseries of his erring daughter:

"I'm glad you are wax, not marble; you are

made

Of man's best temper; there are now good hopes

That all these heaps of ice about your heart,
By which a father's love was frozen up,
Are thaw'd in these sweet show'rs fetch'd

from your eyes:

We are ne'er like angels till our passion dies.
She is not dead, but lives under worse fate;
I think she's poor."

The praise of industry belongs to Dekker, though its fruits were poverty. He lived to a considerable age, and he laboured to the last at play or pamphlet. But the amount * Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth.'

of his productions becomes almost insignificant when compared with the more than "copious industry of THOMAS HEYWOOD. He was a scholar, having been educated at Cambridge at Peterhouse, it is said; but he became an actor as early as 1598, being then a sharer in Henslow's company. In 1633 he claimed for himself the authorship, entirely or in part, of two hundred and twenty dramas. Many of his two hundred and twenty dramas were probably such short pieces as The Yorkshire Tragedy.' Heywood had the power of stirring the affections, of moving pity and terror by true representations of the course of crime and misery in real life. Charles Lamb has summed up the character of his writings in three lines:"Heywood is a sort of prose Shakspeare. His scenes are to the full as natural and affecting. But we miss the poet, that which in Shakspeare always appears out and above the surface of the nature." Winstanley, not a very trustworthy authority, speaking of Heywood's wonderful fertility, says-" He not only acted himself almost every day, but also wrote each day a sheet; and that he might lose no time, many of his plays were composed in the tavern, on the back side of tavern bills; which may be an occasion that so many of them are lost."

FRANCIS BEAUMONT was a boy at the period to which our slight notice of his great coadjutor Fletcher belongs*. The poetical union of Beaumont and Fletcher has given birth to stories, such as Aubrey delights in telling, that their friendship extended even to a community of lodging and clothes, with others matters in common that are held to belong to the perfection of the social system. We neither believe these things entirely, nor do we quite receive the assertion of Dr. Earle, that Beaumont's "main business was to correct the overflowings of Mr. Fletcher's wit." Edward Phillips repeats this assertion. They first came before the world in the association of a title-page in 1607. The junior always preceded the elder poet in such announcements of their works; and this was probably determined by the alphabetical arrangement. We have many

* Book vi. chap. i. page 264.

indications that Beaumont was regarded by his contemporaries as a man of great and original power. It was not with the exaggeration of a brother's love that Sir John Beaumont wrote his affecting epitaph upon the death of Francis :—

"Thou shouldst have follow'd me, but death to blame

Miscounted years, and measur'd age by fame." He was buried by the side of Chaucer and Spenser, in the hallowed earth where it was wished that Shakspere should have been laid ::

"Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh To learned Chaucer; and, rare Beaumont, lie A little nearer Spenser, to make room For Shakespear in your threefold, fourfold tomb.

To lodge all four in one bed make a shift, For until doomsday hardly will a fifth, Betwixt this day and that, by fates be slain, For whom your curtains need be drawn again."

"#

When Shakspere's company performed at Wilton, in December, 1603, it is more than probable that there was a young man present at those performances, whose course of life might have been determined by the impulses of those festive hours. PHILIP MASSINGER, who in 1603 was nineteen years of age, was the son of a gentleman filling a service of trust in the household of the Earls of Pembroke. At this period Philip was a commoner of St. Alban Hall, Oxford. “Being sufficiently famed for several specimens of wit, he betook himself to making plays."| This is Anthony Wood's account of the dedication of Massinger to a pursuit which brought him little but hopeless poverty. Amongst Henslow's papers was found an undated letter, addressed to him by Nathaniel Field, with postscripts signed by Robert Daborne and Philip Massinger. Malone conjectures that the letter was written between 1612 and 1615, Henslow having died in January, 1616. The letter, which is a melancholy illustration of the oft-told tale of the misfortunes of genius, was first given in the additions to Malone's Historical Account of the English Stage:'—

* Elegy on Shakespear, by W. Basse.