Webster seems to have estimated very highly this tragedy. "To the Reader.In publishing this Tragedy, I do but challenge to myself that liberty which other men have taken before me; not that I affect praise by it, for nos hæc novimus esse nihil: only, since it was acted in so open and black a theatre, that it wanted (that which is the only grace and setting-out of a tragedy) a full and understanding auditory; and that, since that time, I have noted most of the people that come to that play-house resemble those ignorant asses (who, visiting stationers' shops, their use is not to inquire for good books, but new books), I present it to the general view with confidence: Nec rhoncos metues malignorum, Nec scombris tunicas dabis molestas.

If it be objected this is no true dramatick poem, I shall easily confess it, non potes in nugas dicere plura meas, ipse ego quam dixi; willingly, and not ignorantly, have I faulted. For should a man present, to such an auditory, the most sententious tragedy that ever was written, observing all the critical laws, as height of stile, and gravity of person, inrich it with the passionate and weight ty Nuntius; yet, after all this divine rapture, O dura messorum illia, the breath that comes from the uncapable multitude able to poison it; and, ere it be acted, let the author resolve to fix to every scene this of Horace :

Hac hodie porcis comedenda relinques.”.

A wither'd black-thorn; and for that they vow'd

To bury me alive: my husband straight With pick-ax 'gan to dig, and your fell dutchess

With shovel, like a fury, voided out
The earth, and scatter'd bones: lord, how
methought

I trembled! and yet for all this terror
I could not pray.

Flam. No; the devil was in your dream.
Vit. When to my rescue there arose, me-
thought,

A whirlwind, which let fall a massy arm
From that strong plant;

And both were struck dead by that sacred yew,
In that base shallow grave that was their due.
Flam. Excellent devil!

she hath taught him in a dream

To make away his dutchess and her husband. Bra. Sweetly shall I interpret this. your

dream.

You are lodg'd within his arms who shall protect you

From all the fevers of a jealous husband;
From the poor envy of our flegmatick dutchess.
I'll seat you above law, and above scandal ;
Give to your thoughts the invention of delight,
And the fruition; nor shall government
Divide me from you longer, than a care
To keep you great: you shall to me at once,
Be dukedom, health, wife, children, friends,
and all.

Here Cornelia, the mother of Vittoria, who had suspected the unhallowed passion of Brachiano, rushes forward from her concealment.

Flam. What fury rais'd thee up? away, away. [Exit Zanche. Cornelia. What makes you here, my lord, this dead of night? Never dropt mildew on a flower here till now. Flam. I pray, will you go to bed then, Lest you be blasted?

Cor. O that this fair garden
Had all with poison'd herbs of Thessaly
At first been planted; made a nursery
For witchcraft, rather than a burial-plot
For both your honours.

Vit. Dearest mother, hear me.
Cor. O, thou dost make my brow bend
to the earth,

Sooner than nature. See the curse of children!
In life they keep us frequently in tears,
And in the cold grave leave us in pale fears.
Bra. Come, come, I will not hear you.
Vit. Dear, my lord.

Flam. So, have you done?
Cor. Unfortunate Camillo !

Vit. I do protest, if any chaste denial, If any thing but blood could have allay'd His long suit to me

Cor. I will join with thee,

To the most woeful end e'er mother kneel'd:
If thou dishonour thus thy husband's bed,
Be thy life short as are the funeral tears
In great men's-

Bra. Fy, fy, the woman's mad.

Cor. Be thy act Judas like, betray in kissing.

May'st thou be envy'd during his short breath, And pity'd like a wretch after his death.

Fit. O me accurs'd!

The act ends with a conversation between Flamineo and his wretched mother, in which he boldly avows his resolution to advance his own fortunes, by the sacrifice of every honourable principle that may stand in his way, or in that of his patron's licentious gratifications.

In act second, Francisco de Medicis, Duke of Florence, upbraids Brachiano with his designs against his sister, and Monticelso, a cardinal, says,

It is a wonder to your noble friends,
That you, having as 'twere enter'd the world
With a free sceptre in your able hand,
And have to the use of nature well applied
High gifts of learning, should in your prime
age

Neglect your awful throne, for the soft down
Of an insatiate bed. Oh, my lord,
The drunkard, after all his lavish cups,
Is dry, and then is sober: so at length,
When you awake from this lascivious dream,
Repentance then will follow, like the sting
Plac'd in the adder's tail. Wretched are
princes

When fortune blasteth but a petty flower
Of their unweildy crowns; or ravisheth
But one pearl from their sceptres: but alas!
When they thro' wilful shipwreck lose good
fame,

All princely titles perish with their name. Isabella, too, his injured wife, in a scene of great tenderness and beauty, tries to win back his estranged affec

tions.

Isabella. O my lov'd lord,

I do not come to chide: my jealousy! I am to learn what that Italian means.

You are as welcome to these longing arms, As I to you a virgin.

Bra. O your breath!

Out upon sweet-meats and continu'd physick, The plague is in them.

Isa. You have oft, for these two lips, Neglected cassia, or the natural sweets Of the spring-violet: they are not yet much wither'd.

My lord, I should be merry: these your frowns

Shew in a helmet lovely; but on me,
In such a peaceful interview, methinks
They are too roughly knit.

Brachiano is immoveable, and the interview thus terminates.

Bra. Your hand I'll kiss ;

This is the latest ceremony of my love. Henceforth I'll never lie with thee: by this, This wedding-ring, I'll ne'er more lie with thee.

And this divorce shall be as truly kept, As if the judge had doom'd it. Fare you well;

Our sleeps are sever'd.

Isa. Forbid it, the sweet union Of all things blessed! why, the saints in heaven

Will knit their brows at that.

Bra. Let not thy love Make thee an unbeliever; this my vow Shall never, on my soul, be satisfied With my repentance; let thy brother rage Beyond a horrid tempest, or sea-fight, My vow is fix'd.

Isa. O my winding-sheet! Now shall I need thee shortly. Dear, my Let me hear once more, what I would not

Never ?

lord,

hear.

fantastic, that we cannot do better than quote it. Enter Brachiano, with one in the habit of a Conjuror.

Bra. Now, sir, I claim your promise;
'tis dead midnight,

The time prefix'd to shew me, by your art,
How the intended murder of Camillo
And our loath'd dutchess grow to action.
Conjurer. You have won me, by your
bounty, to a deed

I do not often practise: some there are,
Which, by sophistick tricks, aspire that name
Which I would gladly lose, of necromancer;
As some that use to juggle upon cards,
Seeming to conjure, when indeed they cheat.
Others that raise up their confederate spirits
'Bout wind-mills, and endanger their own
necks

For making of a squib: and some there are Will keep a curtal to shew juggling tricks, And give out 'tis a spirit. Besides these, Such a whole ream of almanack-makers, figure flingers,

Fellows, indeed, that only live by stealth, Since they do merely lie about stol'n goods, They'd make men think the devil were fast

and loose,

With'speaking fustian Latin. Pray sit down; Put on this night-cap, sir, 'tis charm'd; and now

I'll shew you, by my strong commanding art, The circumstance that breaks your dutchess

heart.

A Dumb Shew. Enter suspiciously Julio and Christophero; they draw a curtain where Brachiano's picture is. They put on spectacles of glass, which cover their eyes and noses, and then burn perfumes before the picture, and wash the lips of the picture; that done, quenching the fire, and putting off their spectacles, they depart laughing. Enter Isabella in her night-gown, as to bedward, with light after her: Count Lodovico, Giovanni, Guid-antonio, and others waiting on her: she kneels down as to prayers, then draws the curtain of the picture, does three reverences to it, and kisses it thrice: she faints, and will not suffer them to come near it; dies: sorrow exprest in Giovanni, and in Count Lodovico. She's conveyed out solemnly. Bra. Excellent! then she's dead. Con. She's poison'd

By the fum'd picture: 'twas her custom nightly,

Before she went to bed, to go and visit
Your picture, and to feed her eyes and lips
On the dead shadow. Doctor Julio,
Observing this, infects it with an oil,

And other poison'd stuff, which presently
Did suffocate her spirits.

Bra. Methought I saw
Count Lodovico there.

Con. He was; and, by my art, I find he did most passionately doat Upon your dutchess. Now turn another way, And view Camillo's far more politick face. VOL. III.

Strike louder, musick, from this charmed ground,

To yield, as fits the act, a tragick sound.

The Second Dumb Shew.

Enter Flamineo, Marcello, Camillo, with four more as captains: they drink healths, and dance: a vaulting horse is brought into the room: Marcello and treo more whispered out of the room, while Flamineo and Camillo stript themselves into their shirts, as to vault; they compliment who shall begin. As Camillo is about to vault, Flamineo pitcheth him upon his neck, and, with the help of the rest, wriths his neck about: seems to see if it be broke, and lays him folded double, as 'twere under the horse; makes shew to call for help: Marcello comes in, laments; sends for the Cardinal and Duke, who come forth with armed men; wonders at the act; commands the body to be carried home; apprehends Flaminco, Marcello, and the rest; and goes, as 'twere, to apprehend Vittoria.

Bra. "Twas quaintly done; but yet each circumstance

The engine of all.

Bra. It seems Marcello and Flamineo Are both committed.

Con. Yes, you saw them guarded, And now they are come with purpose to ap prehend

Your mistress, fair Vittoria: we are now Beneath her roof. "Twere fit we instantly Make out by some back postern.

The third act opens with the arraignment of Vittoria for the murder of her husband, Francisco de Medicis and Monticelso presiding, and Brachiano present as an auditor. There is a great deal of wrangling between Vittoria and a foolish pedantic Lawyer, who acts as counsel for the crown) a sort of depute-advocate), till, at length Monticelso exclaims

Mont. Who knows not how, when several

A twelfth, with a countenance as if his parents, when he was young, had clap'd his chin upon an anvil, and gave him a knock upon the crown with a smith's sledge, that had shorten'd his phiz, and struck all his features out of their proper places; with many other such comical, clownish, surly, antick, moody, booby faces, that the wooden gravers, who cut the prints for the frightful heads, upon stone-bottles, and the carvers, who us'd to noch out preposterous cherubs upon base-viols, and stern whiskers upon barbers blocks, were often introduc'd upon their club-nights, by some interest or other, on purpose to oblige their fancy with new originals, that each might sell their commodities, for the singularity of the faces with which they had adorn'd 'em."

Both the above clubs dwindled away in a few years. The SURLY CLUB SO growled that they were indicted as a nuisance; and the UGLY FACES having behaved very unhandsomely in black-balling a candidate whose qualifications were indisputable, the presisident, who was esteemed the ugliest man of his day, left the chair; and the club having thus lost its chief deformity, the members no longer felt a pride in belonging to it; the secretary-treasurer resigned, the funds, amounting to 17s. 4d., were equally divided among thirty-seven persons, and the Club of Ugly Faces was no more. No less than thirty other clubs are described in this singular

volume. But I fear that I have already occupied too much of your pages, so shall conclude my extracts with the following account of a singular association, the MAN-HUNTING CLUB.

"A parcel of wild young rakes, whose principal education had been in Chancery Lane, among those vertuous accademies the sober offices of the law and equity, frequenting a tavern near the Tenniscourt playhouse, on the back of Lincolns-Inn Fields, at length settled a club there, that they might every evening project new extravagancies to exercise the ungovernable fury of their uncultivated youth. Among the rest of their wild maggots, and whimsical contrivances that they put in practice, to entertain the brutality of unpolish'd nature, they had form'd a new sort of pastime, which was hunting of men over LincolnsInn Fields, that they should happen to meet crossing at ten or eleven a clock at night; so that about those hours two or three couple of hair-brain'd puppies us'd frequently to be commanded out by the Chairman (to which honourable post the first comer was intituled), who were to beat about for game, and to report, upon their return, what sport they had met with, for the diversion of the company. When the

mischievous fools had thus shaken off their humanity, and taken upon 'em the bestial imitation of hounds, wolves, and tigers, they would lie perdu upon the grass in one of the borders of the fields, till they heard some single person treading along the pathway; then up would they all start with their swords drawn, and running furiously towards him, would cry aloud," That's he; bloody-wounds, that's he :" Upon which, away would run the person, whether gentle or simple, as if the devil drove him, with the pack of two-leg'd whelps, making such a noise at his heels, that the persecuted mortal, to escape the fury of his followers, would spur on nature with his fear to such a violent speed, that, with overstraining, the poor hunted runaway, especially if a coward, generally drop'd something in his breeches that made him stink as strong as either a fox or pole-cat. Thus they scour'd him along like a buck in a paddy-course, till he had taken sanctuary in some of the adjacent streets, where he would run commonly into an ale-house, half dead with fear, to recover breath, and to mundify his breeches; and there amuse them with such a terrible story, as if he had not only run, but fought the gantlope thro' a regiment of ruffians, and bravely defended himself by his hands as well as his heels, from a gang of rogues, or a drunken company of madmen. If they happen'd to bolt upon a sturdy gentleman, that would rather chuse to die in the bed of hononr than to owe his safety to a nimble pair of heels, the cowards would shear off; cry they were all mistaken; that it was not he: But who ever ran for it, they pursu'd as close as if they murder; that their game being terrify'd were fully resolv'd both for robbery and with dreadful apprehensions, would scour o'er the field like an insolvent debtor before a herd of bailiffs, or a new marry'd seaman from a gang of pressmasters. And when the rakehelly hunters had thus delighted themselves with the mad recreation of three or four chases, then tir'd with their sport, they would return to the club, and entertain their associates with the particulars of their pastime."

ANALYTICAL ESSAYS ON THE EARLY ENGLISH DRAMATISTS.

No V.

The White Devil; or, Vittoria Corombona.-WEBSTER.

the incidents are so capricious and THIS Play is so disjointed in its action, so involved, and there is, throughout, such a mixture of the horrible and the absurd-the comic and the tragic-the pathetic and the ludicrous,—

Webster seems to have estimated very highly this tragedy. "To the Reader.In publishing this Tragedy, I do but challenge to myself that liberty which other men have taken before me; not that I affect praise by it, for nos hæc novimus esse nihil: only, since it was acted in so open and black a theatre, that it wanted (that which is the only grace and setting-out of a tragedy) a full and understanding auditory; and that, since that time, I have noted most of the people that come to that play-house resemble those ignorant asses (who, visiting stationers' shops, their use is not to inquire for good books, but new books), I present it to the general view with confidence: Nec rhoncos metues malignorum, Nec scombris tunicas dabis molestas.

If it be objected this is no true dramatick poem, I shall easily confess it, non potes in nugas dicere plura meas, ipse ego quam dixi; willingly, and not ignorantly, have I faulted. For should a man present, to such an auditory, the most sententious tragedy that ever was written, observing all the critical laws, as height of stile, and gravity of person, inrich it with the passionate and weight ty Nuntius; yet, after all this divine rapture, O dura messorum illia, the breath that comes from the uncapable multitude is able to poison it; and, ere it be acted, let the author gesolve to fix to every scene this of

Horace :

Hac hodie porcis comedenda relinques.”.

Checquer'd with cross sticks, there came stealing in

Your dutchess and my husband; one of them And in rough terms they 'gan to challenge me A pick-ax bore, th' other a rusty spade, About this yew.

Brachiano. That tree?

Vittoria. This harmless yew; They told me my intent was to root up That well-grown yew, and plant i' the stead of it

A wither'd black-thorn; and for that they vow'd

To bury me alive: my husband straight With pick-ax 'gan to dig, and your fell dutchess

With shovel, like a fury, voided out
The earth, and scatter'd bones: lord, how
methought

I trembled and yet for all this terror
I could not pray.

Flam. No; the devil was in your dream.
Vit. When to my rescue there arose, me-
thought,

A whirlwind, which let fall a massy arm
From that strong plant;

And both were struck dead by that sacred yew,
In that base shallow grave that was their due.
Flam. Excellent devil!

she hath taught him in a dream

To make away his dutchess and her husband. Bra. Sweetly shall I interpret this. your

dream.

You are lodg'd within his arms who shall protect you

From all the fevers of a jealous husband;
From the poor envy of our flegmatick dutchess.
I'll seat you above law, and above scandal ;
Give to your thoughts the invention of delight,
And the fruition; nor shall government
Divide me from you longer, than a care
To keep you great: you shall to me at once,
Be dukedom, health, wife, children, friends,
and all.

Here Cornelia, the mother of Vittoria, who had suspected the unhallowed passion of Brachiano, rushes forward from her concealment.

Flam. What fury rais'd thee up? away, away. [Exit Zanche. Cornelia. What makes you here, my lord, this dead of night? Never dropt mildew on a flower here till now. Flam. I pray, will you go to bed then, Lest you be blasted?

Cor. O that this fair garden
Had all with poison'd herbs of Thessaly
At first been planted; made a nursery
For witchcraft, rather than a burial-plot
For both your honours.

Vit. Dearest mother, hear me.
Cor. O, thou dost make my brow bend

to the earth,

Sooner than nature. See the curse of children!
In life they keep us frequently in tears,
And in the cold grave leave us in pale fears.
Bra. Come, come, I will not hear you.
Vit. Dear, my lord.