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was not yet one-and-twenty, he published a poem, entitled Fame's Memorial, or the Earle of Devonshire deceased; with his honourable life, peaceful end, and solemne funeral.

Though he did not again seek the favour of the public in print till twenty-three years after this first attempt, he had certainly produced, in the meantime, some plays on the stage. In his dedication to the Earl of Peterborough of 'Tis Pity she's a Whore, he expressly terms that tragedy "the first fruits of his leisure in the action ;" and this play, though not printed till 1633, was, there is every reason to believe, acted prior to 1623. Few dramatic authors have commenced their career with a production which more strongly breathes the very soul of poetry; but few have chosen a more unfortunate subject for the display of their talents. Ford never excelled this first attempt, though he equalled it in The Broken Heart. At about the same period, 1623, Ford joined Rowley and Dekker in the production of The Witch of Edmonton, a dramatisation of the story of Mother Sawyer, a poor creature who had been just previously condemned and executed for witchcraft. This tragedy, though acted "with singular applause," remained in manuscript until 1658. Mr. Weber, the editor of Ford, assigns to Ford, in particular, the scenes between Frank, Susan, and Winnifred, in this play.

In March 1624 our poet, in conjunction with Dekker, brought upon the stage the masque of The Sun's Darling, which does not add much to the reputation of either. On Nov. 24, 1628, The Lover's Melancholy was produced at the Blackfriars Theatre. In this play Ford undertook the very difficult task of representing the symptoms and care of a deep and settled love-melancholy in one character, and of a confirmed madness in another; and he has executed the task with singular facility. The Broken Heart, which occurs next in the series of Ford's plays, was printed in 1633, but probably acted before that date. In point of poetical merit, it may claim an equality of praise with 'Tis Pity she's a Whore; and when the excellence of its plot is put in comparison with the unfortunate subject of the latter, may well challenge the precedence of all the productions of our poet, who seems to have been fully aware of its merits, for he observes, in the beginning of his prologue :

"He whose best of art

Hath drawn this piece calls it The Broken Heart."

Love's Sacrifice, also published in 1633, though it was received well on the stage, is not entitled to the same amount of praise with The Broken Heart; the plot and the leading characters closely resemble those of Othello. Our poet's next production was an his

torical play, The Chronicle History of Perkin Warbeck, apparently designed to fill up the gap between Shakespeare's Richard III. and his Henry VIII. Perkin Warbeck obtained no great share of popularity.

The two other remaining dramas of our author are of a very different nature from any of the preceding, being rather in the style of Fletcher's and Shirley's light and airy tragi-comedies. The comedy entitled Fancies, Chaste and Noble (which seems also to have been called The Bower of Fancies), was printed in 1638, and probably at that time had not been long upon the stage. The Lady's Trial, with which our poet appears to have closed his dramatic labours, may challenge comparison with many of Fletcher's comedies. was produced at the Cockpit Theatre, in May 1638. In the dedication the play is termed "the issue of some less serious hours ;" whence we may infer that the author, happily for himself, did not rely upon the stage solely, but that his profession as a lawyer occupied the principal part of his time.

It

Besides the plays above enumerated, Ford was the author also of four dramatic productions, never printed, and the manuscripts of which were destroyed by Warburton's servant. Their names, all that remains of them, were, Beauty in a Trance, tragedy; The London Merchant, comedy; The Royal Combat, comedy; An Ill Beginning has a Good End, comedy.

John Ford died in or about the year 1639. From a distich in a contemporary poem,

"Deep in a dump John Ford was alone gat,

With folded arms and melancholy hat;"

and from various expressions in the dedications, prologues, and epilogues of his plays, he would appear to have been of a somewhat irritable and dissatisfied turn of mind; but he seems to have had warm friends, Donne, Dekker, Rowley, Massinger, Shirley, and others,-who have expressed their esteem for him in commendatory verses prefixed to his various works.

JOHN WEBSTER.

(Circa 1585-1654.)

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John Webster, one of our greatest dramatists, is also one of those writers of whom scarcely any thing is known personally. Gildon says he was clerk of St. Andrew's, Holborn, and a member of the Merchant Tailors' Company; but Mr. Dyce found no trace of his connection with the clerkship, and nothing distinctly identifying him with the company. On the Court-book of the company, indeed, searched at Mr. Dyce's instance, several John Websters occur between 1571 and 1617; but there is no particular reason for identifying any one of them with our poet. It is probable that he may have been a play-actor as well as a play-writer; but we have no specific indication of this probability. The earliest notice of Webster that Mr. Dyce has been able to discover is under the year 1602, when, in Henslowe's Diary, Webster is recorded as one of the writers of Two Harpies, in conjunction with Dekker, Drayton, Middleton, and Munday; and of Lady Jane, in two parts, in conjunction with Heywood, Chettle, and Dekker. Both these plays are now lost. In 1604 Webster made some additions to the Malcontent of Marston, work," writes Mr. Dyce, "for which he was not ill-fitted; the masculine character of his mind and style very aptly harmonising with the characteristics of his predecessor, with whom, indeed, he has many qualities in common." In 1605 were acted Westward Ho ! and Northward Ho! the composition of Webster, in conjunction with Dekker; and about the same time appeared, by the same writers, The History of Sir Thomas Wyatt, which Mr. Dyce is inclined to regard as a refaccimento of the Lady Jane just mentioned. In 1612 (Webster must have been doing or writing something or other for his living meanwhile, but we know not what,) appeared, in print, the White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona, a fearfully fine tragedy. This White Devil of Italy," writes Charles Lamb, "sets off a bad cause so speciously, and pleads with such an innocence resembling boldness, that we seem to see that matchless beauty of her face which inspires such gay confidence into her, and are ready to expect, when she has done her pleadings, that her very judges, her accusers, the grave ambassadors who sit as spectators, and all the court, will rise and make proffer to defend her, in spite of the utmost conviction of her guilt." In 1613 Webster contributed his share to the expression of the public grief for the death of Prince Henry, in an elegy entitled A Monumental Column. In 1619 was acted The Duchess of Malfi, the heroine of which is one of the grandest, and at the same time most touching creations in dramatic literature. At about the same time appeared The Devil's

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Law Case, a production of very unequal merit. In 1624 was published "The Monument of Honour, at the confirmation of the right worthy brother John Goare in his high office of His Majesty's Lieutenant over his Royal Chamber, at the charge and expense of the right worthy and worshipful fraternity of Merchant Taylors, invented and written by John Webster, tailor." No copy of this pageant appears to be extant. Webster's other works were, Appius and Virginia (1654), and A Cure for a Cuckold (in conjunction with Rowley). Of the former play, Mr. Dyce observes, "When I consider its simplicity, its deep pathos, its unobtrusive beauties, its singleness of plot, and the easy, unimpeded march of its story, I cannot but suspect that there are readers who will prefer this drama to any other of our author's productions." Two plays by Webster, respectively entitled The Guise and A Late Murther of the Sonn upon the Mother (the latter written in connection with Ford), are lost. John Webster is believed to have died somewhere about 1654.

There is in Notes from Blackfryers, printed in certain Elegies done by sundrie excellent Wits, with Satyrs and Epigrams (1620), a hit at our poet which, as illustrating his character, may be read with some interest :

"But h'st with him crabbed Websterio,

The play-wright, cart-wright: whether? either ho-
No further. Looke as yee'd bee lookt into:

Sit as ye woo'd be read: Lord, who woo'd know him?

Was ever man so mangl'd with a poem?

See how he draws his mouth awry of late,

How he scrubs: wrings his wrests; scratches his pate:

A midwife! help! By his braine's coitus,

Some centaure strange: some huge Bucephalus,

Or Pallas (sure) engendered in his braine,
Strike Vulcan with thy hammer once againe.

This is the critick that (of all the rest)
I'd not have view me, yet I fear him least,
Heer's not a word cursively I have writt,

But he'ell industriously examine it;

And in some twelve months hence (or there about)
Let in a shamefull sheete my errors out,

But what care I? It will be so obscure,

That none shall understand him (I am sure)."

His character for good humour, as a critic, is here not placed in a very amiable point of view; and the passage, "in some twelve months hence," seems to allude to the labour with which he wrote; a charge, if it be such, that was not for the first time preferred against him in this work, as in the preface to Vittoria Corombona

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(1612) he himself adverts to it: To those who report I was a long time in finishing this tragedy, I confess I do not write with a goosequill winged with two feathers." As to his illiberality, it must be remembered that in the same preface he bears honourable testimony to the great abilities of many of his contemporaries.

JAMES SHIRLEY.

(1596-1666.)

James Shirley was of an ancient family, and born 13 Sept. 1596, in the parish of St. Mary Woolchurch, London. He was educated at Merchant Tailors' School, and thence removed to St. John's College, in Oxford, where Dr. Laud, then president of that college, conceived a great affection for him, on account of his excellent parts, yet would often tell him, as Mr. Wood relates, that "he was an unfit person to take the sacred function upon him, and should never have his consent," because Shirley had then a large mole upon his left cheek, which some esteemed a deformity. Afterwards, leaving Oxford without a degree, he went to Catherine Hall, Cambridge, where it is presumed he took the degrees in arts, for he soon after entered into orders, and took a cure at or near St. Alban's, in Hertfordshire. Afterwards, growing unsettled in his principles, he changed his religion for that of Rome, left his living, and became a teacher in the grammar school of St. Alban's (1623); but this employment being distasteful to him, he retired to London, lived in Gray's Inn, and set himself to write plays. By this he gained not only a comfortable livelihood, but also great respect and encouragement from persons of quality, especially from Henrietta Maria, King Charles I.'s queen, who made him her servant. It does not appear, however, that he turned the opportunities of advancement, which such patronage afforded, to much account. "I never," he writes, "affected the ways of flattery; some say I have lost my preferment by not practising that court sin." Yet he needed practical patronage, for he was twice married, and had several children. In 1637 Shirley went to Dublin, where, under the special favour of the Earl of Kildare and of Lord Deputy Strafford, he occupied himself in dramatic composition for the theatre which John Ogilby had recently built in Werburgh Street, the first regular playhouse ever erected in Dublin. Shirley appears to have returned to England in or about 1639. When the rebellion broke out, Shirley, like the other dramatists of the day, enlisted himself on the side of monarchy, and being thereupon forced to leave London, and so consequently his wife and children (who afterwards, adds Wood, were

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