been said, was at one time clerk of St. Andrew's church, Holborn; but Dyce, the editor of his works, searched the register of the parish for his name without success. He commenced his dramatic course of writing conjointly with Dekker-a practice at that time, as we have already had occasion to notice, very common. The dramas which he produced unaided, are, The Duchess of Malfy, Guise, or the Massacre of France, The Devil's Law-Case, Appius and Virginia, and The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona.

'The White Devil,' and 'The Duchess of Malfy' have divided the opinion of critics as to their relative merits. They are both powerful dramas, though filled with 'supernumerary horrors.' The former was not successful on the stage, which so incensed the 'noble-minded' author, that in a dedication which accompanied its publication, he introduces the following sarcastic remark:- Most of the people that come to the play-house resemble those ignorant asses who, visiting stationers' shops, their use is not to inquire for good books, but new books.' Webster was accused of being a slow writer, but he consoled himself with the example of Euripides, and confessed that he did not write with a goose quill winged with two feathers. In this slighted drama there are some exquisite touches of pathos and natural feeling. The grief of a group of mourners over a dead body is thus beautifully described:

I found them winding of Marcello's corse,
And there is such a solemn melody,

"Tween doleful songs, tears, and sad elegies,

Such as old grandames watching by the dead

Were wont to outwear the nights with; that believe me,

I had no eyes to guide me forth the room,

They were so o'ercharged with water.

The funeral dirge also, for Marcello, sung by his mother, possesses that intenseness of feeling which seems to resolve itself into the elements which it contemplates:

Call for the robin red-breast, and the wren,

Since o'er shady groves they hover,

And with leaves and flowers do cover

The friendless bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funeral dole,

The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole,

To raise him hillocks that shall keep him warm,
And, when gray tombs are robb'd, sustain no harm;
But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.

'The Duchess of Malfy' abounds more in the terrible than 'The White Devil.' It turns on the mortal offence which the lady gives to her two proud brothers, Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria, and a cardinal, by indulging in a generous, though infatuated passion, for Antonio, her steward. This passion, a subject always most difficult to treat, is managed in this case with

infinite delicacy; and, in a situation of great peril for the author, she condescends, without being degraded, and declares the affection with which her dependant has inspired her, without losing any thing of dignity and respect. The last scene of this play is conceived in a spirit which every attentive student of early English dramatic literature must feel to be peculiar to Webster. By an act of the most refined cruelty Ferdinand, the duke, sends a troop of madmen from the hospital to make a concert round the duchess, who has been seized and cast into prison. This troop is led by Bosola, one of the duke's officers, who, after the lunatics have ended their dancing and singing, enters the prison, and with the following terrific scene the drama closes :-

Duch. Is he mad too?

DEATH OF THE DUCHESS.

Bos. I am come to make thy tomb.

Duch. Ha! my tomb?

Thou speak'st as if I lay upon my death-bed,

Gasping for breath: Dost thou perceive me sick?

Bos. Yes, and the more dangerously, since thy sickness is insensible.
Duch. Thou art not mad sure: dost know me ?

Bos. Yes.

Duch. Who am I?

Bos. Thou art a box of wormseed; at best but a salvatory of green mummy. What's this flesh? a little crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste. Our bodies aro weaker than those paper-prisons boys use to keep flies in, more contemptible; since ours is to preserve earth-worms. Didst thou ever see a lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body; this world is like her little turf of grass; and the heavens o'er our heads like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison.

Duch. Am not I thy duchess?

Bos. Thou art some great woman, sure, for riot begins to sit on thy forehead (clad in gray hairs) twenty years sooner than on a merry milkmaid's. Thou sleepest worse, than if a mouse should be forced to take up her lodging in a cat's ear: a little infant that breeds its teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the more unquiet bedfellow.

Duch. I am Duchess of Malfy still.

Bos. That makes thy sleeps so broken.

Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright;

But, look'd to near, have neither heat nor light.

Duch. Thou art very plain.

Bos. My trade is to flatter the dead, not the living.

I am a tomb-maker.

Duch. And thou comest to make my tomb?

Bos. Yes.

Duch. Let me be a little merry.

Of what stuff wilt thou make it?

Bos. Nay, resolve me first; of what fashion?

Duch. Why, do we grow fantastical in our death-bed?

Do we affect fashion in the grave?

Bos. Most ambitiously. Princes' images on their tombs do not lie as they were wont, seeming to pray up to heaven: but with their hands under their checks (as if they died of the toothache): they are not carved with their eyes fixed upon the

stars; but, as their minds were wholly bent upon the world, the self-same way they seem to turn their faces.

Duch. Let me know fully, therefore, the effect

Of this thy dismal preparation,

This talk, fit for a charnel.

Bos. Now I shall.

[A coffin, cords, and a bell produced.]

Here is a present from your princely brothers;

And may it arrive welcome, for it brings

Last benefit, last sorrow.

Duch. Let me see it.

I have so much obedience in my blood,
I wish it in their veins to do them good.
Bos. This is your last presence chamber
Car. O, my sweet lady.

Duch. Peace, it affrights not me.
Bos. I am the common bellman,

That usually is sent to condemn'd persons
The night before they suffer.

Duch. Even now thou said'st

Thou wast a tomb-maker.

Bos. 'Twas to bring you

By degrees to mortification; Listen.

DIRGE.

Hark, now every thing is still;

This screech-owl, and the whistle shrill,

Call upon our dame aloud,

And bid her quickly don her shroud.

Much you had of land and rent;

Your length in clay 's now competent.
A long war disturb'd your mind;

Here your perfect peace is sign'd.

Of what is 't fools make such vain keeping?
Sin, their conception; their birth, weeping:
Their life, a general mist of error,

Their death, a hideous storm of terror.

Strew your hair with powders sweet,

Don clean linen, bathe your feet:

And, (the foul fiend more to check,)

A crucifix let bless your neck.

'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day:
End your groan, and come away.

Car. Hence, villains, tyrants, murderers; alas!

What will you do with my lady? Call for help.

Duch. To whom? to our next neighbours? They are mad folks.

Farewell, Cariola,

I pray thee look thou giv'st my little boy

Some syrup for his cold; and let the girl

Say her prayers ere she sleep.-Now what you please;

What death?

Bos. Strangling. Here are your executioners.

Duch. I forgive them.

The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough o' the lungs,
Would do as much as they do.

Bɔs. Doth not death fright you?

Duch. Who would be afraid on 't, Knowing to meet such excellent company

In th' other world

Bos. Yet methinks,

The manner of your death should much afflict you:
This cord should terrify you.

Duch. Not a whit.

What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut

With diamonds, or to be smother'd

With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls?

I know death hath ten thousand several doors

For men to take their exits: and 'tis found

They go on such strange geometrical hinges,

You may open them both ways: any way (for heav'n sake).
So I were out of your whispering: tell my brothers

That I perceive death (now I'm well awake)

Best gift is they can give or I can take.

I would fain put off my last woman's fault;

I'd not be tedious to you.

Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength

Must pull down heaven upon me.

Yet stay, heaven gates are not so highly arch'd
As princes' palaces: they that enter there

Must go upon their knees. Come, violent death,
Serve for Mandragora to make me sleep.

Go tell my brothers, when I am laid out,
They then may feed in quiet.

Ferd. Is she dead?

[Ferdinand enters.]

Bos. She is what you would have her.

Fix your eyes here.

Ferd. Constantly.

Bos. Do you not weep?

Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out,

The element of water moistens the earth,

But blood flies upwards, and bedews the heavens.

[They strangle her, kneeling]

Ferd. Cover her face: mine eyes dazzle: she died young.

Bos. I think not so: her infelicity

Seem'd to have years too many.

Ferd. She and I were twins:

And should I die this instant, I had lived
Her time to a minute.

THOMAS MIDDLETON, born about 1560, was, himself, the author of more than twenty plays, and was also frequently engaged with others in the production of dramas and court-pageants. In 1620, he stood so high in public favor, that he was made chronologer, or city poet, of London-an office which Ben Jonson was proud, afterward, to fill. Middleton died in July, 1627, at the age of about sixty-eight.

The dramas of Middleton have no strongly-marked character. Perhaps his best are Woman Beware of Women, The Witch, and A Game of Chess, The following sketch of married happiness, from the first of these plays, is delicate, and finely expressed :

HAPPINESS OF MARRIED LIFE.

How near am I now to a happiness

That earth exceeds not! not another like it:
The treasures of the deep are not so precious,
As are the conceal'd comforts of a man
Lock'd up in woman's love. I scent the air
Of blessings when I come but near the house.
What a delicious breath marriage sends forth!
The violet bed 's not sweeter. Honest wedlock
Is like a banqueting house built in a garden,
On which the spring's chaste flowers take delight
To cast their modest odours; when base lust,
With all her powders, paintings, and best pride,
Is but a fair house built by a ditch side.
Now for a welcome,

Able to draw men's envies upon man;
A kiss now that will hang upon my lip
As sweet as morning dew upon a rose,
And full as long!

"The Witch' of this author is supposed, by many critics, to have supplied the witchcraft scenery, and part of the lyrical incantations of Shakspeare's Macbeth; but the supernatural agents of Middleton are the old witches of legendary story, and not the dim mysterious unearthly beings that accost Macbeth on the blasted heath. The Charm Song is much the same in both plays :

[The witches going about the Cauldron.]

Black spirits and white; red spirits and gray;
Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may.
Titty, Tiffin, keep it stiff in;

Firedrake, Puckey, make it lucky;
Liard, Robin, you must bob in;

Round, around, around, about, about;

All ill come running in; all good keep out!
First Witch. Here's the blood of a bat.
Hecate. Put in that; oh put in that.

Sec. Witch. Here 's libbard's bane.

Hecate. Put in again.

First Witch. The juice of toad, the oil of adder.

Sec. Witch. Those will make the younker madder.
All. Round, around, around, &c.

The flight of the witches by moonlight is described with a wild gusto and delight, that confer, upon the dramatist, the credit of true poetical imagination. We very much doubt whether the following scene is greatly surpassed by even Shakspeare: