[1] See J. A. Symonds' Shakespeare's Predecessors, chap. xii., for a definition and description of this dramatic genus.

[2] This play will be included in another volume of the Mermaid Series.

[3] It ought, perhaps, to be mentioned that the remarks which follow are adapted in part from an essay on Webster published in my Italian By-ways.

[4] Readers of this volume who are anxious to obtain more light upon Webster's art, must be referred to Lamb's notes in the Specimens from English Dramatic Poets, to Mr. Swinburne's article on John Webster in The Nineteenth Century for June, 1886, and to my own essay upon Vittoria Accoramboni in Italian By-ways (Smith and Elder, 1883).

The text adopted for Webster's two tragedies is that of Dyce's edition. His arrangement of scenes has been followed, except in the case of the Vittoria Corombona, which Dyce left undivided. The notes, too, are in the main extracted from the same source. With reference to Cyril Tourneur's plays, the text of The Atheist's Tragedy has been modernised from Mr. Churton Collins's edition; that of The Revenger's Tragedy is based upon the modernised version in Hazlitt's edition of Dodsley, collated throughout with Mr. Collins's text. Students of the English drama owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Churton Collins for his scholarly issue of the complete works of Tourneur.

[5] Martial, xiii. 2.

[6] Martial, iv. 87.

[7] Martial, xiii. 2.

[8] Horace, Epod. iii.

[9] Epist. i. 7.

[10] Valerius Maximus, Lib. iii. 7.

[11] Martial, x. 2.

[12] Requite.

[13] Violently dashed.

[14] Different kinds of mummy were formerly used in medicine. "Mummie is become merchandise," says Sir Thomas Browne, "Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams." Urn-Burial.

[15] Open-work embroidery.

[16] A sounding (but not a flourish) of trumpets or other wind instruments.

[17] Coach. Fr. Carrosse.

[18] i.e. More feathers were not dislodged from the helmets of the combatants at the great tilting-match.—Steevens.

[19] Housings.

[20] It is hardly possible to mark with any certainty the stage-business of this play. Though Brachiano, who has just withdrawn into a "closet," appears again when Flamineo calls him (See p. 15), it would seem that the audience were to imagine that a change of scene took place here to another apartment, as Flamineo says (p. 13): "Sister, my lord attends you in the banqueting-house."—Dyce.

[21] Quarrel.

[22] i.e. Allow an adversary to aim in order to draw him on to continue playing.

[23] The jack at bowls.

[24] Leash.

[25] A measuring instrument.

[26] Vended.

[27] A mark of good-will.

[28] The lowest menials who rode in the vehicles which carried the domestic utensils from mansion to mansion.

[29] Flamineo's speeches are half-asides.

[30] Magnet.

[31] State journey.

[32] A prized antidote. "Andrea Racci, a physician of Florence, affirms the pound of 16 ounces to have been sold in the apothecaries' shops for 1,536 crowns, when the same weight of gold was only worth 148 crowns."—Chambers's Dict., quoted by Dyce.

[33] Haply, peradventure.

[34] Danish.

[35] See Hamlet, Act v. sc. 2. "This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head."

[36] Polander.

[37] Virgil, Æn. i. 26.

[38] Antimony.

[39] Read perhaps "lethal."

[40] i.e. The motto.

[41] Ovid, Metam. iii. 466.

[42] Horse.

[43] Given in charge.

[44] Resident.

[45] Shoes of leather.

[46] Poulterer.

[47] "And there besyden growen trees, that beren fulle faire Apples, and faire of colour to beholde; but whoso brekethe hem, or cuttethe hem in two, he schalle fynde within hem Coles and Cyndres."—Maundeville's Travels.

[48] i.e. Convinced.

[49] With which floors were formerly strewed, before the introduction of carpets.

[50] Corrupt text.

[51] Cheat.

[52] Mule.

[53] Ovid, Amor. i. 8.

[54] Portuguese coins, so called from the cross on one side.

[55] Equal to sixpence.

[56] "This White Devil of Italy 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; as the shepherds in Don Quixote make proffer to follow the beautiful shepherdess Marcela, 'without reaping any profit out of her manifest resolution made there in their hearing.'

"'So sweet and lovely does she make the shame,
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Does spot the beauty of her budding name.'"
C. Lamb. (Spec. of Eng. Dram. Poets.)

[57] Muddled up.

[58] A man famous for his power of digesting all sorts of strange food.

[59] Branded.

[60] Ingenuously.

[61] Rogue. Fr. Gueux.

[62] A corruption of God's death.

[63] Brides formerly walked to church with their hair hanging loose behind. Anne Bullen's was thus dishevelled when she went to the altar with King Henry the Eighth.—Steevens.

[64] Registered.

[65] i.e. Supplying borrowers with goods to be debited to them as cash.

[66] An allusion to the tribute imposed by Edgar which led to the extirpation of wolves in Britain.

[67] Virgil, Æn. vii. 312.

[68] Anticipate.

[69] Syphilis.

[70] "Let him have Russian law for all his sins.
What's that? A hundred blows on his bare shins."
Day's Parliament of Bees, 1641.

[71] Two mediums for administering poison.

[72] A play upon terms of hawking.

[73] A magic glass.

[74] Squat, i.e. the seat or form of a hare.

[75] See Herodotus, lib. ii. c. 68, on the trochilus.

[76] i.e. Fine.

[77] This was nearly the form in which the election of a Pope was declared to the people.

[78] Foolish.

[79] Terms of the manège.

[80] In the year 1598 Edward Squire was convicted of anointing the pummel of the Queen's saddle with poison, for which he was afterwards executed.—Reed.

[81] Alluding to a woman's longing during pregnancy.

[82] Here the audience were to suppose that a change of scene had taken place—that the stage now represented Brachiano's chamber: later on Gasparo says, "For Christian charity, avoid the chamber."

[83] Rosette.

[84] Orris powder.

[85] See Pliny, Nat. Hist., viii. 27.

[86] A species of plover.

[87] Strong broth.

[88] Smother.

[89] A curtain on the stage.

[90] "I never saw anything like this dirge, except the ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned father in the Tempest. As that is of the water, watery; so this is of the earth, earthy. Both have that intenseness of feeling, which seems to resolve itself into the elements which it contemplates."—C. Lamb, Spec. of Eng. Dram. Poets.

[91] Assured.

[92] A low term for women.

[93] Pir.

[94] This plant, respecting which many superstitions prevailed, was said to give a loud shriek when it was torn up.

[95] Bitch-hounds.

[96] One of the fifty daughters of Danaus, the son of Belus, brother of Ægyptus. She preserved her husband Lynceus, who afterwards slew Danaus.

[97] A French and Italian sword dance of fools.

[98] Slang for "sword."

[99] Martial ii. 91.

[100] An actor of considerable eminence, who is supposed to have originally played the part of Brachiano. He is known to have been the original performer of Captain Goodlack in Heywood's Fair Maid of the West, of Sir John Belfare in Shirley's Wedding, and of Hanno in Nabbes's Hannibal and Scipio. When Marlowe's Jew of Malta was revived about 1633 Perkins acted Barabas.

[101] The twelfth Lord Berkeley. "My good lord," says Massinger, inscribing The Renegado to him, "to be honoured for old nobility or hereditary titles, is not alone proper to yourself, but to some few of your rank, who may challenge the like privilege with you: but in our age to vouchsafe (as you have often done) a ready hand to raise the dejected spirits of the contemned sons of the Muses, such as would not suffer the glorious fire of poesy to be wholly extinguished, is so remarkable and peculiar to your lordship, that, with a full vote and suffrage, it is acknowledged that the patronage and protection of the dramatic poem is yours and almost without a rival."

[102] An allusion to the sport called "Running at the Ring," at which the tilter, while riding at full speed, endeavoured to thrust the point of his lance through, and to bear away, the ring, which was suspended in the air.—Dyce.

[103] A play upon the word, "tent" meaning also a roll of lint or other bandage.

[104] A lively dance.

[105] Coaches.

[106] Behaviour.

[107] i.e. Ornamental, belonging to accomplishments.—Dyce.

[108] Incontinent.

[109] The net in which he caught Mars and Venus.

[110] i.e. Ingenuous.

[111] As previously Antonio has been told that he must attend the Duchess "in the gallery," it would seem that the audience were to imagine a change of scene had taken place (i.e., at the exit of Ferdinand).—Dyce.

[112] The Two Faithful Friends, the pleasant History of Alexander and Lodwicke, who were so like one another, that none could know them asunder; wherein is declared how Lodwicke married the Princesse of Hungaria, in Alexander's name, and how each night he layd a naked sword betweene him and the Princesse, because he would not wrong his friend, is reprinted from the Pepys collection in Evans's Old Ballads. There was also a play written by Martin Slaughter, called Alexander and Lodowick.—Dyce.

[113] A cant term for the insolent bloods and vapourers of the time—Dyce.

[114] Another cant term.

[115] State journey.

[116] A leperous eruption.

[117] Buy new housings for his beast.

[118] Hysterics.

[119] Rascal.

[120] The lowest class of menials.

[121] Strong broths. The old receipt-books recommend "pieces of gold" among the ingredients.—Dyce.

[122] Compare Shakespeare:

"And shrieks, like mandrakes torn out of the earth,
That living mortals hearing them run mad."
Romeo and Juliet, A. iv. s. 3.

[123] Query "rapture."

[124] Substance or property.

[125] i.e. Foolish.

[126] Orris.

[127] Plutus.

[128] "The vexed Bermoothes" was the island of Bermuda.

[129] Francis I., who surrendered to Lannoy at the battle of Pavia.

[130] Plan.

[131] Camp.

[132] Trimmed.

[133] Dyce suggests that here the audience had to imagine a change of scene—to the lodging of the Duchess, who is confined to certain apartments in her own palace.

[134] Curtain.

[135] Band.

[136] Coach.

[137] "She has lived among horrors till she is become 'native and endowed unto that element.' She speaks the dialect of despair, her tongue has a smatch of Tartarus and the souls in bale. What are 'Luke's iron crown,' the brazen bull of Perillus, Procrustes' bed, to the waxen images which counterfeit death, to the wild masque of madmen, the tomb-maker, the bell-man, the living person's dirge, the mortification by degrees! To move a horror skilfully, to touch a soul to the quick, to lay upon fear as much as it can bear, to wean and weary a life till it is ready to drop, and then step in with mortal instruments to take its last forfeit; this only a Webster can do. Writers of an inferior genius may 'upon horror's head horrors accumulate,' but they cannot do this. They mistake quantity for quality, they 'terrify babes with painted devils,' but they know not how a soul is capable of being moved; their terrors want dignity, their affrightments are without decorum."—C. Lamb, Spec. of Eng. Dram. Poets.

[138] This was a common superstition of the time.

[139] Fraught.

[140] Skeletons.

[141] Sugar-plums perfumed for sweetening the breath.

[142] i.e. Earnest.

[143] With which it was the custom to strew the floors.

[144] The quarto drops the "her."

[145] At the siege of Ostend, which is described in Borachio's speech.

[146] Appearance. This meaning passes into that of countenance.

[147] This way of description, which seems unwilling ever to leave off weaving parenthesis within parenthesis, was brought to its height by Sir Philip Sidney. He seems to have set the example to Shakespeare. Many beautiful instances may be found all over the Arcadia. These bountiful wits always give full measure, pressed down and overflowing.—Charles Lamb.

[148] Play on the double meaning—clown, leathern flagon—of the word "jack."

[149] With the O of one in pain. An odd and tragical application of a rule from the Latin grammar.—Collins.

[150] Sanctified Puritan.

[151] To man is to attend or escort.

[152] Preserves, sweetmeats.

[153] A reference to Arctic voyages.

[154] In full course. A metaphor from the jousting-ground.

[155] This trick of a woman, caught with a lover, to deceive her husband is frequently employed by the Italian novelists.