Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/128

 company of players before 1619, and to have passed with the ‘White Devil’ to Queen Henrietta's company early in Charles I's reign. William Beeston, ‘the governor of the king and queen's young company of players at the Cock-pit at Drury Lane,’ laid a claim in 1639 to exclusive ownership in the piece; Beeston's pretension was admitted by the king. The play was first published for Humphrey Moseley in 1654. ‘Appius and Virginia’ was adapted by Cartwright for representation at the Duke's Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1671, with the new name of the ‘Roman Virgin, or the Unjust Judge.’ The title-rôles were filled by Betterton and his wife. The play ran at the time for eight days successively, and was frequently revived in the following years (cf., i. 109). The adaptation was published in 1679 under the title of the ‘Unjust Judge.’ John Dennis in 1709 published a new piece with Webster's old title.

In the ‘Duchess of Malfi’ Webster reached as high a level of tragic art as in the ‘White Devil.’ The ‘Duchess of Malfi’ was first played by the king's men at the Blackfriars Theatre about 1616, but it was revived at the Globe Theatre in 1622, and was first printed next year. The title ran: ‘The Tragedy of the Dutchesse of Malfy. As it was presented privately at the Black-Friers and publiquely at the Globe by the King's Majesties Servants. The perfect and exact coppy with diverse things printed that the length of the play would not beare in the presentment.’ A list of actors' names is prefixed. Burbage created the part of Duke Ferdinand, and a boy, R. Sharpe, that of the Duchess. The dedication was addressed to George, lord Berkeley, and there are prefatory verses embodying vague and unqualified eulogy by Ford, Middleton, and William Rowley. Other editions appeared in 1640 and with alterations in 1678 and 1708, but the first quarto presents the best text. The piece was revived at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in 1664 by Betterton, who played the villain Bosola, with Mrs. Betterton as the Duchess; it was acted for eight days successively, and proved one of the best stock tragedies (, i. 55). The ‘Duchess of Malfi’ is the only play by Webster that has been presented on a modern stage. On 20 Nov. 1851 Phelps revived it at Sadler's Wells Theatre in a revised version by Richard Hengist Horne; Miss Glyn took the part of the Duchess, and Phelps appeared as Duke Ferdinand. The play met with great success, and had a long run. It was republished at the time as part i. of Tallis's ‘Acting Drama,’ with a portrait and memoir of Miss Glyn by J. A. Heraud. Another revised version of the tragedy by Mr. William Poel was produced at the Opera Comique by the Independent Theatre Society on 21 and 25 Oct. 1892; Miss Mary Rorke played the Duchess. The play was separately edited in ‘The Temple Dramatists’ by Professor C. E. Vaughan in 1896.

The plot is based on an incident in Neapolitan history, which is narrated in Belleforest's French translation of ‘Bandello's Novels,’ No. 19; in Painter's ‘Palace of Pleasure,’ ii. 23; in Beard's ‘Theatre of God's Judgments,’ bk. ii. chap. 24; and in Goulart's ‘Histoires Admirables de notre temps,’ p. 226. Lope de Vega constructed a play out of the same materials, and gave it the title of ‘El mayordomo de la Duquesca de Amalfi.’ The theme is the vengeance wrought by Ferdinand, duke of Calabria, and his brother, the cardinal, on their sister, the Duchess of Malfi, for her defiance of the family honour in marrying Antonio, the steward of her household. Duke Ferdinand subjects his sister to almost every fantastic torture known to the writers of Italian fiction. He pays the penalty of his cruelty by going mad, and at the end of the play hardly any leading character is left alive; five men, three women, and two children come to violent ends. Webster owed the merest suggestion of the play to his authorities. His development of the plot is wholly original. The interest centres in the characterisation of the courageous and noble-hearted heroine, who is slowly murdered by her cruel brothers. It was of her character and fortunes, which move every just critic to enthusiasm, that Charles Lamb wrote: ‘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’ ( Specimens, ‘Duchess of Malfy,’ ii. 42).

Webster never reached the same heights again, and his remaining work, although at times touched with his old spirit, is, as a whole, tame when compared with either the ‘Duchess of Malfy’ or the ‘White Devil.’ ‘The Devil's Law Case; or, When Women go to law the Devil is full of business, a new trage-comœdy,’ has a few scenes that are quite worthy of their author, but the