Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/499

Rh any feeling about the slave-trade; the Maine boundary, as to which the action of a State might at any time bring the federal Government into armed collision with Great Britain,—all these at once met the new secretary, and he felt that he had no right to abandon his work for party reasons. With the special commissioner from Great Britain, Lord Ashburton, he concluded the treaty of 1842, which settled all these questions satisfactorily to both parties. At the same time Webster took the opportunity to end the long controversy as to the right of impressment. Sixteen years afterwards the British Government admitted at last the correctness of the American position.

The treaty of 1842 also introduced the principle of extradition into the connexion between the two countries. It had been admitted once before, in Jay's treaty of 1794, but only as to murder and forgery, and only until 1806.

Leaving the cabinet in 1843, Webster was returned to the senate in 1845 and spent the remainder of his life there. He opposed the annexation of Texas and the Mexican War, and was, as before, the recognized spokesman of his party. As the growing intensity of the quarrel over the organization of the territory acquired from Mexico revealed the depth of the chasm which now yawned between the sections, Webster's standing-ground in American politics disappeared. His 7th of March speech, in 1850, which stamped him, in the opinion of many of his former Northern worshippers, as a recreant bidding for Southern votes for the presidency, was really little different from his former words. It was the country that had changed. He was still for the Union as the one controlling consideration, with an equal dislike for the abolitionist and the secessionist, who endangered the Union. But the North and the South were already so far apart that not even Webster could stand with one foot in one and the other foot in the other section; and his fate was parallel with that of John Dickinson, who essayed a similar role during the revolution. Angered at the spirit with which his speech was received, Webster threw all his influence towards driving through the Whig Convention of 1852 an endorsement of the compromise of 1850 "in all its parts," including, of course, the Fugitive Slave Act. The result was his own failure to receive the Whig nomination for the presidency, and the downfall of his party. Just before the election he died at his home, Marshfield, Massachusetts, October 1852.

Webster was twice married—to Grace Fletcher, of New Hampshire, in 1808, and two years after her death to Catherine Bayard le Roy, of New York, in 1829. One of his sons, Edward, lost his life in the Mexican War; his only surviving child, Fletcher Webster, colonel of a Massachusetts regiment, was killed at Bull Run. In marked contrast to Webster's wonderfully able treatment of public financial affairs, his management of his private finances was notoriously shiftless,—so much so that, in his later years, the care of them was assumed by a voluntary committee of Boston business men. Like other men of his time, he was neither careful nor temperate in table enjoyment. Washington people still tell of the enthusiasm with which, after dinner, he once insisted on standing up in a theatre-box, to join in the chorus of the American national hymn. He was a devoted angler, and intensely interested in scientific agriculture; much of his Private Correspondence is connected with the latter subject.

Webster named as his literary executors Edward Everett, C. C. Felton, George Ticknor, and George Ticknor Curtis. By this arrangement the standard edition of his Works, in six volumes, appeared (1851). In the first volume is a Life by Everett. See also Webster's Private Correspondence, Knapp's Life of Webster (1835), March's Reminiscences of Congress (1850), Lanman's Private Life of Webster (1856), Curtis's Life of Webster (1869), Harvey's Reminiscences of Webster (1877), Lodge's Life of Webster (1883). (A. J.)

 WEBSTER,, the greatest of contemporaries or successors, was a writer for the stage in the year 1601, and published in 1624 the city pageant for that year, "invented and written by John Webster, merchant-tailor." In the same year a tragedy by and Webster was licensed for the stage; it is one of the numberless treasures now lost to us through the carelessness of genius or the malignity of chance. Beyond the period included between these two dates there are no traces to be found of his existence; nor is anything known of it with any certainty during that period, except that seven plays appeared with his name on the title page, three of them only the work of his unassisted hand. His first noteworthy appearance in print, as far as we know, was as the author of certain additions to tragi-comedy of The Malcontent; these probably do not extend beyond the induction, a curious and vivacious prelude to a powerful and irregular work of somewhat morbid and sardonic genius. Three years later, in 1607, two comedies and a tragedy, "written by and John Webster," were given to the press. The comedies are lively and humorous, full of movement and incident; but the beautiful interlude of poetry which distinguishes the second scene of the fourth act of Westward Ho! is unmistakably and unquestionably the work of Dekker; while the companion comedy of Northward Ho! is composed throughout of homespun and coarse-grained prose. The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt is apparently a most awkward and injurious abridgment of a historical play in two parts on a pathetic but undramatic subject, the fate of. In this lost play of Lady Jane, Chettle, and had also taken part; so that even in its original form it can hardly have been other than a rough piece of patchwork. There are some touches of simple eloquence and rude dramatic ability in the mangled and corrupt residue which is all that survives of it; but on the whole this "history" is crude, meagre, and unimpressive. In 1612 John Webster stood revealed to the then somewhat narrow world of readers as a tragic poet and dramatist of the very foremost rank in the very highest class. The White Devil, also known as Vittoria Corombona, is a tragedy based on events then comparatively recent—on a chronicle of crime and retribution in which the leading circumstances were altered and adapted with the most delicate art and the most consummate judgment from the incompleteness of incomposite reality to the requisites of the stage of Shakespeare. By him alone among English poets have the finest scenes and passages of this tragedy been ever surpassed or equalled in the crowning qualities of tragic or dramatic poetry, in pathos and passion, in subtlety and strength, in harmonious variety of art and infallible fidelity to nature. Eleven years had elapsed when the twin masterpiece of its author—if not indeed a still greater or more absolute masterpiece—was published by the poet who had given it to the stage seven years before. The Duchess of Malfy (an Anglicized version of Amalfi, corresponding to such designations as Florence, Venice, and Naples) was probably brought on the stage about the time of the death of Shakespeare; it was first printed in the memorable year which witnessed the first publication of his collected plays. This tragedy stands out among its compeers as one of the imperishable and ineradicable landmarks of literature. All the great qualities apparent in The White Devil reappear in The Duchess of Malfy, combined with a yet more perfect execution, and utilized with a yet more consummate skill. No poet has ever so long and so successfully sustained at their utmost height and intensity the expressed emotions and the united effects of terror and pity. The transcendent imagination and the impassioned sympathy  XXIV.—60