Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/144

 136

NOTES AND QUERIES, m s. xn. AUG. 21, 1915.

ACT II. so. n.

This, a prose scene, introducing us to the " Host " of the inn, and the Clown, servant to the mountebank Forobosco, is also Webster's. In the course of the dialogue between these two persons, the Host asks the Clown whether it is a fact that in England the ladies " take physic for fashion."
 * ' Yes, sir," says the Clown, " and rnany
 * times die to keep fashion."

Host. How? die to keep fashion?

Clown. Yes, I have known a lady sick of the smallpox, only to keep her face from pit-holes, take cold, strike them in again, kick up the heels, and vanish.

This speech is quite in Webster's style, and there is in the dialogue between Bosola and the " Old Lady "of The Duchess of Malfy ' .an anecdote of much the same sort :

There was a lady in France, that having had the

smallpox

Flay'd the skin off her face, to make it more level.

II. i. (ii. 80).

The Hostess now enters with Biancha, lier supposed daughter, *' The Fair Maid of the Inn,' ' and the following dialogue ensues :

Host. Here comes my wife and daughter.

Ciown. You have a pretty commodity of this night- worm ?

Host. Why, man ?

Clown. She is a. pretty lure to draw custom to your ordinary.

Host. Dost think I keep her to that purpose ?

Clown. When a dove-home is empty, there is cummin-seed used to purloin from the rest of the neighbours.

In ' The Duchess of Malfy ' and ' The Devil's Law Case ' Webster borrows from Overbury's ' Characters ' almost as fre- quently as he does from, the. ' Arcadia.' There is good reason to believe that he him- self was the author of some, at least, of the .additional ' Characters ' (' New and Choise Characters of Severall Authors ') published in 1615, for not only are they just as deeply indebted to Sidney's ' Arcadia ' and Florio's ' Montaigne ' as are Webster's plays, but they frequently borrow identical passages, and vary their phrasing in the same way. In this instance, however, Webster has had recourse to one of the first set of ' Cha- racters ' published in 1614. Of 'An Host' the ' Character '-writer observes :

"His wife is the cummin-seed of his dove-house, and to be a guest is the warrant of her liberty." Overbury's ' Characters,' eel. Rimbault, 1890, p. 71.

Soon afterwards, in one of Biancha' s speeches, we have:

Sir, the Gentleman Is every way so noble,

with which we may compare

a man so every way

Deserving.

' Cure for a Cuckold,' IV. ii. (iv. 74-5). You are a creature every wav complete.

Ibid., V.i. (iv.82).

as you

Are every way well-parted,

Ibid., V. i. (iv. 84).

Biancha goes on to say that though she is, of necessity, familiar to every guest, yet she will be a stranger to their vices, a remark which calls from the Hostess the approving exclamation,

Right my daughter :

She has the right strain of her mother. This unusual adverbial use of " right " is several times to be met with in Webster's acknowledged plays, e.g..

Right the fashion of the world !

'Duchess of Malfy,' III. v. (ii. 225). The gallant's fashion right.

' Devil's Law Case,' III. iii. (Hi. 65). 'Tis the world right.

' Appius and Virginia,' V. iii. (iii. 218).

ACT II. sc. in.

A short scene, in verse, describing an interview between Mentivole and Baptista. The verse has the unmistakable impress of Webster, and we may note a characteristic exclamation of Baptista' s :

O my fury !

With which we may compare Cornelia's cry in ' The White Devil ' on witnessing the murder of Marcello (IV. v.) :

O my horror ! and also a few lines later in the same scene :

O my perpetual sorrow !

(Hazlitt, ii. 108).

and Jolenta in ' The Devil's Law Case,' III. iii. :

my fantastical sorrow !

(Hazlitt, iii. 66)

Such exclamations, although not peculiar to Webster, are rarely met with outside his plays.

ACT II. sc. iv.

In the last of Clarissa's speeches preceding the entry of Mariana with a sailor we have :

the sad

And unexpected quarrel, which divided So noble and so excellent a friendship, Which, as I ne'er had magic to foresee, So I could not prevent. In ' The White Devil '

Man may his fate foresee, but not prevent.

V. ii. (ii. 137).