Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/227

 n S.VIIL SEPT. 20, 1913.1 NOTES AND QUERIES.

221

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1913.

CONTENTS. No. 195.

NOTES: Webster and Sir Thomas Overbury, 221 Pall Mall, 223 Redcoats, 226 Dr. John Brown's 'Horse Subsecivse': " Teste Jacobo Gray" W. Murdoch, the Inventor of Gas Lighting, 227 Justinian Lewyn J. L. Chester's ' Westminster Abbey Registers ' ' Last Links with Byron, Shelley, and Keats,' 228.

QUERIES : Q. Cicero and Stone Circles Seaver 'Iconografia Galileiana,' 229 "Seen through glass" Bernard "Marquis of Antwerp " Hugh, Bishop of Durham Sir Henry Moody, 230 William Biddle=Sarah Kemp James Sancroft Sarah Carter, "the Sleeping Beauty" Biographical Information Wanted Smuggling Queries Skerrett, 231 Khoja Hussein Mica Clementina Johannes Sobieski Douglass Checkendon "Spade Oak" Farm, Bourne End Books on London : Great Chart" Trailbaston "Heraldic, 232.

REPLIES : The Second Folio Shakespeare, 232 Wilder- ness Row, Clerkenwell, 233 Jones of Nayland Bio- graphical Information Wanted Bucknall, 234 Henry de Grey of Thurrock, 235 Montais, on the River Selle 44 The Five Wounds," 236 Divination by Twitching The Marquessate of Lincolnshire and the Earls of Lincoln "Whistling Oyster " " Buds of marjoram," 237 Acemannesceaster " The Six Lords" "At sixes and sevens" Sever of Merton Antecedents of Job Char- nock, 238.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Calendars of State Papers temp. Edward VL and Elizabeth' How France is Governed.'

Booksellers' Catalogues. Notices to Correspondents.

WEBSTER AND SIR THOMAS OVERBURY.

SINCE the appearance in this journal in 1904-6 of MB. CRAWFORD'S series of articles dealing with Webster's indebtedness to Sir Philip Sidney, Montaigne, Chapman, and Donne, students of the Elizabethan drama have been familiar with the fact that Webster's plays are crowded with phrases and passages borrowed from the works of these writers. I have recently discovered most unmistakable evidence that the dra- matist was also heavily indebted to the writings of Sir Thomas Overbury, or at least to writings published under his name, and this evidence is of rather a surprising kind, as it seems to point to a date for ' The Duchess of Malfy ' considerably later than that suggested by MB. CBAWFOBD, and apparently confirmed by the result of Prof.

C. W. Wallace's researches communicated to The Times of 2 and 4 Oct., 1909.

Before Prof. Wallace published his letters, two recent opinions of an authoritative nature had been expressed as to the date of ' The Duchess of Malfy, * both supported by arguments of considerable weight.

The first was that of MB. CBAWFOBD, who argued in favour of 1613, basing his opinion upon the close resemblance in language and style between this play and ' A Monumental Column,' Webster's elegy on the death of Prince Henry ; and upon the fact that they constantly borrowed from the same sources. From this close relationship, and from the negative evidence afforded by his failure to discover any trace of Webster's acquaint- ance with the writings of his contemporaries bearing a later date than 1612, MB. CBAW- FOBD concluded that ' The Duchess of Malfy * and ' A Monumental Column l were written concurrently, or nearly so, and in 1613.

Prof. Vaughan, on the other hand (' The Duchess of Malfi,' " The Temple Dramatist " edition, Dent, 1900), suggested a date after April, 1617, on the assumption that the reference to the French Court and the French king in the opening lines of the play contained an allusion to the assassination of Concini, Marechal d'Ancre, by order of Louis XIII., and this view was adopted by Dr. E. E. Stoll in his book entitled * John Webster : the Periods of his Work as determined by his Relations to the Drama of the Day,' published in 1905. Dr. S toll's arguments in favour of Prof. Vaughan' s view are stated with much vigour and not a little show of probability. Briefly, his contention is that passing allusions such as that in Webster's play, when without definite names and dates, are almost always directed towards contemporary affairs, and that an allusion to the French king and Court, with nothing in the scene of action or preceding time-references to make the audience think otherwise,

" could never mean to the audience, or be intended to mean, anything else than the contemporary French king and Court."

He states finally that the conditions de- scribed in Webster's lines could fit no other possible king or Court of France than Louis XIII. and his Court, and no other period than shortly after April, 1617.

Next came Prof. Wallace's letter to The Times of 2 Oct., 1909, with the announce- ment of his discovery that the death of the actor William Ostler (or Osteler), whose name appears in the list of the actors' names