Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/311

ii s. VIIL OCT. is, i9i3.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

30$ 'Characters' afford abundance of tempting material.

It is clear, then, not only that Webster borrowed from 'The Wife' and 'Characters,' but that he borrowed from the printed text of the sixth impression of these works, and it follows that 'The Duchess of Malfy' did not assume its present form before 1615. When Webster published the play in 1623 he described it as "the perfect and exact Coppy, with diverse things Printed that the length of the Play would not beare in the Presentment." If it appeared on the stage in 1614, the published version differs from that originally acted in something beyond the mere inclusion of passages omitted for the purpose of shortening the time occupied in its performance. We can now account for an allusion to the French king and Court that "can fit no other possible king or Court of France than Louis XIII. and his Court, and no other period than shortly after April, 1617." The explanation must be that Webster partially rewrote his play for publication, and that the passages borrowed from the 'Characters' and the opening lines of the play referring to the French Court were additions to the text of the play as it was originally acted. It is by no means unlikely that the text did not assume its final form until 1617 or even later. A parallel from Middleton's play 'Anything for a Quiet Life,' long since noted by Dyce, seems to have escaped the vigilance of Prof. Vaughan and Dr. Stoll, though it affords some evidence in support of their contention:

The reference to "the late ill-starred voyage to Guiana" in Act I. sc. i. of Middleton's play seems to point to Raleigh's last voyage to Guiana, and consequently to a date for this play shortly after 1617.

In this connexion also, though I am now travelling rather beyond the scope of these articles, another (hitherto unnoted) Webster-Middleton parallel may be cited:—

Nothing more can be said than that it is here fairly evident that one playwright borrowed from the other, and that it cannot now be taken for granted that Middleton was the borrower. All that is known about the date of his play is that it was acted during the first week of January, 1623, presumably, therefore, before Webster's was published, and that it cannot have been written before 1621, because its main plot is derived from Reynolds's 'God's Revenge against Murther,' first published in that year. It may be that Webster was continually touching and retouching his play, and that it did not assume its final form until he published it in 1623.

—I am much obliged to for the interesting entries published ante, p. 56. I regret my mistake in citing 10 S. ix. 218 in connexion with Cawthorne. My memoranda are not now accessible, but what I had in mind was one of my previous notes on the Halley family which contained incidental references to Cawthorne.

From the parish registers of St. Clement's, Eastcheap, London, the following entries were obtained by Mr. R. J. Beevor, M.A.:—

Roger Cawthorne, sonne of Thomas Cawthorne, was bpt. the 31st day of Aug., 1585.

Vincent, 31 Dec., 1582.

Thomas, 11 Feb., 1581.

William, 28 Sept., 1580.

Margaret, 23 Aug., 1579.

Robert, 28 Aug., 1577.

William, 14 March, 1573.

William Hally, butcher, buried 21 June, 1576.

Thomas Cawthorne, buried 8 May, 1592.

William Cawthorne was buried 15 February, 1655.

William Hawly and Anne his wife were married the 6th of May anno ut supra (1565).

Thomas Cawthorne and Agnes Plasden were married 19 Oct., 1578.

Christopher Muse and Sarah Gardiner were married 9 Nov., 1647.

The Churchwardens' Accounts of the parish of St. Clement, Eastcheap, in a Vestry Minute Book in the Guildhall Library, contain several references, circa 1640-56 et seq., to Humphrey Halley, the astronomer's grandfather. Among other items is one relating to his