Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/70

 64

NOTES AND QUERIES, [us. vm. JULY 26, 1913.

evidence of Heywood himself, and is con- tained in an oft-quoted passage in ' The Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels,' in which Heywood contrasts the respect paid to the writers of antiquity with the familiar manner in which the poets of his own day were treated. The passage contains a reference to Webster which, I submit, is j worded in such a way as to show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was no longer alive when it was written. It is in book iv. of the * Hierarchie,' p. 206, and begins thus :

Our moderne Poets to that passe are driuen, Those names are curtal'd which they first had

giuen ;

And, as we wisht to haue their memories drown'd, We scarcely can afford them halfe their sound.

Here follow references to Greene, who " could neuer gaine to be called more than Robin," and to Marlowe, who " could ne're attaine beyond the name of Kit." Heywood proceeds :

. . . .Famous Kid Was call'd but Tom. Tom. Watson, though he

wrote

Able to make A polio's selfe to dote Vpon his Muse ; for all that he could striue, Yet neuer could to his full name arriue. Tom. Nash (in his time of no small esteeme) Could not a second syllable redeeme. Excellent Bewmont, in the formost ranke Of the rar'st Wits, was neuer more than Franck. Mellifluous Shake-speare, whose inchanting Quill Commanded Mirth or Passion, was but Will. And famous lohnson, though his learned Pen Be dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben. Fletcher and Webster, of that learned packe None of the mean'st, yet neither was but lacke. Deckers but Tom ; nor May, nor Middleton. And hee 's now but lacke Foord, that once wepe

lolin.

Of the authors other than Webster here mentioned, it is known that all those to whom Heywood refers in the past tense were no longer living when these lines were written. Kyd died in 1594, Watson in 1592, Nashe in 1601, Beaumont and Shakespeare in 1616, Fletcher in 1625. Jonson, Dekker, May, and Ford, all of whom are referred to in the present tense, were still living. Middleton, it is true, had died in 1627, but here the grammatical construction (probably owing to the exigencies of metre) is loose ; Hey- wood is dealing with the three " Toms " in a single sentence, and the s added to the name of Dekker (which has, by the way, been wrongly omitted in the quotation of this pas- sage given in Lamb's ' Dramatic Specimens ' and in Hartley Coleridge's Introduction to the ' Dramatic Works of Massinger and Ford ' ) is made to do service for both present and past tense. As if to prevent the

impression being conveyed that Middleton, like the two other dramatists who possessed the same Christian name, was still alive, Hey- wood returns with marked emphasis to the present tense in speaking of Ford. Short of a direct assertion that Webster was no longer alive, it would, indeed, scarcely be possible for Hey wood's reference to convey the fact more clearly. Jonson (who was living) " is still " but Ben ; Fletcher (who was certainly dead) and Webster, " of that learned pack None of the mean'st," neither " was " but Jack. Webster then, whose name is coupled with Fletcher's, was also dead. Note particularly the reference to Ford in the last line,

And he's now but Jack Fori, that once were John. Putting the change of tense aside, what possible reason could there be for separating Ford from the other Jacks Fletcher and Webster except that Ford Was still living, whereas Webster and Fletcher were both dead ? The evidence is, I submit, quite conclusive, and it proves that Webster died some time before 7 Nov., 1634. the day upon which ' The Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels ' was licensed for publication. It follows, of course, that this date gives us the forward limit for ' Appius and Virginia,' if Webster alone was responsible for its composition.

I think I am entitled to claim that I have already produced sufficient evidence to show that the play cannot have been written before 1630. Even after making due allow- ance for the fact that some of Heywood's works, containing the words or parallel pas- sages to which I have previously drawn attention, were undoubtedly written several years before they were printed, a date for ' Appius and Virginia ' rather later than 1630 seems to be indicated, and if Webster's hand alone appears in it, I have little hesitation in ascribing it to 1632-4. It may seem rather bold to claim to have fixed the date within so narrow a limit, but I think the evidence justifies it.

It will be observed that I have, throughout this article, qualified my conclusions as to the date by a proviso as to Webster's sole authorship of the play as printed in 1654. for it is obvious that the occurrence in its text of Heywoodian words and phrases is sus- ceptible of another explanation. It may be that Heywood himself had a hand in it. It is at least a tenable hypothesis that Webster died before the play was finished, and that it was revised and completed by Heywood after his death. H. D. SYKES,

Enfield.