Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/227

 12 s. ix. SEPT. 3, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 181 LONDON. SEPTEMBER'^, 1921. CONTENTS. No. 177. NOTES : A Webster-Middleton Play : ' Anything for a Quiet Life,' 181 A Journey to Scotland in 1730, 183 Principal London Coffee-houses in the Eighteenth Century, 186 A Beneficent Prayer Book Quotations on Cheese " Arcing," 188 Double Flowers in Japan Snuff-box : Relic of the Victory " A bold peasantry, their country's pride," 189. QUERIES : Naming of Public Rooms in Inns Sir James Hackett " Swerd of the Hoope " Blackstone : Refer- ence wanted Loraine, 189 Welsh " Mixed Train " English Cheeses Varieties of Scotch Cheese House Bells The Swan's Dying Song Carols, 190 Arms : Identifica- tion sought " Royal East India Volunteers " A Token : Identification sought Alun ' Reuben Manasseh ' : " Alastor " Moneacht Beeleigh Abbey Bromley Stukeley Christopher Saxton Author Wanted, 191. REPLIES : Domesday and the Geld Inquests Heraldic (a Caution), 192 Arms of the See of Brechin, 193 Epitaphs desired, 194 Runnymede, 195 The " Chalk Farm Pisto- leer " Emerson's ' English Traits ' James I. and a Widow Bookseller of Bristol Shakespeare's Cheese-loving Welshman, 196 " Dreamthorp " English Railings in America Dance of Salome Petty France* 197 Welsh Rabbit Thomas Chatterton " Toff " Hockley of Hamp. shire Ormiston of Ormiston, 198 Elizabeth Fry Sussex and Surrey Dialect Words Christ's Hospital, 199. NOTES ON BOOKS : ' Court Rolls of the Borough of Col- chester ' ' A Little Ark of Seventeenth Century Verse.' Notices to Correspondents. A WEBSTER-MIDDLETON PLAY: 'ANYTHING FOR A QUIET LIFE.' IN a paper written for ' N. & Q.' some years ago* I endeavoured to show that ' The Fair Maid of the Inn ' (one of the plays included in the Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647) was written by Massinger and Webster. This is not the only " Beaumont and Fletcher " play in which Webster had a hand. There are three others that are partly his ' The Honest Man's Fortune,' 'Thierry and Theodoret' and ' Love's Cure.' The dramatists with whom he was associated were, in ' The Honest Man's Fortune ' Massinger, Fletcher and another (possibly Field) ; in * Thierry and Theodoret ' Massinger - and Fletcher ; and in ' Love's Cure ' Massinger and Dekker. Webster's hand is most obvious in the last- named play, especially in the final scene, which" should be compared with the last scene of ' The Devil's Law Case.' It is, however, not these plays but yet another in which I am convinced Webster had a share, that I propose now to discuss the comedy ' Anything for a Quiet Life,' published by Kirkman as Middleton's in 1662, thirty-five years after that dramatist's death. That this play is partly Middleton's there is no reason to doubt, but most of it is Webster's. Webster's is the main action of the play, which is concerned with two independent themes Lady Cressingham's device to cure her husband's extravagance by temporarily divesting him of the owner- ship of his property, and the lawyer Knaves- by's unsuccessful attempt to secure advance- ment at the cost of his wife's honour. The chief characters, Sir Francis and Lady Cressingham, Lord Beaufort, Knavesby and his wife, are his. The subsidiary action involving George Cressingham, Franklin junior, Water-Camlet, his wife and his apprentices, and Sweetball, the barber- surgeon, is Middleton's. Until the final scene is reached the shares of the tw r o authors are quite distinct. Webster wrote (I think) practically the whole of Act I., Act II., sc. i., Act III., sc. ii., and Act V., sc. i., and collaborated with Wobotor in the final scene, V. ii. +*-^ 3t To me the evidence of Webster's author- ship is conclusive.. In the parts of the play that I attribute to him I find clear traces of his style and vocabulary as well as mfmerous passages bearing a close resemblance to passages in his acknow- ledged plays. And to put the matter be- yond doubt, this play like ' The Duchess of Malfy,' ' The Devil's Law Case,' ' A Cure for a Cuckold ' and ' The Fair Maid of the Inn ' contains borrowings both from Sidney's * Arcadia ' and from Over- bury's ' Characters,' or rather from the additions to these ' Characters ' published in 1615.* The more palpable marks of Webster's hand are here noticed in the order in which they occur in the play. I have included connexions between this play and ' The Fair Maid of the Inn,' since they are not without interest in themselves and are tional Characters ' were written by Webster him- self. On this subject see the papers b*y Baron Bourgeois and the present writer, 11 S. x. 3, 233, and 11 S. xi. 313, 335, 355, 374.
 * 11 S. xii. 134, 155, 175, 196.
 * It seems probable that some of these addi-