glorious seeds of the Renaissance had produced in Italy. this upas-forest, covered with splendid but deadly blossoms. The current religion did not supply moral leaven adequate to so rapid an intellectual growth, and there was no sentiment of nationality to counteract the tendency towards individualism. What thoughtful man, be he a rationalist or a dogmatist, can behold such periods without amazement, and without realizing that the problem of human destiny is infinitely complex and unspeakably tragic? And John Webster sought, merely by presenting an episode typical of hundreds, -nay, of an epoch, to show the actual terror and tragedy of life, that must be reckoned with by every one who would estimate its possibilities and its purpose. Unlike Dante, his Duchess needed to be transported to hell by no vision: her very surroundings were hell, as they must have been to any pure and noble man or woman. In the contrast between her character and her conditions lies the real tragedy; the terrific ordeals which test but do not overcome her fortitude-scenes which only Webster could depict are but accessory and external. It may be urged, indeed, that her sufferings were unwarranted, because she was innocent: to this it is sufficient to reply: "Such is the fact; if only the wicked suffered, there would be no problem of evil; neither art nor ethics can be true, if they garble facts." And because Webster recognized this spiritual truth, he is profoundly moral; and because he was able to embody it in the concrete, he is among the few supreme tragic poets of the world. In his play, as often happens in real life, the virtuous seem to be defeated, the wicked to be victorious, but the triumph and the defeat are only apparent: virtue remains uncontaminated, there is its reward; sin remains unregenerate, there is its punishment. "Merely to live," said Socrates, "is nothing; a good life is everything." And Webster, after painting with inexorable fidelity and supreme power the tragic career of his heroine, concludes, "I have ever thought Nature doth nothing so great for great men As when she's pleased to make them lords of truth: Which nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end." It is necessary to make this brief analysis in order to prepare readers for a right understanding of Webster; they will need no guide to show them his more patent merits. His detached thoughts, clear and compressed as diamonds; his revelations of a character in a line; his sombre sublimity; his naturalness amid almost preternatural circumstances, these characteristics of his genius need no elucidation. He had not Shakespeare's skill in dramatic construction; nor Shakespeare's complete mastery of verse, but he had, within a narrower range, an imagination as penetrating and as vivifying as Shakespeare's, and a moral sense akin to that which expresses itself in Macbeth and in Lear. From Marlowe to Webster is less than thirty years, less than an average lifetime; yet within that brief period the Elizabethan Drama blossomed and withered. After Webster's, there is no great name in the Drama. English Poetry, indeed, did not die, but its subsequent glories have been epic, lyric, and descriptive; it has become introspective and personal, and has left the more diffuse and less permanent art of fiction to incarnate in objective creations the passions and vicissitudes of human life. A word should be added concerning the rule which I have followed in editing these five plays. I have made the notes as brief as possible, keeping in mind that this volume is to be read as literature, and not as a text-book to furnish puzzles in antiquarian difficulties nor in philological niceties. I have compared the explanations of the best editors, and adopted the best, supplementing them from my own researches where it seemed necessary. I have set the notes at the bottom of each page, rather than at the end of the book, so that the reader can see at a glance whether the information he seeks is there, or not: those who, like myself, have often wasted time by turning to the back of a volume only to find that the editor has passed over without comment the word they wished him to explain, will, I trust, approve of this arrangement. BIBLIOGRAPHY. For the benefit of those who wish to pursue their reading in the Elizabethan Drama, the following short bibliography is added: MARLOWE. Edited by Dyce, "The Old Dramatists": new edit., 1887. Edited by Bullen, 1886. JONSON. Complete works edited by Gifford, 1816; new edit., 1860. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. Edited by Darley, "The Old Dramatists," new edit., 1883. TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. The edition by Littledale (New Shakspere Society publications, Series II, 7, 8, 15) is exhaustive. For students, Skeat's edition, 1875, is very convenient; Rolfe's, 1883, is also excellent. See also essays by Spalding, Hickson, Furnivall, Fleay, and Swinburne. WEBSTER. Edited by Dyce, "The Old Dramatists." Also Swinburne's admirable essay, Nineteenth Century, 1886, Vol. XIX. The chief works of all these dramatists are also republished in the recent "Mermaid Series." Charles Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, and Leigh Hunt's Selections from Beaumont and Fletcher, are chosen with rare taste, and are as satisfactory as fragments can ever be. The chapters in Taine's English Literature referring to the Elizabethan Drama, may be consulted for a foreigner's opinion, although they seem to me to lack spiritual insight. |