this: far less than Dr. Stoll makes out.1 But it has a certain resemblance to The Parliament of Love. The next instance is more interesting. The Little French Lawyer (1619 or 20), by Fletcher and Massinger, has a variant of the story. In this, A and F are going, as principal and second, to fight a duel. L gives A a sudden command, which will cause him to cut the duel and sacrifice his friend. There is the struggle between love and friendship, in A's breast. Love wins. This is a curious modification of the other theme; but the similarity is not really great. There are minor details of resemblance, which Dr. Stoll brings out clearly,2 though he exaggerates the main points. Most, at least, of this story in The Little French Lawyer, comes in Massinger's portion of the play.3 These two steps do not amount to much, but they help a little. We can see that Massinger's mind was 'Dr. Stoll's great fault is that he is given to pressing evidence, carelessly and unfairly, in his own direction. He is too eager to prove a case. In this instance, a notable one, he says, that the elder Loveless "elicits" from the Lady, "a rueful declaration, like Leonora's in the Parliament of Love, that were he alive she would marry him." It is a concoction of untruths. All the Lady says is that if she had been warned when Loveless was setting out, "these two arms had been his sea." As for Leonora she says nothing of the kind. All she says is that, rather than that Cleremond be executed and she live and die an anchoress in an eight-foot room built on his grave, she'll marry him. Cleremond is not dead, and nobody thinks he is. Perhaps Dr. Stoll was thinking of Bellisant, who is driven by the supposed death of Montrose to confess she loved him. But that belongs to another part of the plot. 'Stoll, 168-170. i.e., in Act. I. (C. H. E. L. VI, pp. 139, 9). familiar with variants of the story and similar situations. Since a comparison of his variant and Webster's has also made it seem more likely that Webster imitated him, we may conclude that if The Dutch Courtezan, The Parliament of Love, and A Cure for a Cuckold are the only plays in the matter, that was probably the order in which they were written. The Parliament of Love was licensed in November 1624, so 1625—is, by this department of the evidence, a probable date. We can only say then that this play was very likely written between 1625 and 1642; and rather more probably before 1630 than after. QUESTIONS OF AUTHORSHIP His A Cure for a Cuckold was first printed in 1661 by Kirkman, as by Webster and Rowley. This evidence is of very little value. That Webster's hand is to be found faintly in several parts of the play is shown with probability but not certainty, by Dr. Stoll.1 parallel passages seem to be the only proofs of his thať have any validity. Beyond this we can say nothing; except that the under-plot, the Compass affair, is probably not by Webster, and certainly might be by Rowley. How much share Rowley or anybody else had in the other part of the play, cannot be settled, at least without much more minute investigation than this problem has yet received. Mr. Spring-Rice's and Mr. Gosse's 1 Pp. 37-41. 1 subtraction of the main plot of the play, and publication of it by itself (as by Webster), satisfies one's artistic feeling, more than one's desire for correct attribution. BIBLIOGRAPHY A. EDITIONS B. CRITICISM, SOURCES, ETC. A. EDITIONS The Works of John Webster. Collected by the Rev. Alexander Dyce. Four volumes, 1830. Reprinted 1857, one volume. The Dramatic Works of John Webster. Edited by William Hazlitt. Four volumes. Library of Old Authors. 1857. The White Devil and Duchess of Malfy. Ed. Sampson. 1904. Belles Lettres Series. The Mermaid Series: Webster and Tourneur. Edited by J. A. Symonds, with introduction. 1888. Contains The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi. The White Devil; or, The Tragedy of Paulo Giordano Ursini, Duke of Brachiano, with The Life and Death of Vittoria Corombona, the famous Venetian Curtizan. Acted by the Qwenes Majesties Servants. quarto. Reprinted 1631, quarto. Reprinted 1672, quarto. 1612, Injur❜d Love; or, The Cruel Husband. By N[ahum] Tate. A Version of The White Devil. 1707. The White Devil. A Select Collection of Old Plays, vol. iii., Dodsley. 1744. Reprinted 1780. Notes by Isaac Reed. Dodsley. The White Devil. The Ancient British Drama, vol. iii. Edited by Sir Walter Scott. 1810. |