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NOTES AND QUERIES. m s. vn. MAY 24, ma
certainly not earlier than 1630, and that
there are good reasons for believing that it
was written after 1635.
In the first place it is to be remembered that Webster was an inveterate plagiarist. Mr. Crawford has shown that ' The White Devil.' ' A Monumental Column,' and
- The Duchess of Malfy ' are full of
borrowings from the works of other writers. ' The White Devil,' for instance, contains at least thirteen passages borrowed from Florio's translation of Montaigne alone ; ' The Duchess of Malfy ' fourteen from Florio's Montaigne and twenty- two from Sidney's ' Arcadia,' besides numbers of passages from Donne, Ben Jonson, Chapman, and other writers. ' The Devil's Law Case,' a later play, contains fewer of these borrowings, but still a con- siderable number. ' Appius and Virginia ' contains still fewer that have yet been identified, and from the style of the play it is impossible that it should yield so many as the earlier plays. Both ' The White Devil ' and c The Duchess of Malfy,' as well as to a less extent ' The Devil's Law Case,' are full of sententious sayings, metaphors, figures of speech, and poetical ornaments generally. The style of ' Appius and Vir- ginia ' is much plainer and more severe ; the dialogue (excepting in those scenes where the clown appears) is for the most part concerned strictly with the develop- ment of the plot, and contains compara- tively little in the way of poetic ornament or illustration. At any rate, as the result of a careful scrutiny of a large number of the dramatic and other writings of Web- ster's contemporaries, I have not, apart from echoes of Shakespeare's ' Julius Csesar,' dis- covered more than half-a-dozen passages of which the origin can be fairly traced to outside sources, and of these only two, which will be referred to later, are of any assistance in fixing the date of the play. I incline, therefore, to the belief that in his later years Webster restrained his borrowing propensities, confining himself chiefly to single words and phrases.
One of the most noticeable features of ' Appius and Virginia ' is the number of rare words, chiefly Latinisms, that it con- tains. So far as I know, some of these are used by no other writer except Thomas Heywood, while others are frequently used by Heywood, and are of extremely rare occurrence elsewhere. The more the reader studies Webster's works, the more forcibly will he be impressed with the fact that Webster's was not a creative or inventive
intellect; that he carefully studied and imi-
tated the works of his contemporaries, and
leaned heavily upon authority. For this
reason, and from the fact that Heywood
was his lifelong associate and " beloved
friend," we are justified in assuming that
for these unusual words Webster was in-
debted to Heywood, and that where we
find a word for which Heywood and Webster
are the sole authorities, Heywood, and not
Webster, was responsible for its introduc-
tion.
Upon the fact that certain of these rare words are common to Webster and Hey- wood, and that no instance is known of their use by Heywood earlier than 1630 or thereabouts, I shall partly rely as evidence of the later date of ' Appius and Virginia/ and by way of corroboration I shall adduce other resemblances between phrases and passages occurring in this play and in other writings of the period. I do not pretend that in, each instance here cited Webster's indebtedness is so indisputable as to justify the conclusion that his play is of a later date than the work to which I here suggest that he was indebted, but I do claim that the cumulative effect of the evidence afforded by the examples here given points irre- sistibly to the conclusion that Webster's play is certainly of a later date than 1630, even if it is not sufficient to establish a date after 1635.
Before dealing with Heywood I will first draw attention to an unusual expression occurring, so far as I am aware, only in Webster's play and Ben Jonson's ' Staple of News' the expression to "wage law' r with a person, meaning to engage in litiga- tion, carry on a lawsuit. I am unable to wage law with him.
- Staple of News,' V. i.
My purse is too scant to wage law with them.
' Appius and Virginia,' III. ii.
I will content myself with the observation that Webster has elsewhere on several occa- sions laid Jonson's works under contribu- tion, as an indication that he has also borrowed this phrase, and that this points to a date subsequent to the publication of Jonson's play in 1625.
I have next to draw attention to some points of resemblance between Webster's play and a play of Rowley's.
Corbulo, the clown in ' Appius and Vir- ginia,' is extraordinarily like the clown in Rowley's ' A New Wonder, a Woman never Vext ' ; they are so much alike that one almost feels justified in suggesting that they are by the same hand, and that Rowley
