Bos. I am the common bell-man, That usually is sent to condemn'd The night before they suffer.

Duch. Even now thou saidst, Thou wast a tomb-maker.

Bos. Twas to bring you

person's

By degrees to mortification: Listen.

Dirge.

Hark, now every thing is still;

The screech-owl, and the whistler shrill,
Call upon our dame aloud,

And bid her quickly d'on her shroud.
Much you had of land and rent;
Your length in clay's now competent.
A long war disturb'd your mind :
Here your perfect peace is sign'd.

Of what is 't fools make such vain keeping?
Sin, their conception; their birth, weeping:
Their life, a general mist of error,

Their death, a hideous storm of terror.
Strew your hair with powders sweet,
D'on clean linen, bathe your feet:
And (the foul fiend more to check)
A crucifix let bless your neck.

'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day :

End your groan, and come away.

Car. Hence, villains, tyrants, murderers: alas !

What will you do with my lady? Call for help.

Duch. To whom? to our next neighbours? They are

mad folks.

Farewell, Cariola.

I pray thee look thou giv'st my little boy

Some syrop for his cold; and let the girl

Say her pray'rs ere she sleep.-Now, what you please; What death?

Bos. Strangling. Here are your executioners.

Duch. I forgive them;

The

The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough o'the lungs,
Would do as much as they do.

Bos. Doth not death fright you?

Duch. Who would be afraid on't, Knowing to meet such excellent company In th' other world?

Bos. Yet methinks,

The manner of your death should much afflict you;
This cord should terrify you.

Duch. Not a whit.

What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut
With diamonds? or to be smothered

With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls?
I know, death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits: and 'tis found,

They go on such strange geometrical hinges,

You may open them both ways: any way: (for heav'n sake)

So I were out of your whispering: tell my brothers,
That I perceive, death (now I'm well awake)

Best gift is, they can give or I can take.

I would fain put off my last woman's fault;
I'd not be tedious to you.

Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength
Must pull down heaven upon me.

Yet stay, heaven gates are not so highly arch'd
As princes' palaces; they that enter there
Must go upon their knees. Come, violent death,
Serve for Mandragora to make me sleep.

Go tell my brothers; when I am laid out,

They then may feed in quiet.

Ferd. Is she dead?

(They strangle her, kneeling.)

Ferdinand enters.

Bos. She is what you would have her.

Fix your eye here

Ferd. Constantly.

Bos. Do you not weep?

Other

Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out.
The element of water moistens the earth,

But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.

Ferd. Cover her face: mine eyes dazzle: she died

O fie upon this single life: forego it.

We read how Daphne, for her peevish flight,
Became a fruitless bay-tree: Syrinx turn'd
To the pale empty reed: Anaxarate

Was frozen into marble: whereas those
Which married, or prov'd kind unto their friends,
Were, by a gracious influence, trans-shap'd
Into the olive, pomgranate, mulberry;

Became flowers, precious stones, or eminent stars.

68 All the several parts of the dreadful apparatus with which the Duchesses death is ushered in are not more remote from the conceptions of ordinary vengeance, than the strange character of suffering which they seem to bring upon their victim, is beyond the imagination of ordinary poets. As they are not like inflictions of this life, so her language seems not of this world. She has lived among horrors till she is become "native and endowed unto that element." She speaks the dialect of despair, her tongue has a smatch of Tartarus and the souls in bale.-What are "Luke's iron crown," the brazen bull of Perillus, Procrustes' bed, to the waxen images which counterfeit death, to the wild masque of madmen, the tomb-maker, the bell-man, the living person's dirge, the mortification by degrees! To move a horror skilfully, to touch a soul to the quick, to lay upon fear as much as it can bear, to wean and weary a life till it is ready to drop and then step in with mortal instruments to take its last forfeit: this only a Webster can do. Writers of an inferior genius may upon horror's head horrors accumulate" but they cannot do this. They mistake quantity for quality, they terrify babes with painted devils" but they know not how a soul is capable of being moved; their terrors want dignity, their affrightments are without decorum.

66

Fable.

Fable.

Upon a time, Reputation, Love, and Death,
Would travel o'er the world: and 'twas concluded
That they should part, and take three several ways.
Death told them, they should find him in great battles,
Or cities plagued with plagues: Love gives them counsel
To enquire for him 'mongst unambitious shepherds,
Where dowries were not talk'd of; and sometimes,
'Mongst quiet kindred that had nothing left
By their dead parents: stay, quoth Reputation;
Do not forsake me, for it is my nature,

If once I part from any man I meet,

I am never found again.

Another.

A Salmon, as she swam unto the sea,
Met with a Dog-fish; who encounters her
With his rough language: why art thou so bold
To mix thyself with our high state of floods?
Being no eminent courtier, but one

That for the calmest and fresh time of the year
Dost live in shallow rivers, rank'st thyself
With silly Smelts and Shrimps :-and darest thou
Pass by our Dog-ship without reverence?
O (quoth the Salmon) sister, be at peace,
Thank Jupiter we both have past the net.
Our value never can be truly known,
Till in the fisher's basket we be shewn :
In the market then my price may be the higher;
Even when I am nearest to the cook and fire.

So to great men the moral may be stretched:

Men oft are valued high when they are most wretched.

THE

THE WHITE DEVIL: OR, VITTORIA COROMBONA, A LADY OF VENICE. A TRAGEDY.

BY JOHN WEBSTER.69

The arraignment of Vittoria.-Paulo Giordano Ursini, Duke
of Brachiano, for the love of Vittoria Corombona, a Ve-
netian Lady, and at her suggestion, causes her Husband
Camillo to be murdered. Suspicion falls upon Vit-
toria, who is tried at Rome, on a double Charge of
Murder and Incontinence: in the presence of Cardinal
Monticelso, Cousin to the deceased Camillo; Francisco de
Medicis, Brother in Law to Brachiano; the Ambassa-
dors of France, Spain, England, &c. As the arraign-
ment is beginning, the Duke confidently enters the Court.
Mon. Forbear, my Lord, here is no place assign'd you:
This business, by his holiness, is left
To our examination.

Bra. May it thrive with you.
Fra. A chair there for his lordship.

(Lays a rich gown under him.)

Bra.

69 The Authors's Dedication to this Play is so modest, yet so conscious of self-merit withal, he speaks so frankly of the deservings of others, and by implication insinuates his own deserts so ingenuously, that I cannot forbear inserting it, as a specimen how a man may praise himself gracefully and commend others without suspicion of envy.

"To the Reader.

In publishing this Tragedy, I do but challenge to myself that liberty which other men have taken before me; not that I affect praise by it, for nos hæc novimus esse nihil; only since it was acted in so open and black a theatre, that it wanted (that which is the only grace and setting-out of a tragedy) a full and understanding auditory; and that, since that time, I have noted, most of the people that come to that play-house resemble those ignorant asses, (who, visiting stationers shops, their use is not to enquire for good