The last, though considerably the latest of the three—it is dated 1619 or 162o—may be taken first, and can be easily dismissed. It is a clumsy, involved, inartistic tragicomedy, in which the happy ending is brought about by the violation of all probability. With many reminiscences of the older and better time, it marks the transition to the later and worse fashion of the Caroline drama. Its chief merits lie in occasional flashes of Webster's characteristic murky imagery and daemonic forcefulness of phrase. There are also some touches of a shrewd satirical observation which, though not always dramatic, is in itself exceedingly striking.
But it is on the two great tragedies that Webster's fame must always rest. The White Devil, based on actual events of then recent date, was published in 1612, with a preface that interests by its tersely-wbrded appreciations of contemporary writers ; and, as we know that Webster was a very slow worker, may be dated 161o. The Duchess of Malfy, founded ultimately on a novel of Bandello's, cannot be later than 1614; for the researches of Charles Wallace have shown that William Osteler, who acted in it, died that year. The two plays, therefore, were written with the combined daring of youth and solid strength of manhood. They have been said to belong to the "Tragedy of Blood," and they certainly have much in common with Kyd's Spanish Tragedy on the one hand and with Hamlet on the other. But perhaps it would be better—if classify we must—to regard them as a fusion of the Blood-Tragedy with the "Machiavellian" type of which Othello is the supreme example—that type in which further use is made of the Elizabethan conception of a contemporary Italy, rich in all the resources of culture, and permeated with all the vices of decadence. In it the essential element is the villain, en dowed with matchless cunning, a hatred of good for its own sake, and a plentiful lack of conscience. To the exhibition of this con ception Webster brought a certain Juvenalian indignatzo which informs the work from beginning to end. The dramatic technique, coldly considered, is often lamentable; whole scenes are irrelevant, characters start up at random, and description too often takes the place of action. With every allowance for the fact that the plays
were greatly shortened for the stage, these defects are serious, and go far to explain the repugnance of such critics as William Archer. But they are far outweighed by stupendous merits—in fact by the irresistible power of genius, often it is true "sufflam inandus," but conquering every obstacle like a rushing torrent. There is nothing of the icily regular about Webster. He dares all, and either vanquishes or fails. The main secret of his lasting ap peal (an appeal perhaps stronger than ever to-day, to a generation that has supped full of the horrors of war) is his accumulation of catastrophe on catastrophe, his sense of the ghastly in little things, his power of symbolic hinting, and what we may call his sub limation of the pathetic into the portentous. To convey all this he has, when at white heat, a gift of brief expression, charged with the fullest meaning, unmatched except in Shakespeare. The famous "Cover her face, mine eyes dazzle, she died young," is only a supreme instance out of scores. In the face of this, criti cism has to hold its peace ; or, if it speaks at all, takes the form of such imitation as Shelley gives us in the Cenci.
Webster's works were edited by Dyce (4 vols., 1830) and inaccu rately ; W. C. Hazlitt (4 vols., 1857), but all previous editions are superseded by that of F. L. Lucas (4 vols., 1927, bibliog. in vol. I.). The White Devil and the Duchess, Symonds (1888) and Sampson (19o4)• Criticism, Lamb, Specimens (18o8) ; Swinburne, Age of Shake speare (1908) ; Sidney Lee, Dict. Nat. Biog. (1899) (needs correction as to facts) ; Gosse, Seventeenth Cent. Studies (1883) ; Symonds, Italian By-ways (1883). On the story of Vittoria Accoramboni, see Trollope in All the Year Round, 186o.
The most important recent works are E. E. Stole, John Webster (1905) ; Rupert Brooke, John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama (1913) (valuable as the appreciation of a poet by a poet), and for its bibliog. and Lucas's introductigns (especially on Webster's so called plagiarisms from Sidney, Montaigne, etc.). (E. E. K.)