Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Works of John Webster: With Some Account of the Author, and Notes
In the Introduction to his edition of The Dramatic Works of John Webster, 1857, Mr. Hazlitt announces his intention of including among them, not only The Thracian Wonder (which he justly describes as a stream of dulness but The Weakest goeth to the Wall. The latter play he assigns to Webster upon the authority of Winstanley not being aware that when Winstanley wrote as follows in his Lires of the most famous English Poets, 1687, p. 137, he was merely transcribing the blunders of Phillips in the Theatmm Poetarum, 1675 He [dekker] was also an associate with John Webster in several well eutertain'd Plays, viz. Northward, hoe? The Noble Stranger New Trick to cheat the Devil ll'cstward, hoe The Weakest goes to the Wall; and A Woman will have her will. Here we have three plays confidently attributed to Dekker and Webster, of which we are certain that they did not write a word The Noble Stranger is by Sharpe A New Trick to cheat the Devil, by Davenport; and A Woman will have her will, by Haughton So much for the authority of Winstanley, or rather, of Phillips. As to The Weakest goeth to the Wall, - from beginning to end it is written in a style utterly unlike that of Webster. For verses by Sheppard on Webster's White Devil, see p. 2 for verses by Middleton, W. Rowley, and Ford, on his Duchess of Malfi, see p. 56. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
