ALBERT S. COOK, EDITOR

XXXVII

THE COLLABORATION

OF

WEBSTER AND DEKKER

BY

FREDERICK ERASTUS PIERCE, PH.D.,

=

INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH IN YALE UNIVERSITY

A Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1909

PREFACE.

The man who examines problems of collaboration faces a double danger. In the first place, there is always the possibility that all his labors may fail to convince any one but himself. In the second place, there is the risk that so much close and mechanical application may crush out the finer qualities of his own literary nature. I cannot claim to have avoided wholly either of these pitfalls; nevertheless, after all the chaff has been sifted away from this little treatise, I hope that there may still be found a small residuum of wheat, as some definite addition to the world of knowledge; and I also hope that my readers will peruse this book in the same spirit in which it was written-not as a piece of hackwork, but as a sympathetic, although necessarily accurate, study of two great poets. The collaborated plays of Beaumont and Fletcher stand as the monument of one of the most beautiful of human friendships. The collaborated plays of Webster and Dekker form a more humble memorial of what was probably a shoulder-to-shoulder alliance in their pitiful warfare against lifelong poverty. No apology is needed for attempting to throw light on such a partnership.

I wish to express my sincere thanks to Professor Albert S. Cook and to the other members of the English Faculty at Yale for the assistance and inspiration which they have given me in my work.

I also wish to thank Mr. Andrew Keogh and Mr. Henry A. Gruener for aid in bibliographical matters.

A portion of the expense of printing this book has been borne by the Modern Language Club of Yale University from funds placed at its disposal by the generosity of Mr. George E. Dimock of Elizabeth, New Jersey, a graduate of Yale in the Class of 1874. F. E. P.

YALE UNIVERSITY,

July 31, 1908.