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Bellamont's rather high average in IV. 1 may possibly be due merely to his affected style, since he is talking here in poetry; it is probably a burlesque on Chapman's grandiloquence. But the radical extremes in the other scenes cannot be explained.

Mayberry.

Northward Ho. Solid lines. Words. Average.

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In I. 1 Mayberry's low average in a high-average scene seems rather suspicious, especially as his total part is nearly 60 lines in length. His change of heart in II. 2 is certainly peculiar.

CHAPTER III.

THE PARALLEL-PASSAGE TEST.

WESTWARD HO.

The value of parallel passages as a test of authorship has been almost universally recognized. Now if this is true of authors in general, it certainly is true of Dekker and Webster; for each of these men has the habit of repeating his own phrases from play to play, until it becomes a positive mannerism. Mr. Stoll has already published a long list of almost verbatim parallels from the various plays of Webster,1 and a still longer list of similar parallels between his own plays might easily be gathered from the works of Dekker. On the other hand, while each of these writers constantly repeats himself, neither shows any tendency in later plays to repeat the phraseology of the other. Five or six parallelisms 2 may be pointed

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Runs upon enginous wheels.

Whore of Babylon, 1607, Sig. C. 2:

For that one act gives, like an enginous wheel,

Motion to all.

I have been unable to find more than two or three other parallels in carefully reading all the works of both authors.

WESTWARD HO.

Act I, Scene 1.

(251 solid lines; word-average, 307.)
Passages from Webster.

(a) Westward Ho I. 1: Stay, tailor, this is the house. Devil's Law Case III. 2: But stay, I lose myself, this is the house.

(b) Westward Ho I. 1: But

Devil's Law Case I. 1:

your lady or justice-o'-the-peace LEONORA [a merchant's wife.] madam carries high wit from Indeed, the Exchange bell the city [i. e. from the city makes us dine so late, ❘ I think dames, ladies learn from bour- the ladies of the court from geoises], namely, to receive us | Learn to lie so long abed.

all and pay all, to awe their husbands, to check their husbands, to control their husbands,

nay, they have the trick on't to be sick for a new gown.

Devil's Law Case III. 1: Why, they use their lords as if they were their wards, | And, as your Dutch women in the Low Countries Take all and pay all, and do keep their husbands So silly all their lives of their own estate.

Duchess of Malfi III. 2. You had the trick in audit time to be sick.

Also for the triple formation of the sentence in 'to awe their husbands, to check their husbands, to control their husbands,' compare

White Devil III. 1: There are not Jews enough, priests enough, nor gentlemen enough.

(c) Westward Ho I. 1: My good old lord and master, that hath been a tilter this twenty year, hath sent it. [*]

White Devil II. 4: For none are judges at tilting but those who have been old tilters.

White Devil I. 2: Camillo-a lousy slave, that within this twenty years rode with the black guard.

(d) Westward Ho I. 1: O the entertainment my lord will make you, sweet wines, lusty diet, perfumed linen, soft beds.

--

White Devil I. 2. Thou shalt lie in a bed stuffed with turtles' feathers; swoon in perfumed linen.

(e) Westward Ho I. 1: No German clock, nor mathematical engine whatsoever, requires so much reparation as a woman's face.

Duchess of Malfi I. 1: I would, then, have a mathematical instrument made for her face. [*]

(f) Notice in the following passages the juxtaposition of 'dream' and 'methought':

Westward Ho I. 1: I dreamed last night you looked so prettily, so sweetly, methought so like the wisest lady of them all.

White Devil V.3: Wilt thou believe me, sweeting? by this light,

I was a-dreamt on thee, too; for methought

I saw thee...

FRANCISCO. Yes, and for fashion's sake I'll dream with her. ZANCHE. Methought, sir, you came stealing to my bed... ZANCHE. As I told you,

Methought you lay down by me.

FRANCISCO. So dreamt I.

Duchess of Malfi III. 5: DUCH. I had a very strange dream tonight. ANTONIO. What was it? DUCH. Methought I wore my coronet of state.

(g) Westward Ho I. 1: JUST. Painting, painting.

BIRD. I have of all sorts, forsooth: here is the burned powder of a hog's jawbone, to be laid with the oil of white poppy, an excellent fucus to kill morphew, weed out freckles, and a most excellent groundwork for painting; here is ginimony likewise burned and pulverized, to be mingled with the juice of lemons, sublimate mercury, and two spoonfuls of the flowers of brimstone, a most excellent receipt to cure the flushing in the face.

C

Duchess of Malfi II. 1: You come from painting now... One would suspect it [your closet] for a shop of witchcraft, to find in it the fat of serpents, spawn of snakes, Jews' spittle, and their young children's ordure; and all these for the face.

(h) Westward Ho I. 1: Love a woman for her tears! Let a man love oysters for their water: for women, though they should weep liquor enough to serve a dyer or a brewer, yet they may be as stale as wenches that travel every second tide between Gravesend and Billingsgate.

Appius and Virginia III. 2: Of all waters, I would not have my beef powdered with a widow's tears... They are too fresh, madam; assure yourself, they will not last for the death of fourteen husbands above a day and a quarter. White Devil V. 3:

These are but moonish shades of grief and fears;

There's nothing sooner dry than women's tears.

(i) Westward Ho I. 1: JUST. Ay, ay, provoking resistance; 'tis as if you come to buy wares in the city, bid money for't; your mercer or goldsmith says, "Truly I cannot take it," lets his customer pass his stall, next, nay, perhaps two or three; but if he find he is not prone to return of himself, he calls him back, and back, and takes his money: so you, my dear wife,~O the policy of women and tradesmen! they'll bite at anything.

White Devil I. 2: FLAMINEO. 'Bove merit!-we may now talk freely-'bove merit! What is't you doubt? her coyness? that's but the superficies of lust most women have: yet why should ladies blush to hear that named which they do not fear to handle? Oh, they are politic: they know our desire is increased by the difficulty of enjoying, whereas satiety is a blunt, weary and drowsy passion.

(j) Westward Ho I. 1: MRS. Just. Would you have me turn common sinner, or sell my apparel to my waistcoat and become a laundress? JUST. No laundress, dear wife, though your credit would go far with gentlemen for taking up of linen; no laundress.

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