My Noble Lord,
That I may present my excuse why, being a stranger to your lordship, I offer this poem to your patronage, I plead this warrant:—men who never saw the sea yet desire to behold that regiment of waters, choose some eminent river to guide them thither, and make that, as it were, their conduct or postilion: by the like ingenious means has your fame arrived at my knowledge, receiving it from some of worth, who both in contemplation and practice owe to your honour their clearest service. I do not altogether look up at your title; the ancientest nobility being but a relic of time past, and the truest honour indeed being for a map to confer honour on himself, which your learning strives to propagate, and shall make you arrive at the dignity of a great example. I am confident this work is not unworthy your honour's perusal; for by such poems as this poets have kissed the hands of great princes, and drawn their gentle eyes to look down upon their sheets of paper when the poets themselves were bound up in their winding-sheets. The like courtesy from your lordship shall make you live in your grave, and laurel spring out of it, when the ignorant scorners of the Muses, that like worms in libraries seem to live only to destroy learning, shall wither neglected and forgotten. This work and myself I humbly present to your approved censure, it being the utmost of my wishes to have your honourable self my weighty and perspicuous comment; which grace so done me shall ever be acknowledged
By your lordship's in all duty and observance,
John Webster.
COMMENDATORY VERSES.
IN THE JUST WORTH OF THAT WELL-DESERVER, MR. JOHN WEBSTER, AND UPON THIS MASTER-PIECE OF TRAGEDY.
In this thou imitat'st one rich and wise,
That sees his good deeds done before he dies:
As he by works, thou by this work of fame
Hath well provided for thy living name.
To trust to others' honourings is worth's crime,
Thy monument is raised in thy life-time;
And 'tis most just; for every worthy man
Is his own marble, and his merit can
Cut him to any figure, and express
More art than death's cathedral palaces
Where royal ashes keep their court. Thy note
Be ever plainness; 'tis the richest coat:
Thy epitaph only the title be,
Write Duchess, that will fetch a tear for thee;
For who e'er saw this Duchess live and die,
That could get off under a bleeding eye?
In Tragædiam.
Ut lux ex tenebris ictu percussa tonantis,
Illa, ruina malis, claris fit vita poetis.
Thomas Middletonus,
Poeta et Chron. Londinensis.