TO HIS FRIEND MR. JOHN WEBSTER, UPON HIS "DUCHESS OF MALFI."
I never saw thy Duchess till the day
That she was lively bodied in thy play:
Howe'er she answered her low-rated love
Her brothers' anger did so fatal prove,
Yet my opinion is, she might speak more,
But never in her life so well before.
Wil. Rowley.
TO THE READER OF THE AUTHOR, AND HIS "DUCHESS OF MALFI."
Crown him a poet, whom nor Rome nor Greece
Transcend in all their's for a masterpiece;
In which, whiles words and matter change, and men
Act one another, he, from whose clear pen
They all took life, to memory hath lent
A lasting fame to raise his monument.
John Ford.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria.
The Cardinal, his Brother.