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COPYRIGHT 2006 Associated University Presses
Introduction
IN 1625 "I. W. Gent." issued a collection of letters, most with replies attached, designed both to amuse readers and to instruct them in the art of personal correspondence. This slim volume of fifty-nine pages, printed in black letter, is entitled A Speedie Poste, With certain New Letters, or The First Fruits of new Conceits, neuer yet disclosed. Now published for the helpe of such as are desirous to learne to write Letters (STC 24909). Only two copies survive--one in the British Library (10905 bb 29), the other in the library of the Princeton Theological Seminary (SCB #11914). The British Library copy contains a table of contents (sigs. A4 and A4v), which the Princeton copy lacks; but apart from the missing "Contents of this Booke" in the American exemplar, both copies are complete and differ from each other only in a few insignificant stop-press corrections. The book was entered in the Stationers' Register 15 January 1625 and printed by Miles Flesher (or Fletcher) for William Sheares. A second edition was issued in 1629 and printed "by Elizabeth Allde, for Francis Coules, dwelling in the Old Baily" (STC 24909.5), an imperfect copy of which is in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
A Speedy Post constitutes a late addition to the popular succession of so-called letter writers or correspondence manuals that began with Angel Day's English Secretary and William Fulwood's Enemy of Idleness (both 1586) and continued well into the seventeenth century. As Jean Robertson pointed out in her useful history of the genre, such handbooks took "a new turn in 1602 with the publication of Nicholas Breton's A Poste with a Packet of Madde Letters." (1) This last volume, the instant success of which prompted the author to enlarge it a year later and to issue a second part in 1605, was closely imitated by later writers including "I.W.," who followed Breton in attempting to entertain readers as well as moralize pithily on various subjects. Like Breton, I.W. included letters of compliment, of preferment of a servant, of declaring love to a mistress, of proposing marriage, of condolence, of challenge in a quarrel, of seeking to borrow money, and of offering advice. Like Breton also, I.W. goes in for pointed satire, insistent alliteration, tireless wordplay, and other "fantasticall" or studied artificialities of style. We get the letter of a country bumpkin to his sweetheart, an exchange of letters between a courtier and a university student with much debunking of the court and praise of the scholarly life, and letters that delight in scoffing or leveling vituperative abuse at a third party or even at the recipient him- or herself. Toward the end of the book I.W. offers advice for prospective letter writers, urging them to avoid pedantry, "perfumed phrases," and the insertion of pretentious Latin mottoes or proverbs more appropriate to public orations than to personal missives. One sign that I.W. is following closely in Breton's traces is the printer's use of the same woodcut on the title page that had earlier introduced A Poste with a Packet--the figure of a galloping postman blowing his horn to announce his service.
Ever since the Australian scholar R. G. Howarth ascribed it to John Webster on the basis of the title page initials ("I.W. Gent.") and a striking verbal parallel between the book's preface and the dramatist's dedication of The Duchess of Malfi, (2) A Speedy Post has languished in the limbo of Webster apocrypha. In his address "To the Courteous ... Reader" I.W. rails "against the ignorant worldlings of this iron age, who (as wormes in a Library) seeme onely to live, but for to destroy learning" (sig. A3v); Webster uses nearly identical phraseology in dedicating The Duchess to George Harding, Baron Berkely, where he refers to "the ignorant scorners of the Muses (that like wormes in Libraries, seeme to live onely to destroy learning)" (11. 19-21). It is possible of course that an unknown writer calling himself "I.W." merely lifted a quotation from Webster's work, published two years earlier (1623); but we know that the dramatist sometimes recycled sententiae or favorite images and locutions, imbedding them in fresh contexts, (3) so that, given the tempting initials and the designation "Gent." (which Webster also may have claimed as a Middle Templar), (4) an identity of authorship in the present case would not be implausible. It is interesting also that R. W. Dent, who has investigated Webster's innumerable borrowings more exhaustively than anyone else, was unable to trace any source for the reference to worms in libraries, which reads like the kind of rhetorical nugget or sententious saying that Webster liked to copy down in his commonplace book. (5) Webster's source (if he had one) was apparently obscure, so that we have reason to doubt that I.W. and Webster were drawing independently upon some now forgotten writing.
In Skull beneath the Skin (1986), a book that discusses Webster's canon at some length, I wrote that I was "inclined to accept Howarth's ascription" (xi) but compelled then to defer full consideration of A Speedy Post until a later date. The present article is an attempt to present such evidence as I have since then accumulated and to argue that, such as they are, these data justify the attribution of the letter book to Webster on grounds of heightened probability. The method employed is first to show various kinds of linguistic congruency or parallelism between A Speedy Post and the dramatist's acknowledged works as found in A Concordance to the Works of John Webster by Richard Corballis and J. M. Harding (Salzburg: Institute fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1979); second, to test these parallels, many of which are elements of usage or verbal expressions common to other writers, against the Breton letter book (which I.W. was imitating) and also against other authors of the period (principally Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Dekker) for which concordances exist; and third, to inquire if A Speedy Post shows indebtedness to any of Webster's own principal sources, namely Sidney, Montaigne, Guazzo, Alexander, and Matthieu. The Webster concordance is based on The Complete Works, edited by F. L. Lucas (London: Chatto & Windus, 1927; repr., 1966); on the established Websterian sections of Westward Ho and Northward Ho by Webster and Dekker in volume 2 of The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, edited by Fredson Bowers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955); (6) and on "The Progenie of the Most Renowned Prince James, King of Great Britaine, France and Ireland," a short poem by Webster discovered later than Lucas's edition and reproduced by Bernard M. Wagner in "New Verses by John Webster," Modern Language Notes 46 (1931): 403-05. I quote A Speedy Post and the concorded works of Webster in the original spelling, normalizing only i/j and u/v. In order to save space, I also in troduce the following abbreviations for individual works cited:
A & V Appius and Virginia CHARS Characters ACTR "An excellent Actor" B-MKR "A Button-maker of Amsterdame" CLK "A Puny-clarke" COM "A Worthy Commander in the Warres" COOK "A French Cooke" COW "A vaine-glorious Coward in Command" D-MAN "A drunken Dutch-man resident in England" DISTA "A Distaster of the Time" FEL "A Fellow of a House" FENC "An ordinary Fencer" FRANK "A Franklin" FTMAN "A Foote-man" GAL "An Improvident young Gallant" H-CSR "An Arrant Horse-Courser" HSKPR "A noble and retir'd House-keeper" INGSR "An Ingrosser of Corne" INTRU "An Intruder into favour" JES "A Jesuite" JUDG "A Reverend Judge" MILKM "A fayre and happy Milke-mayd" O. WID "An ordinarie Widdow" PIR "A Pirate" PTFGR "A mere Petifogger" QKSLR "A Quacksalver" RIMR "A Rimer" R. BOY "A Roaring Boy" ROG "A Canting Rogue" SEXT "A Sexton" TOBAC "A Purveiour of Tobacco" USR "A Devellish Usurer" V. WID "A virtuous Widdow" W-MAN "A Water-man" COCK "To his industrious friend, Master Henry Cockeram" DLC The Devil's Law-Case DM The Duchess of Malfi HEY "To his beloved friend, Master Thomas Heywood" MAL Induction to The Malcontent MC A Monumental Column MH Monuments of Honor MUND "To my kinde friend, Ma. An. Mundy" NH Northward Ho ODE "Ode" prefixed to Munday's Palmerin of England, Part III PROG "The Progenie of the Most Renowned Prince James ..." SP A Speedy Post WD The White Devil WH Westward Ho
Matching: A Speedy Post and the Webster Canon
The parallels or congruencies between SP and Webster's concorded works may be organized under the following category headings: (1) Auxiliary verb forms, prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, possessives, and contractions; (2) Characteristic idioms, locutions, miscellaneous phrases, and word collocations; (3) Vocabulary choices, frequencies, and proper names; (4) Recognizable subject matter, ideas, attitudes, image patterns, and thematic emphases; and (5) SP in relation to sources upon which we know Webster drew. Owing to a certain amount of unavoidable overlapping, these categories are not always wholly exclusive of each other and may in some cases be thought arbitrary. Because SP is a prose work intended only to be read as opposed to a work in verse or a play to be acted, we notice a disproportionate number of parallels to Webster's prose works and often to the more formal aspects of his oeuvre such as prefaces and dedications. Because of their generally conceited and highly wrought style, the prose Characters also evince a surprising number of stylistic links. Since SP is unpaginated, references to this book are to signatures; references to Webster are to the editions cited above.
(1) Auxiliary Verb Forms, Prepositions, Conjunctions, Pronouns, Possessives, and Contractions
A Speedy Post does doth 9 doeth doest 1 dost 1 has hath 48 among 18 amongst 2 ye/yee 14 you 449 mine 24 my (before a vowel) 22 thine 8 thy (before a vowel) 5 whiles while 7 whilst whilest 1 whil'st between betweene 1 betwene betwixt 4 unto 10 although though 24 until till 24 Webster does 20 doth 107 doeth 1 doest 7 dost 25 has 99 hath 256 among 11 amongst 20 ye/yee 10 you 768 myne/mine 50 my (before a vowel) 86 thine 11 thy (before a vowel) 22 whiles 2 while 47 whilst 20 whilest 2 whil'st 3 between 2 betweene 33 betwene 1 betwixt 4 unto 65 although 8 though 122 until 6 til/till 88
SP agrees with Webster's usage in its distinct preferences for doth over does, for hath over has, for you over ye/yee, for while over whilst/whilest, for though over although, and for til/till over until. The playwright uses although only eight times (6 percent of his total usage) and then only in dramatic verse where metrical considerations apply and never in prose. Again, Webster's predilection for til/till over until is very like SP's since the six instances of until in Webster's oeuvre constitute only 6 percent of his total use for this detail; of the six instances, moreover, four occur in verse passages where metrical requirements account for the use of an additional syllable. Webster's favoring of dost over doest is not paralleled in SP (each form occurs only once in the collection of letters), but this datum may reflect merely a spelling difference rather than a true distinction between a monosyllable and a disyllable and so may safely be ignored as possessing any authorial significance. The high incidence of among in SP (eighteen instances as against only two of amongst) might seem to tell against Websterian authorship since Webster in the totality of his works prefers amongst to among by a ratio of 20 to 11 or 65 percent. But the apparent incongruity shrinks appreciably when we recognize that more than half of Webster's uses of amongst cluster in relatively early works (WH, NH, WD, and MC) and that nine of the eleven uses of among appear in later works (CHARS, DLC, and A & V). Also, it is worth noting that the use of among is Webster's clear choice in the prose Characters (five instances as against none of amongst) and that it is these Characters that show other stylistic links with the highly conceited prose of SP.
SP uses the pronominal adjectives my and thy before words beginning with a vowel slightly less often than mine and thine (a ratio of 27 to 32 or 46 percent when we combine the two forms) whereas Webster has the contrary preference by a ratio of 108 to 61 or nearly 64 percent. However, when we compare the respective uses of the combined phrases my own and thy own (a total of three times in SP and seven times in Webster) versus mine own and thine own (a total of thirteen times in SP and thirty-six times in Webster), the two preferences agree with each other and the ratios are much closer: SP prefers mine own/thine own over my own/thy own 81 percent of the time, whereas Webster's similar preference is about 83 percent. Webster obviously prefers between (thirty-six occurrences in various spellings) to betwixt (four occurrences) by 81 percent, whereas SP has just the opposite preference, favoring betwixt over betweene by a ratio of 4 to 1 or 80 percent. SP's habit in this respect is obviously out of kilter with Webster's habit as considered in his total output. But we should note that Webster's preference seems to shift from between to betwixt in A & V, a late play probably composed very close in date to SP, by a ratio of 4 to 1, so even the apparent disparity in the use of between and betwixt can be reconciled with a theory of Webster's having written SP. Both SP and Webster occasionally use the somewhat old-fashioned preposition unto although both overwhelmingly prefer the more modern to. SP, given its epistolary context, is especially attracted to the word in the expression "write unto" (B3, B3v, D3v, G3v, Hv, H3). Webster also uses the preposition in similar contexts: compare, for instance, "a Letter ... Unto this Lady" (A & V 3.2.277-78); "send unto the Duke" (WD 2.1.87); and "entreated / Leave ... Unto a friend i'th country" (WD 5.3.263-65).
It has long been known that one of the clearest markers of Webster's style is the use of contractions--especially i'th, i'th', o'th. o'th', for't. in't, on't, of't, upon't, 'em (= them), and 's (= his) in in's, for's, of's, by's, up's, on's, and upon's. None of these forms appears in SP. But again the incongruity does not rule out Webster's authorship because the poet's use of these contractions is confined almost exclusively to dramatic works, where colloquial or emotionally heightened speech is involved, or to verse where metrical considerations apply. These forms are extremely rare in Webster's nondramatic prose; i'th', for instance, occurs only seven times as against 110 uses of the uncontracted form, for't only three as against forty-seven, in't only three times as against fifty, on't only once as against thirty-nine, and in's only seven times as against twenty-eight. All these rare uses occur in the prose Characters in contexts where a satirical tone or a spirit of informality accounts for the contractions--contractions that would ordinarily be out of place in letters that claim to serve the unsophisticated as models of the craft of communication by post.
(2) Characteristic Idioms, Locutions, Miscellaneous Phrases, and Word Collocations
In preparation for this article I originally collected about forty single-spaced pages of verbal parallels between A Speedy Post and Webster's concorded works, extending these to minute details of phrasing and idiom. The great majority, taken individually, have little value as markers of authorship since they can be shown to have been widely used by many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century authors and may be considered as part of the ordinary currency of modern English. For example, such phrases as "such as," "set out," "in the world," "for want of," "honest man," "I confesse," "have cause," "must needs," "no further," "give me leave," and so on are common to many writers of the period, and the ten examples just cited, chosen at random from my long list of SP-Webster parallels, appear also in Shakespeare and, except for "set out," also in Marlowe. Eight of the ten occur also in the poems of Ben Jonson. My only reason for assembling such a long and detailed list was to prove what I had suspected from the outset--that the number and frequency of such parallels would be substantial--and to demonstrate to myself that whoever composed SP shared many of Webster's stylistic and linguistic habits. Extracting them from my unwieldy assemblage, I list below in alphabetical order the most widely used phrases common to SP and Webster, making allowance in a few cases for alternative pronouns or verb forms, for differences between singulars and plurals, and for shifts from a definite to an indefinite article or for altered word order.
a kin to
a kind of
a little
able to
acquainted with
all her kindred
an enemy to
an honest man
and then
as good
as I heare
as if
as may be
as well
as yet
as you said
asham'd of
at a rate
at her will
at large
at least
at length
at once
bad ware
be bold
be content
be ... himselfe
be loth
be rid of
bee assured
bee drawne
bee quiet
bee your selfe
beholding to
beleeve it
beyond all
bids me
bold to
bold with
bonds of conscience
but one
by course of
by the way
by them
care not
caried away
clip [= embrace] her
come among
come to be
count it a
cryes out
description of
did amisse
doe good
doe well
doe you hurt
doth not
either ... or
esteemes not
except it be
expectation of
eye sight
faile you
fall into
far from
farre off
feeles it
find him
find me
find out
fit for
follow your
for feare of
for Gods sake
for his owne sake
for lacke of
for want of
for what
foule one
from hence
full of
give ... occasion
give me leave
giving ... notice
glad of
glory of
goe together
good company
good conscience
good fortune
good man
great man
great men
had rather
have ... use for
have cause
have I ... noted
height of
her time
high prizes [= prices]
high way
his owne
his pace
his scholler
his servants
his wife
hopes of
I ... beseech you
I ... have occasion
I accept
I am glad
I charge you
I confesse
I dare not
I hope
I know not
I must confess
I pray thee
I pray you
I rest
I would you were
if it be
ill of him
in good compasse
in ... quiet
in a manner
in a market
in feare of
in hast
in his behalfe
in nature
in our parish
in particular
in practice
in stead of
in the city
in the countrey
in the towne
in the world
in your mouth
is nothing
is to come
it is pitie
keepe company
kinde of
knowledge of
leave him
lest you
let us
like to
like to proove
little time
live to
long since
looke on
lord and master
losse of
love you
make ... good
making way
many a
matter of
matters of
meane estate
meddle with
mee thinkes
meet with
mine opinion
more worth then [= than]
much of
must needs
my affection
my credit
my hope is
my selfe cleare
my sorrowes
my word
neare to
need not
neere her
neere you
neither ... nor
no doubt
no further
no lesse
no longer
no man
no more then [= than]
no such
not sleepe
nothing but
occasion to use
of late
of my minde
of opinion
of the world
of worth
of your worth
offer me
on the lips
one of the
one thing
onely to
other countries
out of it
pay tribute
poore man
powre [= pour] out
preserve me
put away
put you to
rather ... then [= than]
requite them
requite you
rest upon
round about
said to be
seekes to
seem to
seems to
send mee word
sense of
set out
sets up
shew my selfe
signe of
so far
so great
so little
so many
so well
somewhat to ... doe
sooner then [= than]
speake truth
speake well
speaks of
stands ... upon
subject to
such as
such is
sweet heart
take heed
take my leave
talke with
tell tales
that can be
that which
the art of
the better
the contrary
the eye of
the finding
the lesse
the like
the more
the riches of
the worse
the worth of
thinke on
thinke to
thus farre
thy affection
'tis impossible
to be feared
to your hands
tooke you for
troubled with
troubles me
try ... his patience
use me
very ill
weake praises
were better
what you will
wise man
wished for
with a jest
with many
worthy of it
your affection
your betters
your disposition
your goodness
your opinion
If these presumably common phrases possess any evidentiary value, that value could consist only in their cumulative number--a total of 285 matches or near matches with phrases in Webster (707 words, not counting repetitions of a given phrase) in a document of fifty-nine printed pages or approximately 17,370 words with an estimated vocabulary of 4,782 words. (7) This may seem a goodly number, but whether the frequency of such matches (about 4 percent of the total word count in SP and 15 percent of SP's putative vocabulary) is explainable as mere coincidence or what might be predicted in the writings of two contemporary authors who both wrote a highly self-conscious prose is open to question.
In the list that follows I single out 283 parallel phrases, word collocations, and thought patterns in SP and Webster that seem somewhat more likely to point toward identity of authorship. These entries are listed according to the order of their sequence in SP. In the case of a group entry where similar elements that occur elsewhere in SP are also recorded, the first element determines the sequential position.
Parallels: A Speedy Post and Webster A Speedy Post Webster 1 "in thy sight" (A3v) "in my sight" (NH 1.1.113) 2 "under the banner" (A3v) "under wars ... banner" (DM 3.4.20) 3 "(as wormes in a Library) seeme onely "like wormes in Libraries to live but for to destroy learning" seeme to live onely to (A3v) destroy learning" (DM Ded. 20-21) 4 "I commit you to" (A3v, B3) "I do commit you to" (WD 1.2.77) 5 "borrow money" (A4, A4v, B4, F2v) "borrow money" (NH 1.1.187, 5.1.155) 6 "tooke you for" (B, 3 times) "take you for" (DLC 2.1.2, 2.3.28-29) "take me for" (DM 2.1.18; MAL 3, 19) 7 "take ... order with" (B) "take ... order with" (MAL 35) "take order" (DM 2.3.63) "take order for" DLC 3.3.229, 4.2.661; WH 3.2.100) 8 "I have reason" (B) "she hath reason" (NH 1.1.126; WH 3.2.90) 9 "wit and judgment" (Bv) "wit and Judgement" (WD 3.2.129) 10 "put off" (Bv) "put off" (DM 4.2,232, "Putting off" (A4v, twice, G, H2v) 5.2.69; WD 4.1.56; CHARS B-MKR 11) "put you off" (DM 5.2.214) "put mee off" (WD 4.3.100) 11 "Art of Nature" (Bv) "Art or Nature" (A & V 5.1.83) 12 "stand amazed" (Bv) "stands amaz'd" (DM 2.1.52) 13 "onely grace" (B2) "onely grace" (WD To ... Reader 5) 14 "earth ... heavens" (B2) "earth ... heaven" (CHARS V. WID 15) 15 "Blame me not" (B2) "Doe not blame me" (DLC 1.1.113; WD 3.2.327) "Blame not" (DLC 4.2.107) "Nor blame me" (WD 5.1.220) 16 "let me ... chide you" (B2v) "I must chide you" (A & V 2.3.138) 17 "doing him ... right" (B2v) "doe mee right" (WD 3.3.3) Cf. "doe me wrong" (No. 135). 18 "base feare" (B2v) "base mind to feare" (DM 3.5.65) 19 "in the meane time" (B3, Dv, D2v, D3, "I' th' mean time" (A & V D4v, E4v, F3v) 3.2.351) "in the mean time" (A & V 4.1.111; WH 1.1.126, 3.4.37) 20 "short Coats in the Cards" (B3v) "coate Card" (WH 4.1.36) 21 "square out their measures" (B3v) Cf. "squares his owne [actions]" "squared out like a scar-crow" (CHARS JUDG 7) (E4v). 22 "Businesse of State" (B3v) "State-businesse" (CHARS JES 5) 23 "pipe of Tobacco" (B4) "Tobacco-pipe" (CHARS R. BOY 16) 24 "fall on their knees" (B4) "Fall downe upon thy knees" (WD 5.6.214) 25 "make fooles of" (B4) "make us fooles" (CHARS D- "makes fooles" (D2) MAN 10) 26 "many eares" (B4) "many eares" (CHARS ACTR 4) 27 "serve my turne" (B4v) "serv'd my turne" (DM 5.4.34) "serve her turne" (DM 2.5.13) "serve his turne" (WD 4.2.30) "serve mine owne turne" (WD 5.6.52) "serve your turne" (WH 3.2.67) 28 "daies in payment" (B4v) "daies of Payment (CHARS USR 14) 29 "knowing the truth" (B4v) "knowing for truth" (CHARS JUDG 19) 30 "grieve ... a good conscience" (B4v) "a grieved Conscience" (DLC 4.2.323) 31 "equall in the ballance" (B4v) "equall balance" (DM 5.5.53) "equal balance" (A & V 5.2.65) 32 "beside your selfe" (C) "beside himselfe" (DM 4.2.56) "beside my selfe" (A & V 5.1.119) Cf. "besides his wits" (CHARS GAL 5). 33 "afraid of your owne shadow" (C) "present to my selfe strange Cf. Tilley S261. (8) shaddowes" (DLC 5.4.71) 34 "Newgate ... Tiburne" (C) "between Newgate and Tyburne" (WH 3.2.23) 35 "angrie with my selfe" (C) "angry with my self" (DM "angry with your selfe" (Cv) 4.2.351) 36 "a little breath" (Cv) "a little breath" (MC Ded. 16-17) 37 "make you whole" (Cv) "make him whole" (CHARS See also No. 142. PTFGR 14) 38 "best welcome" (Cv) "best of wellcome" (WD 1.2.2) 39 "beare you companie" (Cv, F4) "beare you company" (WH 4.1.180) "beare him company" (WD 5.1.12) "beare her company" (NH 2.2.107) "beare me company" (WH 3.3.73) 40...
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