A more sombre genius than Dekkar, though a genius more than once associated with his own in composition, was John Webster, of whose biography nothing is certainly known, except that he was a member of the Merchant Tailors' Company. His works have been thrice republished within thirty years; but the perusal of the whole does not add to the impression left on the mind by his two great tragedies. His comic talent was small; and for all the mirth in his comedies of "Westward Hoe" and "Northward Hoe" we are probably indebted to his associate, Dekkar. His play of "Appius and Virginia" is far from being an adequate rendering of one of the most beautiful and affecting fables that ever crept into history. "The Devil's Law Case," a tragi-comedy, has not sufficient power to atone for the want of probability in the plot and want of nature in the characters. The historical play of "Sir Thomas Wyatt" can only be fitly described by using the favorite word in which Ben Jonson was wont to condense his critical opinions,--"It is naught." But "The White Devil" and "The Duchess of Malfy" are tragedies which even so rich and varied a literature as the English could not lose without a sensible diminution of its treasures. Webster was one of those writers whose genius consists in the expression of special moods, and who, outside of those moods, cannot force their creative faculties into vigorous action. His mind by instinctive sentiment was directed to the contemplation of the darker aspects of life. He brooded over crime and misery until his imagination was enveloped in their atmosphere, found a fearful joy in probing their sources and tracing their consequences, became strangely familiar with their physiognomy and psychology, and felt a shuddering sympathy with their "deep groans and terrible ghastly looks." There was hardly a remote corner of the soul, which hid a feeling capable of giving mental pain, into which this artist in agony had not curiously peered; and his meditations on the mysterious disorder produced in the human consciousness by the rebound of thoughtless or criminal deeds might have found fit expression in the lines of the great poet of our own times:-- "Action is momentary,-- The motion of a muscle, this way or that. Suffering is long, obscure, and infinite."