play could be detached from the rest; and the Honourable S. E. Spring Rice has recently printed, at Mr. Daniel's private press, a beautiful edition of what, following Mr. Gosse's suggestion, he calls _Love's Graduate_. I should like to believe that "piece of silver-work," as Mr. Gosse has aptly called it, to be truly the creation of Webster, "the sculptor whose other groups are all in bronze." Indeed, there are no reasons why the belief should not be indulged, except that Kirkman's ascription carries but a feather's weight, and that there is nothing special in the style to warrant it. _Love's Graduate_, rescued from _A Cure for a Cuckold_ by pious hands, is one of the unclaimed masterpieces of this fruitful epoch. The great length of Webster's two Italian tragedies rendered it impossible to print _Appius and Virginia_ in this volume. That is much to be regretted; for without a study of his Roman play, justice can hardly be done to the scope and breadth of Webster's genius. Of _Appius and Virginia_ Mr. Dyce observed with excellent judgment: "this drama is so remarkable for its simplicity, its deep pathos, its unobtrusive beauties, its singleness of plot, and the easy, unimpeded march of its story, that perhaps there are readers who will prefer it to any other of our author's productions." Webster, who was a Latin scholar, probably studied the fable in Livy; but its outlines were familiar to English people through Painter's "Palace of Pleasure." He has drawn the mutinous camp before Algidum, the discontented city ruled by a licentious noble, the stern virtues of Icilius and Virginius, and the innocent girlhood of Virginia with a quiet mastery and self-restraint which prove that the violent contrasts of his Italian plays were calculated for a peculiar effect of romance. When treating a classical subject, he aimed at classical severity of form. The chief interest of the drama centres in Appius. This character suited Webster's vein. He delighted in the delineation of a bold, imperious tyrant, marching through crimes to the attainment of his lawless ends, yet never wholly despicable. He also loved to analyse the subtleties of a deep-brained intriguer, changing from open force to covert guile, fawning and trampling on the objects of his hate by turns, assuming the tone of diplomacy and the truculence of autocratic will at pleasure, on one occasion making the worse appear the better cause by rhetoric, on another espousing evil with reckless cynicism. The variations of such a character are presented with force and lucidity in _Appius_. Yet the whole play lacks those sudden flashes of illuminative beauty, those profound and searching glimpses into the bottomless abyss of human misery, which render Webster's two Italian tragedies unique. He seems to have been writing under self-imposed limitations, in order to obtain