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Webster, John, 1580-1625

"The White Devil"



Giov. He turn'd murderer!
Away with them to prison, and to torture:
All that have hands in this shall taste our justice,
As I hope heaven.

Lodo. I do glory yet,
That I can call this act mine own. For my part,
The rack, the gallows, and the torturing wheel,
Shall be but sound sleeps to me: here 's my rest;
I limn'd this night-piece, and it was my best.

Giov. Remove these bodies. See, my honour'd lord,
What use you ought make of their punishment.
Let guilty men remember, their black deeds
Do lean on crutches made of slender reeds.

* * * *

Instead of an epilogue, only this of Martial supplies me:

Haec fuerint nobis praemia, si placui.

For the action of the play, 'twas generally well, and I dare affirm, with
the joint testimony of some of their own quality (for the true imitation
of life, without striving to make nature a monster,) the best that ever
became them: whereof as I make a general acknowledgment, so in particular
I must remember the well-approved industry of my friend Master Perkins,
and confess the worth of his action did crown both the beginning and end.


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