Series of Dramatic Entertainments performed by royal command at Windsor Castle, 1848–1849’ (London, 4to), in which he took part.
A portrait in oils of Webster is in the Garrick Club. A likeness, engraved by J. Onwhyn, accompanies a memoir prefixed to the sixth volume of his ‘Acting National Drama.’ Many photographs are in existence, in character alone, or in company with Mrs. Stirling and others. A large photograph of him as Robert Landry in Watts Phillips's ‘Dead Heart’ (1859), and a coloured engraving of him in the ‘Roused Lion,’ as well as an oil painting, are in the possession of his family.
[Personal knowledge; manuscript Autobiography lent by Webster's grandson; Memoir contributed by himself to his Acting National Drama, vol. iv. [on title vere vol. vi.]; Theatrical Times; Men of the Time; Men of the Reign; Tallis's Dramatic Mag.; The Players, 1882; Pascoe's Dramatic List; Genest's Account of the English Stage; Dramatical and Musical Review, 1842–9; Era newspaper, 15 July 1882; Pollock's Macready; Morley's Journal of a London Playgoer; Dutton Cook's Nights at the Play; Scott and Howard's Blanchard; Sunday Times; Era Almanack.]
WEBSTER, JOHN (1580?–1625?), dramatist, born about 1580, was the son of a London tailor. The father may be identical either with John Webster who was admitted to the freedom of the Merchant Taylors' Company on 10 Dec. 1571, or with John Webster who attained to the like position on 20 Jan. 1576. The dramatist seems to have been apprenticed to his father's trade, and nominally at any rate followed it. He was a freeman of the company in 1603–4, when he was assessed in the payment of ten shillings toward ‘the charges of the pageants entended against the king's coronation’ (Clode, Memorials of the Merchant Taylors' Company, 1875, p. 596). But Webster's interest lay elsewhere than in tailoring, and early in life he identified himself with the profession of letters.
Before 1602 Webster had made the acquaintance of the chief members of the band of dramatists who were in the service of the theatrical manager Philip Henslowe, and in that year he joined his literary friends in preparing at least four pieces for the stage. Four or more pens were employed on each, and Webster's share must have been small. On 22 May 1602 ‘Cæsar's Fall’ was accepted by Henslowe from the joint pens of Webster, Drayton, Middleton, Munday, and ‘the rest.’ The syndicate was possibly ambitious of measuring swords with Shakespeare, whose ‘Julius Cæsar’ had been successfully produced a year before. A week later Dekker joined the same four partners in producing a piece called by Henslowe ‘Two Harpes.’ Twice in the ensuing October (15 and 21) there was performed a play named ‘Lady Jane,’ in the composition of which Chettle, Dekker, Heywood, and Wentworth Smith were associated with Webster. ‘Lady Jane’ seems to have been revived, under the new name of ‘The Overthrow of Rebels,’ on 6 and 12 Nov. following. Thrice in the same month (on 2, 23, and 26 Nov.) there was also acted a piece called ‘Christmas comes but once a year,’ in preparing which Chettle, Dekker, and Heywood again combined with Webster. Of these four plays only parts of one—‘Lady Jane’—survive. There can be little doubt that Dekker's and Webster's contributions to ‘Lady Jane’ appeared in print in 1607 in the play assigned to them jointly under the title of ‘The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyat, with the Coronation of Queen Mary and the coming in of Philip.’ ‘Lady Jane,’ when first produced in 1602, was acted at the Rose Theatre by the Earl of Worcester's company of players, who were taken into Queen Anne's service in 1603, and were known thenceforth as ‘the queen's servants.’ The title-page of ‘Sir Thomas Wyat’ declared that that piece was ‘played by the queen's servants.’ The play, which is in blank verse, lacks striking features, but the text is so corrupt that it is difficult to judge its merits fairly.
Webster maintained through life very friendly relations with those engaged, like himself, in writing for the stage, but after the first year of his dramatic career he gradually abandoned the practice of writing in co-operation with others. With ‘his kind friend’ Munday professional relations apparently ceased when he contributed commendatory verses to Munday's ‘Palmerin of England,’ a poor translation from the French (1602). In 1604 Webster was employed by the king's company to make additions to ‘The Malcontent,’ a play by John Marston, a writer of far greater power than most of those with whom he had worked before. At the same time he prefixed to ‘The Malcontent’ a prose ‘induction,’ in which the actors were introduced under their own names in debate about the merits of the piece. Webster's contributions were printed in the second edition of the play, which bore the title: ‘The Malcontent. Augmented by Marston. With the Additions played by the Kings Maiesties servants. Written by Jhon Webster’ (1604). This was the sole production in which Webster seems to have been associated with Marston, and it is probable that
