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KING HENRY VIII.

WE are unacquainted with any dramatic piece on the subject of Henry VIII, that preceded this of Shakspeare; and yet on the books of the Stationers' Company appears the following entry: "Nathaniel Butter] (who was one of our author's printers) Feb. 12, 1604. That he get good allowance for the enterlude of K. Henry VIII, before he begin to print it; and with the wardens hand to yt, he is to have the same for his copy." Dr. Farmer in a note on the epilogue to this play, observes, from Stowe, that Robert Greene had written somewhat on the same story. Steevens.

This historical drama comprizes a period of twelve years, commencing in the twelfth year of King Henry's reign, (1521) and ending with the christening of Elizabeth in 1533. Shakspeare has deviated from history in placing the death of Queen Katharine before the birth of Elizabeth, for in fact Katharine did not die till 1536.

King Henry VIII was written, I believe, in 1601.

Dr. Farmer in a note on the epilogue, observes, from Stowe, that "Robert Greene had written something on this story;" but this I apprehend, was not a play, but some historical account of Henry's reign, written not by Robert Greene, the dramatic poet, but by some other person. In the list of "authors out of whom Stowe's Annals were compiled," prefixed to the last edition printed in his life time, quarto, 1605, Robert Greene is enumerated with Robert de Brun, Robert Fabian, &c. and he is often quoted as an authority for facts in the margin of the history of that reign. Malone.

I come no more to make you laugh; things now.
That bear a weighty and a serious brow,
Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,
Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow,
We now present. Those that can pity, here
May, if they think it well, let fall a tear;
The subject will deserve it. Such, as give
Their money out of hope they may believe,
May here find truth too. Those, that come to see
Only a show or two, and so agree,

The play may pass; if they be still, and willing,
I'll undertake, may see away their shilling
Richly in two short hours. Only they,
That come to hear a merry, bawdy play,
A noise of targets; or to see a fellow
In a long motley coat,' guarded with yellow,
Will be deceiv'd: for, gentle hearers, know,
To rank our chosen truth with such a show
As fool and fight is,2 beside forfeiting

Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring,
(To make that only true we now intend3)

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In a long motley coat,] Alluding to the focls and buffoons introduced in the plays a little before our author's time: and of whom he has left us a small taste in his own. Theobald.

In Marston's 10th Satire there is an allusion to this kind of dress:

"The long foole's coat, the huge slop, the lugg'd boot,
"From mimick Piso all doe claime their roote."

Thus also, Nashe, in his Epistle Dedicatory to Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, 1596: "— fooles, ye know, alwaies for the most part (especiallie if they bee naturall fooles) are suted in long coats."

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Steevens.

As fool and fight is,] This is not the only passage in which Shakspeare has discovered his conviction of the impropriety of battles represented on the stage. He knew that five or six men with swords, gave a very unsatisfactory idea of an army, and therefore, without much care to excuse his former practice, he allows that a theatrical fight would destroy all opinion of truth, and leave him never an understanding friend. Magnis ingeniis et multa nihilominus habituris simplex convenit erroris confessio. Yet I know not whether the coronation shown in this play may not be liable to all that can be objected against a battle. Johnson.

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Will leave us never an understanding friend. Therefore, for goodness' sake, and as you are known

3 the opinion that we bring,

(To make that only true we now intend)] These lines I do not understand, and suspect them of corruption. I believe we may better read thus:

-the opinion, that we bring

Or make; that only truth we now intend. Johnson.

To intend, in our author, has sometimes the same meaning as to pretend. So, in King Richard 111:

Again:

"The mayor is here at hand: Intend some fear

"Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,
"Intending deep suspicion." Steevens.

If any alteration were necessary, I should be for only changing the order of the words, and reading:

That only true to make we now intend:

i. e. that now we intend to exhibit only what is true.

This passage, and others of this Prologue, in which great stress is laid upon the truth of the ensuing representation, would lead one to suspect, that this play of Henry the VIIIth is the very play mentioned by Sir H. Wotton, [in his Letter of 2 July, 1613, Reliq. Wotton, p. 425,] under the description of "a new play, [acted by the king's players at the Bank's Side] called, All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the VIIIth." The extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, with which, Sir Henry says, that play was set forth, and the particular incident of certain cannons shot off at the King's entry to a masque at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, (by which the theatre was set on fire and burnt to the ground) are strictly applicable to the play before us. Mr. Chamberlaine, in Winwood's Memorials, Vol. III, p. 469, mentions "the burning of the Globe, or playhouse, on the Bankside, on St. Peter's-day [1613], which (says he) fell out by a peale of chambers, that I know not on what occasion were to be used in the play." Ben Jonson, in his Execration upon Vulcan, says, they were two poor chambers. [See the stage-direction in this play, a little before the King's entrance: “Drum and trumpet, chambers discharged."] The continuator of Stowe's Chronicle, relating the same accident, p. 1003, says expressly, that it happened at the play of Henry the VIIIth.

In a MS. Letter of Tho. Lorkin to Sir Tho. Puckering, dated London, this last of June, 1613, the same fact is thus related: "No longer since than yesterday, while Bourbage his companie were acting at the Globe the play of Hen. VIII, and there shooting of certayne chambers in way of triumph, the fire catch'd," &c. MS. Harl. 7002. Tyrwhitt.

I have followed a regulation recommended by an anonymous correspondent, and only included the contested line in a parenthesis, which in some editions was placed before the word beside. Opinion, I believe, means here, as in one of the parts of King Henry IV, character.-["Thou hast redeem'd thy lost opinion."

The first and happiest hearers of the town,
Be sad, as we would make ye: Think, ye see
The very persons of our noble story,

As they were living; think, you see them great,
And follow'd with the general throng, and sweat,
Of thousand friends; then, in a moment, see
How soon this mightiness meets misery!
And, if you can be merry then, I'll say,
A man may weep upon his wedding day.

King Henry IV, Part I, Vol. VIII, p. 328.] To realize and fulfil the expectations formed of our play, is now our object. This sentiment (to say nothing of the general style of this prologue) could never have fallen from the modest Shakspeare. I have no doubt that the whole prologue was written by Ben Jonson, at the revival of the play, in 1613. Malone.

4 The first and happiest hearers of the town,] Were it necessary to strengthen Dr. Johnson's and Dr. Farmer's supposition, (see notes on the epilogue) that old Ben, not Shakspeare, was author of the prologue before us, we might observe, that happy appears, in the present instance, to have been used with one of its Roman significations, i. e. propitious or favourable: "Sis bonus O, felixque tuis!" Virg. Ecl. 5, a sense of the word which must have been unknown to Shakspeare, but was familiar to Jonson. Steevens. 5- Think, ye see

The very persons of our noble story,] Why the rhyme should have been interrupted here, when it was so easily to be supplied, I cannot conceive. It can only be accounted for from the negligence of the press, or the transcribers; and therefore I have made no scruple to replace it thus:

Think, before ye. Theobald.

This is specious, but the laxity of the versification in this prologue, and the following epilogue, makes it not necessary.

Mr. Heath would read:

- of our history. Steevens.

Johnson.

The word story was not intended to make a double, but merely a single rhyme, though, it must be acknowledged, a very bad one, the last syllable, ry, corresponding in sound with see. I thought Theobald right, till I observed a couplet of the same kind in the epilogue:

"For this play at this time is only in

"The merciful construction of good women."

In order to preserve the rhyme, the accent must be laid on the last syllable of the words women and story.

A rhyme of the same kind occurs in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, where Master Humphrey says:

"Till both of us arrive, at her request,

"Some ten miles off in the wild Waltham forest."

M. Mdson.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

King Henry the eighth.

Cardinal Wolsey. Cardinal Campeius.
Capucius, ambassador from the emperor, Charles V.
Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury.

Duke of Norfolk. Duke of Buckingham.

Duke of Suffolk. Earl of Surrey.

Lord Chamberlain. Lord Chancellor.

Gardiner, bishop of Winchester.

Bishop of Lincoln. Lord Abergavenny. Lord Sands.
Sir Henry Guildford. Sir Thomas Lovell.

Sir Anthony Denny. Sir Nicholas Vaux.
Secretaries to Wolsey.

Cromwell, servant to Wolsey.

Griffith, gentleman-usher to queen Katharine.

Three other gentlemen.

Doctor Butts, physician to the king.

Garter, king at arms.

Surveyor to the duke of Buckingham.

Brandon, and a sergeant at arms.

Door-keeper of the council-chamber. Porter, and his man. Page to Gardiner. A crier.

Queen Katharine, wife to king Henry; afterwards divorced.

Anne Bullen, her maid of honour; afterwards queen.
An old lady, friend to Anne Bullen.
Patience, woman to queen Katharine.

Several lords and ladies in the dumb shows; women attending upon the queen; spirits, which appear to her; scribes, officers, guards, and other attendants.

SCENE,

Chiefly in London and Westminster; once, at Kimbolton.

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