ing: he would promise much and perform little: he was vicious of his body, and gave the clergy evil example." "TIED all the kingdom"-There is a great controversy among the commentators, whether this word means limited-infringed the liberties-(as in preceding scenes complaints are made of the "slavery" he imposed, how he "maim'd the jurisdiction of the bishops," etc.,)-or should be corrected to tythed. This last is Farmer's opinion, who supports it by a passage from Hall, in which Wolsey claims from the Lord Mayor a tythe of the citizens' substance, and his "treasure equal to the king's" is mentioned, and the means of its acquisition. We incline to think that the allusion is to the acquisition of wealth by the Cardinal. "Was fashion'd to much honour from his cradle. He was a scholar, and a ripe, and good one," etc. The old copies introduce a period after "honour," which cannot be right, according to the obvious meaning of the passage: Wolsey could not have been a ripe scholar from his cradle." Besides, the words of Hollingshed (or rather those of Edmund Campion, whom he quotes) support the above punctuation:-"This Cardinal was a man undoubtedly born to honour." The ordinary reading, after the old punctuation, is "— and left him at PRIMERO"-"Primero" was a game at cards, frequently mentioned by old writers, French, Italian, and English, and appears to have been the favourite game, in high life, of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 'your LATE business"-i. e. The business which occupies you at so late an hour. "INCENS'D the lords o' the council"- -"Incens'd," or insensed, in this instance, and in some others, only means instructed, informed; still in use in Staffordshire, (England.) It properly signifies to infuse into the mind; to prompt, or instigale. "Invidiæ stimulo mentes Patrum fodit Saturnia: Juno incenseth the senators' minds with secret envy against," etc.-COOPER. "Have broken with the king"-i. e. Have broken silence; told their minds to the King. "Enter Sir Anthony Denny"-The substance of this and the two following scenes is taken from Fox's " Acts and Monuments of the Christian Martyrs," etc., (1553.) Here we have another evidence of the error of the notion so often repeated by the commentators, that Shakespeare was too idle or too ignorant to go beyond the single authority of Hollingshed. Compared with the facilities of reference and research enjoyed by a modern author, (take Sir Walter Scott for example,) his range was very narrow; but it is evident that his reading was various, and that he referred to the best authorities and materials within his reach. "—you a brother of us"—" You (says Johnson) being one of the council, it is necessary to imprison you, that the witnesses against you may not be deterred." "Without INDURANCE"-" Indurance," which Shakespeare found in Fox's narrative, means here imprisonment:-"One or two of the chiefest of the council, making their excuse, declared, that in requesting his indurance, it was rather meant for his trial and his purgation, than for any malice conceived against him." SCENE II. "Enter the King and BUTTS, at a window above." That is, an interior window, looking into the lobby of the council-chamber. Probably the balcony at the back of the stage was made to answer the purpose of a window. It was furnished with curtains, and these are afterwards drawn by Butts, at the command of the King. Stevens observes that "the suspicious vigilance of our ancestors contrived windows which overlooked the insides of chapels, halls, kitchens, passages, etc. Some of these convenient peep-holes may still be seen in colleges, and such ancient houses as have not suffered from the reformations of modern architecture. In a letter from Archbishop Parker, (1573:)—' And if it please her majestie, she may come in through my gallerie, and see the disposition of the hall in dynner time, at a window opening thereinto.' Without a previous knowledge of this custom, Shakespeare's scenery in this instance would be obscure." "The Council-chamber"—This is not to be considered a new scene, but the continuation of scene 2; and in order that the place might represent the council-chamber, we are informed in the old stage-direction that "A Council-table is brought in with chairs and stools." "In our own natures frail, AND capable This is the old reading; and the meaning is, that men are frail, and liable to or capable of the weaknesses belonging to flesh and blood. Malone changes it toIn our own natures frail, incapable; Of our flesh, few are angels. "This is the king's ring"- It seems to have been a custom, began probably in the dark ages, before literature was generally diffused, and before the regal power experienced the restraints of law, for every monarch to have a ring, the temporary possession of which invested the holder with the same authority as the owner himself could exercise. The production of it was sufficient to suspend the execution of the law; it procured indemnity for offences committed, and imposed acquiescence and submission to whatever was done under its authority. The traditional story of the Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth, and the Countess of Nottingham, (long considered as an incident of romance,) is generally known, and now as generally credited."-REED. 46 "They are too thin and BARE to hide offences." That is, the commendations above-mentioned are too thin and bare; the intention of them is too palpably seen through. The old copy reads, 'thin and base;" the emendation was suggested by Malone, and it seems self-evident, though Collier retains base. In a line or two lower down, in the same speech, Rowe's correction of "this" for his-("his place becomes thee not,")— appears also to be justified by the context, when the King bids Cranmer "sit down." 11 - you'd spare your spoons"-"It was the custom, (says Stevens) long before the time of Shakespeare, for the sponsors at christenings to offer spoons as a present to the child. These spoons were called apostle spoons, because the figures of the apostles were carved on the tops of the handles. Such as were at once opulent and generous, gave the whole twelve; those who were either more moderately rich or liberal, escaped at the expense of the four evangelists; or even sometimes contented themselves with presenting one spoon only, which exhibited the figure of any saint, in honour of whom the child received its name.' There is a pleasant though apocryphal anecdote on this point, connected with the names of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. It is contained in one of the Harleian Manuscripts, called Merry Passages and Jests:"-" Shakespeare was godfather to one of Ben Jonson's children; and after the christening, being in deep study, Jonson came to cheer him up, and asked him why he was so melancholy?— 'No, faith, Ben, (says he,) not I; but I have been con 46 sidering a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to bestow upon my god-child, and I have resolved at last.I pr'ythee what?' (says he.)-'I' faith, Ben, I'll give him a dozen good latten (Latin) spoons; and thou shalt translate them."" Latten is the now obsolete name for brass, or iron, tinned over. The collector of these anecdotes gives the respectable name of Donne as his authority for the foregoing incident. SCENE III. "-her pink'd PORRINGER"-i. e. Her pink'd cap. In the TAMING OF THE SHREW, Petruchio complains of a cap bought for Katharine, that it looked as if it had been "moulded on a porringer." "who cried out, clubs!"-The cry of "Clubs!" was sure to draw together the London "truncheoneers;" and the appearance of the "hope of the Strand" cannot fail to remind us of the heroic apprentices of the watchmaker of Fleet-street, in that inimitable picture of ancient manners, the "Fortunes of Nigel." "-no audience, but the Tribulation of Tower-hill, or the limbs of Limehouse, their dear brothers," etc. Among much commentary on this passage, where the true sense is after all but a matter of antiquarian curiosity, I am best satisfied with Dyce's remarks. He considers it a fling at the Puritans:-"No audience unless it consisted of such weak persons as those who formed the assembly at the Tribulation, on Tower-hill, (some wellknown place of meeting for the Puritans,) or the members of the Limehouse meeting, could endure it." "-some of 'em in LIMBO PATRUM"-"Limbo Patrum" was the term for the place where the patriarchs, etc., await the resurrection; but "limbo" was then, and is still, the cant name for any place of confinement. "-baiting of BOMBARDS"-" Bombards" were large leathern vessels, for holding liquor. of the eastern country, who came to admire the wisdom of Solomon. Sheba, however, was not her name, but that of her country,-while, for some reason or other, the old English and Latin poets, who mention her, always call her "Saba;"-perhaps taken from the Latin Vulgate, where her land is called "Saba," Peele and Marlowe both speak of her as "wise Saba," "sage Saba." This name, therefore, is one of those vestiges of old English custom, such as we should not alter to modern fashion any more than we should substitute a phrase of our own day for an obsolete expression of an old poet. "the greatness of his name Shall be, and make new nations," etc. These lines probably allude to the plantation and settlement of Virginia. "Would I had known no more! but she must die, (She must, the saints must have her,) yet a virgin, A most unspotted lily shall she pass," etc. This is universally printed thus: but she must die, She must, the saints must have her; yet a virgin A most unspotted lily shall she pass, etc. The punctuation in the text is adopted from a suggestion of Mr. Dyce, in his "Remarks;" as the ordinary one makes Cranmer regret his prophetic foresight of Elizabeth's being destined to the common end of mortals. But, as here pointed, he only expresses a regret very proper in his mouth and Henry's presence, that the royal line should not be continued by the princess. "The play of KING HENRY VIII. is one of those which still keeps possession of the stage by the splendour of its pageantry. The coronation, about forty years ago, drew the people together in multitudes for a great part of the winter. Yet pomp is not the only merit of this play. The meek sorrows and virtuous distress of Katharine have furnished some scenes, which may be justly numbered among the greatest efforts of tragedy. But the genius of Shakespeare comes in and goes out with Katharine. Every other part may be easily conceived and easily written."-JOHNSON. Upon the contested question of the precise date of this play, there are three several opinions. That of the critics of the last generation is thus well stated by Singer: It is the opinion of Johnson, Stevens, and Malone, that this play was written a short time before the death of Queen Elizabeth, which happened on the 24th March, 1602-3. The eulogium on King James, which is blended with the panegyric of Elizabeth in the last scene, was evidently a subsequent insertion, after the succession of the Scottish monarch to the throne; for Shakespeare was too well acquainted with courts to compliment, in the lifetime of Queen Elizabeth, her presumptive successor, of whom, history informs us, she was not a little jealous. That the prediction concerning King James was added after the death of the queen, is still more clearly evinced, as Dr. Johnson has remarked, by the awkward manner in which it is connected with the foregoing and subsequent lines. to us that Cranmer's prophecy, in act v. scene 4, is quite decisive. There the Poet first speaks of Elizabeth, and of the advantages derived from her rule, and then proceeds in the clearest manner to notice her successor. "Ingenuity cannot pervert those lines to any other meaning; but it has been said that they, and some which follow them, were a subsequent introduction; and were the work of Ben Jonson, on some revival of the play in the reign of James I. There is not the slightest evidence for either proposition. Any person, reading Cranmer's speech at the christening, can hardly fail to perceive such an entireness and sequence of thoughts and words in it, as to make it very unlikely that it was not dictated by the same intellect, and written by the same pen. Malone and others made up their minds that HENRY VIII. was produced before the death of Elizabeth; and finding the passage quoted directly in the teeth of this supposition, they charged it as a subsequent addition, and fixed the authorship of it upon a different poet. "As to external evidence, there has never been sufficient importance given the memorandum in the Registers of the Stationers' Company : "12 Feb. 1604 "Nath. Butter] Yf he get good allowance for the Enterlude of K. Henry 8th before he begyn to print it; and then procure the wardens hands to it for the entrance of yt: he is to have the same for his copy.' After having lain by some years, unacted, probably on account of the costliness of its exhibition, it was revived in 1613, under the title of All is True,' with new decorations, and a new prologue and epilogue; and this revival took place on the very day, being St. Peter's, on which the Globe Theatre was burnt down. The fire was occasioned, as it is said, by the discharge of some small pieces of ordnance, called chambers, in the scene where King Henry is represented as arriving at Cardinal Wolsey's gate at Whitehall, one of which, "Chalmers asserted that this entry referred to a conbeing injudiciously managed, set fire to the thatched temporaneous play by Samuel Rowley, under the title roof of the theatre. Dr. Johnson first suggested that of When you see me you know me,' 1605; but the Ben Jonson might have supplied the prologue and epi-enterlude' is expressly called in the entry K. Henry logue to the play, upon the occasion of its revival. Dr. Farmer, Stevens, and Malone, support his opinion; and even attribute to him some of the passages of the play. Mr. Gifford has controverted this opinion of Jonson having been the author of the prologue and epilogue of this play, and thinks the play which was performed, under the title of All is True,' was a distinct perform ance, and not Shakespeare's HENRY VIII. To this it has been answered, That the prologue, which has always accompanied Shakespeare's drama, from its first publication in 1623, manifestly and repeatedly alludes to the title of the play which was represented on the 29th June, 1613, and which we know to have been founded on the history of King Henry the Eighth, affords a strong proof of their identity. And though Sir Henry Wotton mentions it as a new play, we have Stowe and Lorkin who call it The play of Henry the Eighth.' That the prologue and epilogue were not written by Shakespeare is, I think, clear from internal evidence,' says Mr. Boswell, to whose opinion I have no hesitation in subscribing; but it does not follow that they were the production of Ben Jonson's pen. That gentleman has shown that there was no intention of covertly sneering at Shakespeare's other works in this prologue; but that this play is opposed to a rude kind of farcical representation on the same subject, by Samuel Rowley. This play, or interlude, which was printed in 1605, is probably referred to in the entry on the books of the Stationers' Company :- Nathaniel Butter, Feb. 12, 1604, That he get good allowance for the Enterlude of King Henry VIII. before he begin to print it; and with the warden's hand to yt, he is to have the same for his copy.' Stowe has observed that Robert Greene had written somewhat on the same story;' but there is no evidence that it was in a dramatic form: it may have been something historical, and not by the dramatic poet of that name; as Stowe cites the authority of Robert Greene, with Robert Brun, Babian, etc., in other places of his chronicle." 8th,' and we feel no hesitation in concluding that it referred to Shakespeare's drama, which had probably been brought out at the Globe Theatre in the summer of 1604. The memorandum seems to have been made, not at the instance of the bookseller, but of the company to which Shakespeare belonged, in order to prevent a surreptitious publication of the play. The '12 Feb. 1604,' was, according to our present reckoning, the 12 Feb. 1605. and as no edition of HENRY VIII. is known before it appeared in the folio of 1623, we may infer that Butter failed in getting 'good allowance' with 'the wardens' hands to it.' "The Globe Theatre was destroyed on 29th June, 1613, the thatch with which it was covered having been fired by the discharge of some small piece of ordnance. Howes, in his continuation of Stowe's Chronicle, states that the play then in representation was Henry VIII.;' but Sir Henry Wotton, who is particular in his description of the calamity, asserts that the play was called All is True.' There is little doubt that he is right, because a ballad, printed on the occasion, has the burden of All is True' at the end of every stanza. The question then is, whether this was Shakespeare's HENRY VIII. under a different title, or a different play? Sir Henry Wotton informs us in terms that it was a new play,' and as he was right in the title, we may have the more faith in his statement respecting the novelty of the performance. "In the instance of HENRY VIII., as of other works by our great dramatist, there is ground for believing that there existed a preceding play on the same story. Henslowe's Diary states that two plays were written in 1601, on the life of Wolsey, including necessarily some of the chief incidents of the reign of Henry VIII. These plays consisted of a first and second part, the one called The Rising of Cardinal Wolsey,' and the other, • Cardinal Wolsey.' "The earliest entry relating to Cardinal Wolsey,' (the second play in the order of the incidents, though the earliest in point of production,) is dated 5th June, 1601, when Henry Chettle was paid 20s. 'for writing the book of Cardinal Wolsey.' On the 14th July he was paid 40s. more on the same account, and in the whole, be tween 5th June and 17th July, he was paid 57., as large a sum as he usually obtained for a new play. "We have no testimony of the success of Cardinal Wolsey,' of which Chettle was the sole author; but we are led to infer it, because soon afterwards we find no fewer than four poets engaged upon the production of the drama under the title of The Rising of Cardinal Wolsey,' which, doubtless, related to his early life, and to his gradual advance in favour. These four were Drayton, Chettle, Munday, and Wentworth Smith; and so many pens, we may conjecture, were employed, that the play might be brought out with despatch, in order to follow up the popularity of the second part of the same history.' Another memorandum in Henslowe's Diary tends to the same conclusion, for it appears that the play was licensed piece-meal by the Master of the Revels, that it might be put into rehearsal as it proceeded, and represented immediately after it was finished. "Henslowe expended an unusual amount in getting up the drama. On the 10th August, 1601, he paid 217. for velvet, sattin, and taffeta' for the dresses, a sum equal now to about 1001. Upon the costumes only, in the whole, considerably more than 2001. were laid out, reckoning the value of money in 1601 at about five times its value at present." Collier thence concludes, "that Shakespeare wrote HENRY VIII. in the winter of 1603-4, and that it was first acted at the Globe soon after the commencement of the season there, towards the close of April, as soon as a theatre open to the weather could be conveniently employed. The coronation procession of Anne Bullen forms a prominent feature in the drama; and as the coronation of James I. and Anne of Denmark took place on the 24th July, 1603, we may reasonably suppose that the audiences at the Globe were intended to be reminded of that event, and that the show, detailed with such unusual minuteness in the folio of 1623, was meant as a remote imitation of its splendour. The words 'aged princess,' (no part of the imputed addition by Ben Jonson,) would never have been used by Shakespeare during the life of Elizabeth." My own opinion fully concurs with that of Mr. Knight, who thus argues the question: "And first, of the external evidence. The Globe was burnt down in June, 1613. The cause of this accident, and the circumstances attending it, are minutely related by several witnesses. In Winwood's Memorials' there is a letter from John Chamberlain to Sir Ralph Winwood, dated from London the 12th July, 1613, which describes the burning,-' which fell out by a peal of chambers.' This conflagration took place on the previous 29th June. The play acted on this occasion was one on the story of Henry VIII. Were the 'chambers' (small cannon) which produced the misfortune those fired according to the original stage-direction in the fourth scene of the first act of Shakespeare's KING HENRY VIII. 'Drum and trumpet, chambers discharged?' In the Harleian Manuscripts there is a letter from Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, dated 'this last of June, 1613,' in which the writer says, 'No longer since than yesterday, while Burbage his company were acting at the Globe the play of Henry VIII., and there shooting off certain chambers in way of triumph, the fire catch'd.' But this does not establish that it was Shakespeare's play. Sir Henry Wotton, writing to his nephew on the 6th July, 1613, gives an account of a new play, called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage; the knights of the order, with their Georges and Garter, the guards with their embroidered coats and the like; sufficient, in truth, within a while to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now King Henry, making a mask at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper, or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where, being thought at first but an idle smoke, and their eyes being more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming, within less than an hour, the whole house to the very ground. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabric, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks: only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broiled him, if he had not, by the benefit of a provident wit, put it out with bottle ale.'—(Reliquiæ Wottoniana.) Here is a new play described representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry VIII.; and the passage of Shakespeare's play in which the chambers' are discharged, being the entry' of the king to the 'mask at the cardinal's house,' is the same to the letter. But the title which Wotton gives the new play is All is True.' Gifford thinks this shows that the play at the Globe in June, 1613, was not Shakespeare's. But others call the play so represented 'Henry VIII.' Howes, in his continuation of Stowe's Chronicle, so calls it. He writes some time after the destruction of the Globe, for he adds to his account of the fire, 'and the next spring it was new builded in far fairer manner than before." He speaks of the title of the play as a familiar thing: the house being filled with people to behold the play, viz. of Henry the Eighth." When Howes wrote, was the titleAll is True merged in the obvious title derived from the subject of the play, and following the character of the titles of Shakespeare's other historical plays? The Prologue to HENRY VIII. especially keeps in view such a title as Sir Henry Wotton has mentioned : Such as give Their money out of hope they may believe, May here find truth too. Gentle hearers, know, To rank our chosen truth with such a show To make that only true we now intend. Boswell has a theory that this Prologue had reference to another play on the same historical subject, 'When you see me you know me, or the Famous Chronicle History of King Henry the Eighth, etc., by Samuel Rowley,' in which the incidents of Henry's reign are thrown together in the most confused manner.' Then the probability is that the HENRY VIII of Shakespeare, and the 'All is True,' are one and the same play. The next question is, whether Wotton was correct in describing the HENRY VIII. as a new play. Chalmers maintains that the fact of a play on the subject of Henry VIII. being termed new in 1613 is decisive as to the date of its original production at that time. Malone. on the contrary, conjectures that the HENRY VIII. was written in 1601, and revived in 1613, with a new title and prologue, 'having lain by some years unacted.' This rests upon no external evidence. "We proceed to the evidence of its date, furnished by the play itself. "In the prophecy of Cranmer in the last scene, the glories of the reign of Elizabeth are carried on to that of her successor. This passage would appear to be decisive as to the date of the play, by the introduction of these lines: Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, That the colonization of Virginia is here distinctly alluded to is without doubt. The first charter was granted in 1606; the colony was planted in 1607, in which year James Town was built; another charter was given to the colonists in 1612, and a lottery was granted for the encouragement of the colony, which was struggling with difficulties. That James took an especial interest in this settlement, and naturally enough was recognized as the founder of new nations,' may be readily imagined. In the inscription upon a portrait of the king, which belonged to Lord Bacon, he is styled 'Imperii Atlantici conditor. This part of Cranmer's prophecy, therefore, would fix the date of the play after the settlement of Virginia. But that part of the prophecy relating to James, is held to be an addition upon a revival of the play in 1613. "These lines,' says Dr. Johnson, 'to the interruption by the king, seem to have been inserted at some revisal of the play, after the accession of King James. If the passage be left out, the speech of Cranmer proceeds in a regular tenour of prediction and continuity of sentiments; but, by the interpolation of the new lines, he first celebrates Elizabeth's successor, and then wishes he did know she was to die; first rejoices at the consequence, and then laments the cause.' Is it so? The presumed interpolation immediately follows these lines: In her days, every man shall eat in safety, The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours, etc. Is it true, then, that he first celebrates Elizabeth's successor, and then wishes he did not know she was to die? Of the seventeen lines which relate to James, the first eleven never lose sight of Elizabeth. Her 'blessedness,' her honour,' her fame,' were to descend to her heir.' The extension of the dominion of England, under James.-the only passage in which 'the greatness of his name' is separated from that of Elizabeth,-occupies the rest of the prophecy; and that the thread which connects the whole with Elizabeth may not be dropped even while those six lines are uttered, Cranmer returns to the close of her life, which in twothirds of the previous lines he had constantly inferred :She shall be, to the happiness of England, An aged princess, etc. "But it is held, that Shakespeare did not write these lines; that Ben Jonson wrote them; that Shakespeare might compliment Elizabeth in her lifetime, but that he would not flatter James, who was 'a contemptible king.' Shakespeare had reason to be grateful to James for personal kindnesses; but there is not a word here of James's personal qualities. The lines apply to the character of his government-its 'peace, plenty, love, truth, terror'-the extension of its growth to make new nations.' Would Jonson, had he written this passage, have forgotten than James was prouder of his reputation as a scholar than as a king; Bacon had not hesitated to say to him, There has not been since Christ's time any king or temporal monarch which has been so learned in all literature and erudition, divine and human?' We have no hesitation in accepting the passage as one that Shakespeare might not have blushed to have written, and which derogates nothing from the independence of his character. Shakespeare, in the age of Elizabeth, would never have written She shall be, to the happiness of England, She, of all sovereigns, would least have endured to be About "But let us yield the question of interpolation to those who assert that the HENRY VIII. was written in the time of Elizabeth. It is held that the play was written to please Elizabeth. The memory of Henry VIII., perhaps, was not cherished by her with any deep affection; but would she allow the frailties, and even the peculiarities, of her father, to be made a public spectacle? Would she have borne that his passion for her mother should have been put forward in the strongest way by the Poet-that is, in the sequence of the dramatic action-as the impelling motive for his divorce from Katharine? Would she have tolerated the masquescene, immediately succeeding that in which Katharine is told by her husband, You have half our power?' Would she have endured that her father, upon his next appearance after the meeting with Anne Bullen, when he exclaims The fairest hand I ever touch'd! O beauty Till now I never knew thee ! that he should be represented in the depth of his hypocrisy gloating over his projected divorce, with, But conscience, conscience, O! 'tis a tender place, and I must leave her? Would she have been pleased with the jests of the old lady to Anne upon her approaching elevation—and all to be instantly followed by the trial-scene,-that magnificent exhibition of the purity, the constancy, the fortitude, the grandeur of soul, the self-possession, of the 'most poor woman and a stranger' that her mother had supplanted; contrasted with the heartless coldness, salved over with a more heartless commendation of his injured wife, from the hypocritical tyrant. Finally, would she have licensed the exhibition of her father's traditionary peculiarities, in addition to the portraiture, which cannot be mistaken, of his sensual, arrogant, impatient, and crafty character? Would she have laughed at his perpetual 'ha-or taken away Burbage's license? Would she have wept over the touching sorrow of the dying Katharine; or sent Shakespeare to join the company of his friend Southampton in the Tower? Those who have written on the subject say she would have borne all this; and that the pageant of her mother's coronation, with the succeeding represen tation of her own christening, capped with the prophecy of her future greatness, were to ensure the harmlessness of all these somewhat explosive materials, and to carry forward the five acts to a most felicitous conclusion This little one shall make it holiday. "Malone says all that can be said, in the literal way, to prove that such a drama as this would be acceptable to Elizabeth: It is more likely that Shakespeare should have written a play the chief subject of which is the disgraces of Queen Katharine, the aggrandizement of Anne Bullen, and the birth of her daughter, in the lifetime of Elizabeth, than after her death; at a time when the subject must have been highly pleasing at court, rather than at a period when it must have been less interesting, Queen Katharine, it is true, is represented as an amiable character, but still she is eclipsed; and the greater her merit, the higher was the compliment to the mother of Elizabeth, to whose superior beauty she was obliged to give way. This is the prosaic mode of viewing the object of Shakespeare,-an object presupposing equal vulgarity of mind in the dramatist and his court audience. We appreciate far more highly Mr. Campbell's poetical creed in this matter: "Shakespeare contrives, though at the sacrifice of some historical truth, to raise the matron Katharine to our highest admiration, whilst at the same time he keeps us in love with Anne Bullen, and on tolerable terms with Henry VIII. But who does not see, under all this wise management, the drift of his design, namely, to compliment Elizabeth as a virgin queen; to interest us in the memory of her mother Anne Bullen; and to impress us with a belief of her innocence, though she suffered as an alleged traitress to the bed of Henry? The private death of Katharine of Arragon might have been still remembered by many living persons, but the death of Anne Bullen was still more fresh in public recollection; and a wiser expedient could not have been devised for asserting the innocence of Elizabeth's mother than by portraying Henry's injustice towards Queen Katharine. For we are obliged to infer that, if the tyrant could thus misuse the noble Katharine, the purest innocence in her lovely successor could be no shield against his cruelty.' |