proach; 99 Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come, I'll fill your grave up: stir, nay, come away, Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him Dear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs : [Hermione comes down. Start not; her actions shall be holy as L's she become the suitor ? O, she's warm! Pol. She embraces him. Cam. She hangs about his neck: If she pertain to life let her speak too. 110 Pol. Ay, and make 't manifest where she has lived, Or how stolen from the dead. Paul. That she is living, Were it but told you, should be hooted at Like an old tale: but it appears she lives, Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while. Please you to interpose, fair madam: kneel And pray your mother's blessing. Turn, good lady; Our Perdita is found. You gods, look down 120 Her. And from your sacred vials pour your graces Upon my daughter's head! Tell me, mine own, Where hast thou been preserved? where lived? how found Thy father's court? for thou shalt hear that I, Paul. Leon. O, peace, Paulina ! Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent, As I by thine a, wife this is a match, And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine; KING HENRY VIII. (WRITTEN ABOUT 1612-13.) INTRODUCTION. This play, as we learn from Sir Henry Wotton and from T. Lorking, was being enacted as a new play at the Globe Theatre, under the name of All is True, in June, 1613, when some burning paper shot off from a cannon set fire to the thatch and occasioned the destruction of the building. It has been shown conclusively by Mr. Spedding that the play is in part from Shakespeare's hand, in part from Fletcher's. The latter's verse had certain strongly-marked characteristics, one of which is the very frequent occurrence of double endings. Going over the play, scene by scene, and applying the various tests, Mr. Spedding arrived at the following result: Shakespeare's part: Act I., Sc. I. II.; Act I., Sc. III. IV.; Act III., Sc. II. (to exit of the king); Act V., Sc. 1. The rest of the play is by Fletcher. A German critic (Hertzberg) has described Henry VIII. as "a chronicle-history with three and a half catastrophes, varied by a marriage and a coronation pageant, ending abruptly with the baptism of a child." It is indeed incoherent in structure. After all our sympathies have been engaged upon the side of the wronged Queen Katharine, we are called upon to rejoice in the marriage triumph of her rival, Anne Boleyn. "The greater part of the fifth act, in which the interest ought to be gathering to a head, is occupied with matters in which we have not been prepared to take any interest by what went before, and on which no interest is reflected by what comes after." But viewed from another side, that of its metrical workmanship, the play is equally deficient in unity, and indeed betrays unmistakably the presence of two writers. Nevertheless, there are three great figures in the play clearly and strongly conceived by Shakespeare: The King, Queen Katharine, and Cardinal Wolsey. The Queen is one of the noble, long-enduring sufferers, just-minded, disinterested, truly charitable, who give their moral gravity and grandeur to Shakespeare's last plays. She has clear-sighted penetration to see through the Cardinal's cunning practice, and a lofty indignation against what is base, but no unworthy personal resentment. Henry, if we judge him sternly, is cruel and self-indulgent; but Shakespeare will hardly allow us to judge Henry sternly. He is a lordly figure, with a full, abounding strength of nature, a self-confidence, an ease and mastery of life, a power of effortless sway, and seems born to pass on in triumph over those who have fallen and are afflicted. Wolsey is drawn with superb power: ambition, fraud, vindictiveness, have made him their own, yet cannot quite ruin a nature possessed of noble qualities. It is hard at first to refuse to Shakespeare the authorship of Wolsey's famous soliloquy in which he bids his greatness farewell, but it is certainly Fletcher's, and when one has perceived this one perceives also that it was an error ever to suppose it written in Shakespeare's manner. The scene in which the vision appears to the dying Queen is also Fletcher's, and in his highest style. We can see from this play that if Shakespeare had returned at the age of fifty to the historical drama, the works written then would have been greater in moral grandeur than those written from his thirtieth to his thirty-fifth years. GARDINER, Bishop of Winchester. Bishop of Lincoln. LORD ABERGAVENNY LORD SANDS. SIR HENRY GUILDFORD. SIR ANTHONY DENNY. CROMWELL, Servant to Wolsey. [rine. GRIFFITH, Gentleman-usher to Queen Katha- 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. Healthful; and ever since a fresh admirer Of what I saw there. Buck. An untimely ague Stay'd me a prisoner in my chamber when Those suns of glory, those two lights of men, Met in the vale of Andren. Nor. 'Twixt Guynes and Arde: I was then present, saw them salute on horseback; Beheld them, when they lighted, how they clung In their embracement, as they grew together; Which had they, what four throned ones could have weigh'd Such a compounded one? Buck. All the whole time I was my chamber's prisoner. Nor. 11 Then you lost The view of earthly glory: men might say, Till this time pomp was single, but now mar ried To one above itself. Each following day Became the next day's master, till the last Made former wonders its. To-day the French, All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods, Shone down the English; and, to-morrow, they 20 Made Britain India: every man that stood Show'd like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were As cherubins, all gilt: the madams too, Made it a fool and beggar. The two kings, suns For so they phrase 'em-by their heralds challenged The noble spirits to arms, they did perform Beyond thought's compass; that former fabulous story, Being now seen possible enough, got credit, said, 110 It reaches far, and where 'twill not extend, Thither he darts it. Bosom up my counsel, You'll find it wholesome. Lo, where comes that rock That I advise your shunning. Enter CARDINAL WOLSEY, the purse borne be fore him, certain of the Guard, and two Secretaries with papers. The CARDINAL in his passage fixeth his eye on BUCKINGHAM, and BUCKINGHAM on him, both full of disdain. Wol. The Duke of Buckingham's surveyc ha? Where's his examination? Here, so please you. Shall lessen this big look. [Exeunt Wolsey and his Train. Buck. This butcher's cur is venom-mouth'd, and I 120 Have not the power to muzzle him; therefore best Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar's book Outworths a noble's blood. Nor. What, are you chafed ? Ask God for temperance; that's the appliance only Which your disease requires. Buck. I read in's looks Matter against me; and his eye reviled Me, as his abject object: at this instant He bores me with some trick: he's gone to the king; I'll follow and outstare him. Nor. Stay, my lord, 129 And let your reason with your choler question What 'tis you go about: to climb steep hills Requires slow pace at first: anger is like A full-hot horse, who being allow'd his way, Self-mettle tires him. Not a man in England Can advise me like you: be to yourself As you would to your friend. Buck. I'll to the king; And from a mouth of honor quite cry down This Ipswich fellow's insolence; or proclaim There's difference in no persons. Nor. 140 Be advised; I say again, there is no English soul Buck. Sir, Nor. Buck. Pray, give me favor, sir. This cunning cardinal 169 The articles o' the combination drew Has done this, and 'tis well; for worthy Wolsey, Who cannot err, he did it. Now this follows,Which, as I take it, is a kind of puppy To the old dam, treason,-Charles the emperor, Under pretence to see the queen his aunt,— To see you ta'en from liberty, to look on ure You shall to the Tower. Buck. It will help me nothing To plead mine innocence; for that dye is on me Which makes my whitest part black. The will of heaven 210 Be done in this and all things! I obey. The king Aber. As the duke said, The will of heaven be done, and the king's pleasure By me obey'd! Bran. Here is warrant from The king to attach Lord Montacute; and the bodies Of the duke's confessor, John de la Car, Buck. 220 |