Nor worthy circumstance shew'd what a man was?
That never heard thy name sung but in banquets,
And loose lascivious pleasures? to a boy,
That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness,
No study of thy life, to know thy goodness?
And leave thy nation, nay, thy noble friend,
Leave him distrusted, that in tears falls with thee,
In soft relenting tears? Hear me, great Pompey;
If thy great spirit can hear, I must task thee!
Thou hast most unnobly robb'd me of my victory,
My love and mercy."

"Ptol. Hear me, great Cæsar!

I have heard too much:

Cæsar.
And study not with smooth shows to invade
My noble mind, as you have done my conquest.
You're poor and open: I must tell you roundly,
That man that could not recompense the benefits,
The great and bounteous services, of Pompey,
Can never dote upon the name of Cæsar.
Though I had hated Pompey, and allow'd his ruin,
I gave you no commission to perform it:
Hasty to please in blood are seldom trusty;
And, but I stand environ'd with my victories,
My fortune never failing to befriend me,
My noble strengths and friends about my person,
I durst not try you, nor expect a courtesy
Above the pious love you shew'd to Pompey.
You've found me merciful in arguing with ye:
Swords, hangmen, fires, destructions of all natures,
Demolishments of kingdoms, and whole ruins,
Are wont to be my orators. Turn to tears,
You wretched and poor seeds of sun-burnt Egypt;
And, now you've found the nature of a conqueror
That you cannot decline with all your flatteries;
That, where the day gives light, will be himself still;
Know how to meet his worth with humane courtesies!
Go, and embalm those bones of that great soldier;
Howl round about his pile, fling on your spices,
Make a Sabæan bed, and place this phoenix
Where the hot Sun may emulate his virtues,

And draw another Pompey from his ashes,
Divinely great, and fix him 'mongst the Worthies!"

The following is one of Lisander's speeches in The Lover's Progress, ii. 3:

"Can Heaven be pleased with these things?
To see two hearts that have been twined together,
Married in friendship, to the world two wonders,
Of one growth, one nourishment, one health,
Thus mortally divorced for one weak woman?
Can Love be pleased? Love is a gentle spirit;
The wind that blows the April flowers not softer:
She's drawn with doves, to show her peacefulness:
Lions and bloody pards are Mars's servants.
Would you serve Love? do it with humbleness,
Without a noise, with still prayers and soft murmurs:
Upon her altars offer your obedience,

And not your brawls; she's won with tears, not terrors:
That fire you kindle to her deity,

Is only grateful when it's blown with sighs,

And holy incense flung with white-hand innocence :
You wound her now; you are too superstitious :

No sacrifice of blood or death she longs for."

I add another characteristic strain from the same play, iv. 4:

"Lisander.

I' the depth of meditation, do you not

Sometimes think of Olinda?

Lidian.

I endeavour

To raze her from my memory, as I wish

You would do the whole sex; for know, Lisander,
The greatest curse brave man can labour under
Is the strong witchcraft of a woman's eyes.
Where I find men, I preach this doctrine to 'em:
As you're a scholar, knowledge make your mistress,
The hidden beauties of the Heavens your study;
There shall you find fit wonder for your faith,
And for your eye inimitable objects:

As you're a profess'd soldier, court your honour;
Though she be stern, she's honest, a brave mistress!

The greater danger you oppose to win her,

She shows the sweeter, and rewards the nobler:
Woman's best loves to hers mere shadows be;

For after death she weds your memory."

In the foregoing extracts we have 114 complete lines, of which 79 end with amphibrachs, thus leaving 35 with iambic endings; a proportion of something more than two to one. Cranmer's long speech at the close of the play in hand contains 49 lines, of which 34 have amphibractic endings, and 15 iambic; also a proportion of somewhat more than two to one. The average proportion in Buckingham's three speeches on going to his execution is about the same; and so through all the Fletcherian portions of the play. Besides this most obvious feature, Fletcher has another trick of mannerism, frequently repeating a thought, or fraction of a thought, with some variation of language; which imparts a very un-Shakespearian diffuseness to his style, as of an author much more fluent and fertile in words than in matter. This trait also is repeatedly exemplified in the forecited passages: so that, by comparing those passages with the parts of the play ascribed to Fletcher, any one having an eye and an ear for such things can easily identify the two as proceeding from one and the same source.

But the play has another very striking and decided characteristic which I was for a long time quite unable to account for. The structure and ordering of the piece as a whole is very unlike Shakespeare's usual workmanship, especially that of his closing period. Coleridge aptly notes it as "a sort of historical masque or show-play"; for so, to be sure, it has several masque-like scenes, that interrupt the proper dramatic continuity; as the supper-scene at Wolsey's house, i. 4, and the scene of the coronation, iv. 1. In other words, the piece is far from evincing great skill or judgment in the high point of dramatic architecture. Judged by the standard of Shakespeare's other plays, it is by no means a well organized specimen. We can trace in it no presiding idea, no governing thought. Though some of the parts are noble in themselves, still they have no clear principle of concert and unity, no right artistic centre: they rather give the impression of having been put together arbitrarily, and not under any organic law. The various threads of interest do not

pull together, nor show any clear intelligence of each other; the whole thus seeming rather a mechanical juxtaposition of parts than a vital concrescence. In short, the current both

of dramatic and of historic interest is repeatedly broken and disordered by misplaced and premature semi-catastrophes, which do not help each other at all; instead of flowing on with continuous and increasing volume to the one proper catastrophe. The matter is well stated by Gervinus: "The interest first clings to Buckingham and his designs against Wolsey, but with the second Act he leaves the stage; then Wolsey draws the attention increasingly, and he too disappears in the third Act; meanwhile our sympathies are drawn more and more to Catharine, who also leaves the stage in the fourth Act: then, after being thus shattered through four Acts by circumstances of a tragic character, we have the fifth Act closing with a merry festivity, for which we are not prepared, and crowning the King's base passion with victory, in which we take no warm interest."

By way of accounting for all this, I probably cannot do better than to quote again from Mr. Spedding, who discourses the point as follows:

"It was not unusual in those days, when a play was wanted in a hurry, to set two or three or even four hands at work upon it; and the occasion of the Princess Elizabeth's marriage may very likely have suggested the production of a play representing the marriage of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn. Such an occasion would sufficiently account for the determination to treat the subject not tragically; the necessity for producing it immediately might lead to the employment of several hands; and thence would follow inequality of workmanship and imperfect adaptation of the several parts to each other. But this would not explain the incoherency and inconsistency of the main design. Had Shakespeare been employed to make a design for a play which was to end with the happy marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn, we may be sure that he would not have occupied us through the first four Acts with a tragic and absorbing interest in the decline and death of Queen Catharine, and through half the fifth with a quarrel between Cranmer and Gardiner, in which we have no interest.

"On the other hand, since it is by Shakespeare that all the principal matters and characters are introduced, it is not likely that the general design of the piece would be laid out by another. I should rather conjecture that he had conceived the idea of a great historical drama on the subject of Henry VIII. which would have included the divorce of Catharine, the fall of Wolsey, the rise of Cranmer, the coronation of Anne Boleyn, and the final separation of the English from the Romish Church, which, being the one great historical event of the reign, would naturally be chosen as the focus of poetic interest; that he had proceeded in the execution of this idea as far perhaps as the third Act, which might have included the establishment of Cranmer in the seat of highest ecclesiastical authority; when, finding that his fellows of the Globe were in distress for a new play to honour the marriage of the Lady Elizabeth with, he thought that his half-finished work might help them, and accordingly handed them his manuscript to make what they could of it; that they put it into the hands of Fletcher, (already in high repute as a popular and expeditious playwright,) who, finding the original design not very suitable to the occasion and utterly beyond his capacity, expanded the three Acts into five, by interspersing scenes of show and magnificence, and passages of description, and long poetical conversations, in which his strength lay; dropped all allusion to the great ecclesiastical revolution, which he could not manage and for which he had no materials supplied him; converted what should have been the middle into the end; and so turned out a splendid 'historical masque, or shew-play,' which was no doubt very popular then, as it has been ever since."

It is a question of no little interest, how far and in what sort the authors of this play stand committed to the Reformation; if at all, whether more as a religious or as a national movement. They certainly show a good mind towards Cranmer; but nothing can be justly argued from this, for they show the same quite as much towards Catharine; and the King's real motives for putting her away are made plain enough. There are however several expressions, especially that in Cranmer's prophecy touching Elizabeth, "In her days God shall be truly known,”—which indicate pretty clearly how the authors regarded the great ecclesiastical