To make her speak as move. It is required still ; On: those that think it is unlawful business I am about, let them depart. Leon. Proceed : No foot shall stir. Paul. Music, awake her ; strike! [Music. 'Tis time ; descend ; be stone no more ; approach ; 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 Dwar life redeems you. You perceive she stirs : [Hermione comes down. Buurt not ; her actions shall be holy as You hear my spell is lawful : do not shun her Vatil you see her die again ; for then You kill her double. Nay, present your hand : When she was young you woo'd her; now in age L's she become the suitor ? Leon. 0, she's warm ! If this be magic, let it be an art 110 Lawful as eating. Pol. She embraces him. Cam. She hangs about his neck : If she pertain to life let her speak too, 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, Thongh yet she speak not. Mark a little while. Please you to interpose, fair madam : kneel And pray your mother's blessing. Turn, good lady ; 120 Our Perdita is found. Her. You gods, look down 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, Knowing by Paulina that the oracle Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserved Myself to see the issue. Paul. There's time enough for that ; Lest they desire u pon this push to trouble Your joys with like relation. Go together, 130 You precious winners all ; your exultation Partake to every one. ], an old turtle, Will wing me to some wither'd bough and there My mate, that's never to be found again, Lament till I am lost. Leon. 0, peace, Paulina ! Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent, As I by thine a wise : this is a match, And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine; But how, is to be question'd ; for I saw her, As I thought, dead, and have in vain said many 140 A prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far For him, I partly know his mind- to find thee An honorable husband. Conie, Camillo, And take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty Is richly noted and here justified By us, a pair of kings. Let's from this place. What! look upon my brother : both your par dons, That e'er I put between your holy looks My ill suspicion. This is your son-in-law And son unto the king, who, heavens directing, 150 Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Pau lina, Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely Each one demand and answer to his part Perforin'd in this wide gap of time since first We were dissever'd : hastily lead away. Exeunt. 70 This play, as we learn from Sir Henry Wotton and from T. Lorking, was being enacted as a new shot off from a cannon set fire to the thatch and occasioned the destruction of the building. It has at been shown conclusively by Mr. Spedding that the play is in part from Shakespeare's hand, in part froin 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 1., Sc. I. II.; Act I., Sc. 111. IV.; Act Ill., Sc. 11. (to exit of the king) ; Act V., Sc. 1. The rest of the play is by Fletcher. A German critic (Hertzberg) has described Inry VIIT.'as “a chronicle-history with three and a half catastrophes, varied by a marriage and a coronation pageant, ending abruptly with the baptisin of a child." It is indeed incoherent in structure. After all our sympathies have been engaged upon the side of the wronged Queen l. atharine, 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 iil 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 workinanship, the play is equally deficient in anity, 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 eruel and self-indulgent; but Shakespeare will hardly allow us to judge Henry steruly. He is a lordly figure, with a full, abounding strength of nature, a self-confidence, an ease and mastery of life, & power of effortless sway, and seems born to pass on in triumph over those who have fallen and are atricted. Wolsey is drawn with superb power : ambition, frand, 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 Shake speare 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, DRAMATIS PERSONÆ, KING HENRY the Eighth LORD SANDS. SIR HENRY GUILDFORD. SIR THOMAS LOVELL. SIR NICHOLAS VAUX. Secretaries to Wolsey. CROMWELL, Servant to Wolsey. (rine, GRIFFITH, Gentleman-lisher to Queen Katha- Three 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-chainber. Porter, and his Man. Page to Gardiner. A Crier. afterwards divorced. ANNE BULLEN, her Maid of Honor, afterwards Queen. PATIENCE, woman to Queen Katharine. Several Lords and Ladies in the Dumb Shows; Women attending upon the Queen; Scribes, Officers, Guards, and other Attendants. Spirits SCENE: London ; Westminster ; Kimbolton. THE PROLOGUE. 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 10 The play may pass, if they be still and wil ling, 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 deceived ; for, gentle hearers, know, To rank our chosen truth with such a show As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring, 20 To make that only true we now intend, Will leave us never an understanding friend. Therefore, for goodness' sake, and as you are known 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, Aud follow'd with the general throng and sweat Of thousand friends ; then in a moment, see How soon this mightiness meets misery : 30 And, if you can be merry then, I'll say A man inay weep upon his wedding-day Healthful ; and ever since a fresh admirer An untimely ague 'Twixt Guynes and Arde : I was then present, saw them salute on horse back ; 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 11 Such a compounded one ? Buck, All the whole time I was my chamber's prisoner. Nor. Then you lost The view of earthly glory : men might say, Till this time pomp was single, but now mars ried To one above itself. Each following day Became the next day's master, till the last Made former wonders its. T'o-day the French, All clinquant, all in gola, like leathen gods, Shone down the English ; and, to-morrow, they 20 Made Britain India : every me! 'hat stood Show'd like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were As cheri:bins, all gilt: the madams too, Not used to toil, did almost sweat co bear The pride upon them, that their very labor Was to them as a painting : now this masque Was cried incom"arable, and the ensuing night Made it a fool and beggar The two kings, Equal in lustre, were now best, now worst, As presence did present them ; him in eye, Still him in praise : and, being present both, 'Twas said they saw buíone ; and no discerner Durst wag his tongue in censure. When these vor so they phrase 'em-by their heralds chal lenged The noble spirits to arms, they did perform Beyond thought's compass; that former fab ulous story, O, you go far. suns ACT I. SCENE I. London. An ante-chamber in the palace. Enter the DIKE OF NORFOLK at one doo; at the other, the DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM and the LORD ABERGAVENNY. Buck. Good morrow, and well met. How have ye done Fince last we saw in France ? I thank your grace, 110 Which action's self was tongue to. All was royal ; Who did guide, Nor. One, certes, that promises no element In such a business. Buck. I pray you, who, my lord ? Nor. All this was order'd by the good discretion 50 Of the right reverend Cardinal of York. Buck. The devil speed him ! no man's pie is freed Surely, sir, There's in him stuff that puts him to these ends ; [grace For, being not propp'd by ancestry, whose Chalks successors their way, nor call’d upon For high seats done to the crown ; neither allied 61 To eminent assistants ; but, spider-like, tOut of his self-drawing web, he gives us note, The force of his own merit makes his way ; A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys A place next to the king. Aber. I cannot tell What heaven hath given him,-let some graver eve Pierce into that ; but I can see his pride Peep through each part of him : whence has he that, If not from hell ? the devil is a niggard, 70 Or has given all before, and he begins A new hell in himself, Buck, Why the devil, Upon this French going out, took he upon him, Without the privity o' the king, to appoint Who should attend on him ? He makes up the file I do know 80 0, many Have broke their backs with laying manors on 'em For this great journey. What did this vanity But minister communication of A most poor issue? Nor. Grievingly I think, The peace between the French and as not values The cost that did conclude it Every man, Which is budded ort, For France hath flaw'd the league, and hath attach'd Our merchants' goods at Bourdeaux. Aber. Is it therefore Marry, is't. chased Why, all this business Our reverend cardinal carried. Nor. Like it your grace, 100 The state takes notice of the private difference Betwixt you and the cardinal. I advise youAnd take it from a heart that wishes towarde you Honor and plenteous safety-that you read The cardinal's malice and his potency Together ; to consider further that What his high hatred would effect wants not A minister in his power. You know his nature, That he's revengeful, and I know his sword Hath a sharp edge: it's long and, 't may be said, 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 shunniag. Enter CARDINAL WOLSEY, the purse borne hem fore him, certain of the Guard, and tico Seo retaries with papers. The CARDIXAL in his passage fizeth his eye on BUCKINGHAM, and BUCKINGHAM on him, both full of disdain. Wol. The Duke of Buckingham's surveyor, ha ? Where's his examination ? First Secr. Here, so please yon. Wol. Is he in person ready ? First Secr. Ay, please your grace. Buckingham [Exeunt Wolsey and his Tram Buck. This butcher's curis 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 locks Matter against me ; and his eye reviled Me, as his abject object : at this instant king ; 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. Be advised; Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot 140 That it do singe yourself : we may outrun, By violent swiftness, that which we run at, And lose by over-running. Know you not, The fire that monnts the liquor till’t run o'er, In seeming to augment it wastes it? Bé advised : I say again, there is no English soul More stronger to direct you than yourself, If with the sap of reason you would quench, Or but allay, the fire of passion. Buck, Sir, I am thankful to you ; and I'll go along 150 By your prescription : but this top-proud fel low, Whom from the flow of gall I name not but From sincere motions, by intelligence, And proofs as clear as founts in July when We see each grain of gravel, I do know To be corrupt and treasonous. Nor. Say not 'treasonous.' Buck. To the king I'll say't; and make my vouch as strong As shore of rock. Attend. This holy fox, Or wolf, or both,- for he is equal ravenous As he is subtle, and as prone to mischief 160 As able to perform't ; his mind and place Infecting one another, yea, reciprocallyOnly to show his pomp as well in France As here at home, suggests the king our master To this last costly treaty, the interview, That swallow'd so much treasure, and like a glass Did break i’ the rinsing. Nor. Faith, and so it did. Buck. Pray, give me favor, sir. This cun ning cardinal The articles o' the combination drew 169 As himself pleased ; and they were ratified As he cried Thus let be': to as much end As give a crutch to the dead : but our count cardinal Has done this, and 'tis well ; for worthy Wol sey, 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 em peror, Under pretence to see the queen his aunt, For 'twas indeed his color, but he came [league Breed him some prejudice ; for from this Peep'd harms that menaced him : he privily Deals with our cardinal ; and, as I trow,Which I do well ; for I am sure the emperor Paid ere he promised ; whereby his suit was granted Ere it was ask'd ; but when the way was made, And paved with gold, the emperor thus de sired, That he would please to alter the king's course, And break the foresaid peace. Let the king know, 190 As soon he shall by me, that thus the cardinal Does buy and sell his honor as he pleases, And for his own advantage. Nor. I am sorry To hear this of him ; and could wish he wero Something mistaken in't. Buch. No, not a syllable : I do pronounce him in that very shape He shall appear in proof. Enter BRANDON, a Sergeant-at-arms before him, and two or three of the Guard. Bran. Your office, sergeant ; execute it. Serg. Sir, My lord the Duke of Buckingham, and Earl Of Hereford, Stafford, and Northampton, I Arrest thee of high treason, in the name 201 Of our most sovereign king. Buck. Lo, yon, my lord, The net has fall’n upon me! I shall perish Under device and practice. Bran. I am sorry To see you ta'en from liberty, to look on The business present : 'tis his highness' pleasYou shall to the Tower. Buck. It will help me nothing To plead mine innocence ; for that dye is on ure me Which makes my whitest part black. The will of heaven Be done in this and all things ! I obey. 210 O my Lord Abergavenny, fare you well! Bran. Nay, he must bear you company. The king [To Abergavenny. Is pleased you shall to the Tower, till you know How he determines further. Aber. As the duke said, The will of heaven be done, and the king's pleasure By me obey'd ! Bran. Here is a warrant from bodies So, so ; These are the limbs o' the plot : po more, I hope. 220 |