She embraces him. Cam. She hangs about his neck: If she pertain to life let her speak too. Paul. There's time enough for that; Lest they desire upon this push to trouble 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; 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- 110 honesty Is richly noted and here justified What! look upon my brother: both your par dons, Pol. Ay, and make't manifest where she By us, a pair of kings. Let's from this place. 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; 120 Our Perdita is found. Her. You gods, look down And from your sacred vials pour your graces That e'er I put between your holy looks ing, Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Pau- Exeunt. 70 Abbr tt Gr. 455.. usa here only = monosyllables. Therefore S. did not write 7 KING HENRY VIII. 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 1., Sc. L.IL.; Act I., Sc. 111. IV.; Act III., 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 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 Latharine, 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, 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 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, KING HENRY the Eighth CARDINAL WOLSEY. CARDINAL CAMPEIUS. DRAMATIS PERSONE. 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 GRIFFITH, Gentleman-usher to Queen Katha- DOCTOR BUTTS, Physician to the King. Garter King-at-Arms. Surveyor to the Duke of Buckingham. Door-keeper of the Council-chamber. Porter, and his Man. 10 Only a show or two, and so agree I'll undertake may see away their shilling In a long motley coat guarded with yellow, 20 To make that only true we now intend, known Healthful; and ever since a fresh admirer An untimely ague '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 11 All the whole time Such a compounded one? I was my chamber's prisoner. ried were As cherubins, all gilt: the madams too, night Made it a fool and beggar The two kings, I'll follow and outstare him. Me, as his abject object: at this instant Stay, my lord, 129 As you would to your friend. Buck. Nor. 140 Be advised; I say again, there is no English soul Buck. Sir, Say not 'treasonous.' Buck. To the king I'll say't; and make my As shore of rock. Attend. This holy fox, Did break i' the rinsing. Faith, and so it did. Buck. Pray, give me favor, sir. This cunning cardinal The articles o' the combination drew 169 As himself pleased; and they were ratified granted Ere it was ask'd; but when the way was made, sired, That he would please to alter the king's course, As soon he shall by me, that thus the cardinal I am sorry To hear this of him; and could wish he were Buck. No, not a syllable: I do pronounce him in that very shape Enter BRANDON, a Sergeant-at-arms before Bran. Your office, sergeant; execute it. Sir, My lord the Duke of Buckingham, and Earl Lo, you, my lord, The net has fall'n upon me! I shall perish Buck. Under device and practice. By me obey'd! Here is warrant from The king to attach Lord Montacute; and the bodies Of the duke's confessor, John de la Car, Buck. So, so; These are the limbs o' the plot: no more, J hope. 220 |