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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
Your joys with like relation Go together, 130
You precious winners all; your exultation
Partake to every one. I, 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.

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-
For him, I partly know his mind to find thee
An honorable husband. Come, Camillo,
And take her by the hand, whose worth and

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
My ill suspicion. This is your son-in-law
And son unto the king, who, heavens direct-
150

ing,

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
Perform'd in this wide gap of time since first
We were dissever'd: hastily lead away.

Exeunt.

70

Abbr tt Gr. 455..

usa here only = monosyllables.

Therefore S. did not write

7

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 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

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GRIFFITH, Gentleman-usher 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-chamber. Porter,

and his Man.

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10

Only a show or two, and so agree
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

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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

11

All the whole time

Such a compounded one?
Buck.

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 mar

ried

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were

As cherubins, all gilt: the madams too,
Not used to toil, did almost sweat to bear
The pride upon them, that their very labor
Was to them as a painting: now this masque
Was cried incomparable, 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 but one; and no discerner
Durst wag his tongue in censure. When these

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I'll follow and outstare him.
Nor.

Me, as his abject object: at this instant
For 'twas indeed his color, but he came
He bores me with some trick: he's gone to the To whisper Wolsey,-here makes visitation :
king;
His fears were, that the interview betwixt 180
England and France might, through their
amity,
[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

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;
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
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 mounts the liquor till't run o'er,
In seeming to augment it wastes it? Be
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,

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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, reciprocally-
Only 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 cunning 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-

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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 were
Something mistaken in't.

Buck.

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.

Lo, you, my lord,

The net has fall'n upon me! I shall perish

Buck.

Under device and practice.

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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,
One Gilbert Peck, his chancellor, -

Buck.

So, so; These are the limbs o' the plot: no more, J hope.

220

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