PROLOGUE.
OGUE

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
e 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,

The play may pass; if they be still, and willing,
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, guarded1 with yellow,
Will be deceiv'd: for, gentle hearers, know,
To rank our chosen truth with such a show

1i. e. faced or trimmed. This long motley coat was the usual dress of a fool. See Mr. Douce's dissertation on the Fools of Shakspeare.

The Prologue and Epilogue to this play are apparently not by the hand of Shakspeare. They have been attributed to Ben Jonson; but this opinion is controverted by Mr. Gifford. The intention of the writer (says Mr. Boswell) was to contrast the historical truth and taste displayed in the present play with the performance of a contemporary dramatist, When you see me you know me, or the famous Chronicle of King Henry the Eighth, &c. by Samuel Rowley,' in which Will Summers, the jester, is a principal character. There are other incidents in this merry bawdy play,' besides the perversion of historical facts, which make it more than probable that it is here alluded

to.

VOL. VII.

As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting

Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring,
(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 happiest3 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,
And follow'd with the general throng, and sweat,
Of thousand friends; then in a moment, see
How soon this mightiness meets misery!
And, if you can be merry then, I'll say,
A man may weep upon his wedding day.

2 Opinion seems here to mean character; as in King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4:- Thou hast redeemed thy lost opinion.' To realize that opinion of character is our present object, not to forfeit it by introducing absurdities.

3 Happiest being here used in a Latin sense for propitious or favourable. Sis bonus o fœlixque tuis!' has been thought a reason for attributing this Prologue to Jonson; but we have shown that Shakspeare often uses words in a Latin sense.

KING HENRY VIII.

ACT I.

SCENE I. London. An Antechamber in the Palace.

Enter the DUKE of NORFOLK, at one door; at the other, the DUKE of BUCKINGHAM, and the LORD ABERGAVENNY1.

Buckingham.

GOOD morrow, and well met. How have you done,

Since last we saw in France?

Nor.

I thank your grace:

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 Arde.

Nor.

'Twixt Guynes and Arde3:

1 George Nevill, who married Mary, daughter of Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham.

? Pope has borrowed this phrase in his Imitation of Horace's Epistle to Augustus, ver. 22 :—

"Those suns of glory please not till they set.'

3 Guynes then belonged to the English, and Arde (Ardres) to the French; they are towns of Picardy: the valley where Henry VII. and Francis I. met lies between them.

I was then present, saw them salute on horseback; Beheld them, when they lighted, how they clung In their embracement, as they grew together;

4

Which had they, what four thron'd ones could have weigh'd

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 married To one above itself. Each following day Became the next day's master, till the last Made former wonders it's 5: To-day, the French, All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods, Shone down the English: and, to-morrow, they Made Britain, India: every man, that stood, Show'd like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were As cherubins, all gilt: the madams too, Not us'd to toil, did almost sweat to bear The pride upon them, that their very labour Was to them as a painting: now this mask Was cry'd 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,

4 As for as if. We have the same image in Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis :

a sweet embrace

Incorporate then they seem; face grows to face.'

5 Dies diem docet. Every day learned something from the preceding, till the concluding day collected all the splendour of all the former shows.

6 i. e. glittering, shining. Clarendon uses the word in his description of the Spanish Juegos de Toros. And in a Memorable Masque, &c. performed before King James at Whitehall, in 1613, at the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth :-

his buskins clinquant as his other attire.'

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 suns (For so they phrase them) by their heralds challeng'd

The noble spirits to arms, they did perform

Beyond thought's compass; that former fabulous story,

Being now seen possible enough, got credit,
That Bevis was believ'd.

Buck.

O, you go

far.

Nor. As I belong to worship, and affect
In honour honesty, the tract of every thing
Would by a good discourser lose some life,
Which action's self was tongue to. All was royal;
To the disposing of it nought rebell'd,

Order gave each thing view; the office did
Distinctly his full function9.

Buck.

Who did guide,

I mean, who set the body and the limbs

Of this great sport together, as you guess?
Nor. One, certes 10, that promises no element 11
In such a business.

7 i. e. in judgment, which had the noblest appearance. So Dryden :

Two chiefs

So match'd as each seem'd worthiest when alone.'

The old romantic legend of Bevis of Hampton. This Bevis (or Beavois) a Saxon, was for his prowess created earl of Southampton by William the Conqueror. See Camden's Britannia.

9 The course of these triumphs, however well related, must lose in the description part of that spirit and energy which were expressed in the real action. The commission for regulating them was well executed, and gave exactly to every particular person and action the proper place.

10 Certes, i. e. certainly, is here used as a monosyllable.

"No initiation, no previous practice. Elements are the first principles of things, or rudiments of knowledge. The word is here applied, not without a catachresis, to a person.