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KING HENRY VIII.

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KING HENRY THE EIGHTH.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

Ir is the opinion of Johnson, Steevens, and Malone, that this play was written a short time before the death of Queen Elizabeth, which happened on the 24th of March, 1602-3. The elogium on King James, which is blended with the panegyric of Elizabeth in the last scene, was evidently a subsequent insertion, after the succession of the Scottish monarch to the throne: for Shakspeare was too well acquainted with courts to compliment, in the lifetime of Queen Elizabeth, her presumptive successor; of whom, history informs us, she was not a little jealous. That the prediction concerning King James was added after the death of the queen, is still more clearly evinced, as Dr. Johnson has remarked, by the awkward manner in which it is connected with the foregoing and subsequent lines.

After having lain by some years, unacted, probably on account of the costliness of its exhibition, it was revived in 1613, under the title of All is True, with new decorations, and a new Prologue and Epilogue: and this revival took place on the very day, being St. Peter's, on the which the Globe Theatre was burut down. The fire was occasioned, as it is said, by the discharge of some small pieces of ordnance called chambers in the scene where King Henry is represented as arriving at Cardinal Wolsey's gate at Whitehall, one of which, being injudiciously managed, set fire to the thatched roof of the theatre. *) Dr. Johnson first suggested that Ben Jonson might have supplied the Prologue and Epilogue to the play upon the occasion of its revival. Dr. Farmer, Steevens, and Malone, support his opinion; and even attribute to him some of the passages of the play.

*) The circumstance is recorded by the continuator of Stowe; and in & MS. Letter of Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, dated London, this last of June, 1613, it is thus mentioned: No longer since than yesterday, while Bourbage his company were acting at the Globe the play of Henry VIII. and there, shooting of certayne chambers in way of triumph, the fire catched,' ete.-MS. Harl. 7002.

So in a letter from John Chamberlaine to Sir Ralph Winwood, dated London, 8th July, 1613-But the burning of the Globe, or Playhouse, on the Bankside, on St. Peter's day, cannot escape you; which fell out by a peale of chambers (that I know not upon what occasion were to be used in

Mr. Gifford has controverted this opinion of Jonson having been the author of the Prologue and Epilogue of this play, and thinks the play which was performed under the title of All is True was a distinct performance, and not Shakspeare's Henry the Eighths To this it has been answered, That the Prologue, which has alway. accompanied Shakspeare's drama from its first publication in 1623, manifestly and repeatedly alludes to the title of the play which was represented on the 29th of June, 1613, and which we know to have been founded on the history of King Henry the Eighth, affords a strong proof of their identity, as appears by the following passages:

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To rank our chosen truth with such a show
As fool and fight is," &c.

To make that only true we now intend.'

And though Sir Henry Wotton mentions it as a new play, we have Stowe and Lorkin who call it The play of Henry the Eighth.'

That the Prologue and Epilogue were not written by Shakspeare is, I think, clear from internal evidence,' says Mr. Boswell; to whose opinion I have no hesitation in subcribing: but it does not follow that they were the production of Ben Jonson's pen. That gentleman has clearly shown that there was no intention of covertly neering at Shakspeare's other works in this prologue; but that this play is opposed to a rude kind of farcical representation on the same subject by Samuel Rowley (see the first note on the Prologue.) This play, or interlude, which was printed in 1605, is probably referred to in the following entry on the books of the Stationers' Company: Nathaniel Butter, Feb. 12, 1604, That he get good allowance for the Enterlude of King Henry VIII. before he begin to print it; and with the warden's hand to yt, he is to have the same for his copy." Stowe has observed that Robert Greene had written somewhat on the same story; but there is no evidence that it was in a dramatic form: it may have been something historical, and not by the dramatic poet of that name; as Stowe cites the authority of Robert Greene, with Robert Brun, Fabian, &c. in other places of his Chronicle.

This historical drama comprises a period of twelve years, commencing in the twelfth year of King Henry VIII. (1521), and ending with the christening of Elizabeth in 1533. The poet has deviated from history in placing the death of Queen Katharine before the birth of Elizabeth, for in fact Katharine did not die till 1536. In constructing his scenes he has availed himself largely of the

the play), the tampin or stopple of one of them lighting in the thatch that covered the house, burn'd it to the ground in less than two hours, with a dwelling-house adjoining; and it was a great marvaile and faire grace of God that the people had so little harm, having but two narrow doors to get out at.'-Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. p. 469.

The event is also recorded by Sir Henry Wotton, in his letter of the ad of July, 1613, where he says it was at a new play, acted by the king's players at the Bank's Side, called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth.'-Reliquiae Wotton, p. 425, Ed. ad.

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