"ha!"; or taken away Burbage's licence? | interest us in the memory of her mother Would she have wept over the most touching sorrow of the dying Katharine; or sent Shakspere to join the company of his friend Southampton in the Tower? Those who have written on the subject say she would have borne all this; and that the pageant of her mother's coronation, with the succeeding representation of her own christening, capped with the prophecy of her future greatness, were to ensure the harmlessness of all these somewhat explosive materials, and to carry forward the five acts to a most felicitous conclusion "This little one shall make it holiday." Malone, as it appears to us, says all that can be said, in the literal way, to prove that such a drama as this would be acceptable to Elizabeth: "It is more likely that Shakspeare should have written a play the chief subject of which is the disgraces of Queen Katharine, the aggrandizement of Anne Boleyn, and the birth of her daughter, in the lifetime of Elizabeth, than after her death; at a time when the subject must have been highly pleasing at court, rather than at a period when it must have been less interesting. Queen Katharine, it is true, is represented as an amiable character, but still she is eclipsed; and, the greater her merit, the higher was the compliment to the mother of Elizabeth, to whose superior beauty she was obliged to give way.”* This is the prosaic, we may say the essentially grovelling, mode of viewing the object of Shakspere,--an object pre-supposing equal vulgarity of mind in the dramatist and his court audience. Our readers will be sure that we appreciate far more highly Mr. Campbell's poetical creed in this matter :-"Shakspeare contrives, though at the sacrifice of some historical truth, to raise the matron Katharine to our highest admiration, whilst at the same time he keeps us in love with Anne Boleyn, and on tolerable terms with Henry VIII. But who does not see, under all this wise management, the drift of his design, namely, to compliment Elizabeth as a virgin queen; to *Chronological Order,' p. 390. Anne Boleyn; and to impress us with a belief of her innocence, though she suffered as an alleged traitress to the bed of Henry? The private death of Katharine of Arragon might have been still remembered by many living persons, but the death of Anne Boleyn was still more fresh in public recollection; and a wiser expedient could not have been devised for asserting the innocence of Elizabeth's mother than by portraying Henry's injustice towards Queen Katharine. For we are obliged to infer that, if the tyrant could thus misuse the noble Katharine, the purest innocence in her lovely successor could be no shield against his cruelty."+ There is one slight objection to this theory. Shakspere wrote for an audience; and an audience is a thing of impulses; it sympathizes with the oppressed, and hates the oppressor. An audience does not "infer." The poet who trusts to an audience perceiving "the drift of his design" through the veil of a dramatic action which moves their feelings entirely in an opposite direction to that in which he intends them to be moved, has, to our minds at least, a different theory of his art from that of Shakspere. We hold that the Prologue which we shall presently examine is a complete exposition of the idea of this drama. The Prologue is fastened upon Jonson, upon the theory that he wrote it after Shakspere's retirement from the stage, when the old play was revived in his absence. We believe in the one piece of external evidence,-that a 'Henry VIII.' was produced in 1613, when the Globe was burned; that it was a new play; that it was then called All is True;' and that this title agrees with the idea upon which Shakspere wrote the 'Henry VIII.' Those who believe that it was written in the time of Elizabeth have to reject this one piece of external evidence. We further believe, from the internal evidence, that the play, as it stands, was written in the time of James I., and that we have received it in its original form. Those who assert the contrary have to resort to the hypothesis of interpolation, and, further, have to explain how many things + Life. Moxon's edition of Shakspere. which are, to a plain understanding, incon- | the Clowns of the same stage, whom he had sistent with their theory, may be interpreted, indeed reformed, but who still delighted by great ingenuity, to be consistent. We the "ears of the groundlings" with their believe that Shakspere, amongst his latest extemporal rudeness, might be slightly dramas, constructed an historical drama to renounced. He disclaimed, then, "both fool complete his great series,-one that was and fight:" these were not amongst the agreeable to the tone of his mind after his attractions of this work of his maturer age. fiftieth yearHe had to offer weighty and serious things, sad and high things, noble scenes that commanded tears; state and woe were to be exhibited together: there was to be pageantry, but it was to be full of pity; and the woe 66 'Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe." Those who take the opposite view hold that the chief object of the poet was to produce something which might be acceptable to Queen Elizabeth. Our belief is the obvious one; the contrary belief may be the more ingenious. We now proceed to the most remarkable Prologue of the few which are attached to Shakspere's plays. It thus commences :— "I come no more to make you laugh; things now, That bear a weighty and a serious brow, It is, to our minds, a perfect exposition of was to be the more intense from its truth. sway, But that thereby doth find, and plainly feel, The cruel sports to many men's decay!"* From the first scene to the last, the dramatic action seems to point to the abiding presence of that power which works "Her cruel sports to many men's decay.” We see the "ever-whirling wheel," in a succession of contrasts of grandeur and debasement; and, even when the action is closed, we are carried forward into the depths of the future, to have the same triumph of 'Mutability" suggested to our contemplation. This is the theme which the poet emphatically presents to us under its aspect of sadness :— 66 "Be sad, as we would make you: Think, ye see The very persons of our noble story, * The Faerie Queene. Two cantos of Mutabilitie 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." Bearing in mind the great principle of the play, it appears to us to open with singular comes, in the spirit of honesty and justice, to represent to the king that his subjects are in great grievance." Upon his minister does the king lay the blame, and desires the grievance to be redressed. This looks like equity and moderation :— "We must not rend our subjects from our laws, And stick them in our will." art. The Field of the Cloth of Gold is presented to our view, not as a mere piece of ordinary description, but as having a The queen, who has obtained the redress of dramatic connexion with the principal action. the subjects' wrong, is to "sit by," and hear By this description we are at once, and most the charges against Buckingham. To her naturally, introduced to the characters of upright and sagacious mind it is evident the proud nobles whose hatred Wolsey has that the charges are the exaggerations of provoked. The sarcastic Norfolk may pro- revenge, stimulated by corruption. The king bably abide the frown of the great cardinal; | will see only the one side of the evidence. but in the temperament of the impetuous When Katharine exhorts Wolsey to "deliver Buckingham there is inevitable danger. What all with charity," Henry desires the witness a portrait of self-willed pride has the poet to "speak on;" when Katharine lays bare drawn of Buckingham in all that scene! How the "spleen" of the Surveyor, with Henry the haughty peer first displays his rough it is still "Let him on." The allegation contempt of "such a keech" as Wolsey; then rests only upon the testimony of a discarded throws out his random allegations against servant as to words spoken; but upon these his honesty; next encounters him with an is the duke condemned; for, after the eye "full of disdain," and is scarcely kept decision of the king, a trial is but a form :from following him to the king to "outstare "He is attach'd; him;" and, finally, lashes himself to the utterance of a torrent of words, while his friends evidently tremble more for him in the consequences of his blind hatred than they look with hope to its power to injure the man whom they equally hate. And how does all this close? In Call him to present trial: if he may It is evident that the hatred of Wolsey But an interruption takes place. The queen | him and Wolsey: it is his "misery" alone D D humble wife." that makes us "let fall a tear." Amongst a stranger." "When I came hither I was lord high constable, But there is a deeper pathos that will "draw the eye to flow." It is foreshadowed to us even while the eye is still wet for Buckingham: "Did you not of late days hear A buzzing, of a separation Between the King and Katharine?" The courtiers speak of this freely : She has been "Sir, I am about to weep; but, thinking that The daughter of a king, my drops of tears The eloquence of that "simple woman "Cham. It seems the marriage with his intellect of Wolsey quails, and the self-will brother's wife Has crept too near his conscience. No, his conscience This is the interpretation of a young woman, to whom "majesty and pomp" look dazzling. In her notion the "divorce" from "temporal" glory is "a sufferance, panging As soul and body severing." It is held that this pity of Anne for her mistress is a stroke of dramatic art to render her amiable under her equivocal situation. Is it not rather the poet's profound display of the weakness of Anne's own character? The sufferings of Katharine lie deeper than this. She is one who feels that she is about to be surrounded with the snares of injustice. She is defenceless-"a most poor woman, and of Henry resorts to a justification of his motives. What a picture next is opened of the "poor weak woman, fallen from favour!" The poetry of the situation is unequalled: the queen, sitting amongst her women at work-and listening to that delicious song Orpheus with his lute made trees." Then is revealed the innermost grief of that wounded heart:— of 66 "Would ye have me Alas! he has banish'd me his bed already; | "nothing but death Shall e'er divorce my dignities." She has lost even the power of making her dependants happy : "Alas! poor wenches, where are now your for- and then comes, out of this tenderness, the If I have used myself unmannerly." "and then to breakfast, with What appetite you have "— we rejoice at "the instant cloud." But by the exercise of his marvellous art the poet throws the fallen man upon our pity. He restores him to his fellowship with humanity by his temporal abasement. The trappings of his ambition are stripped off, and we see him in his natural dignity. He puts on the armour of fortitude, and we reverence him. The scene is changed. The stage is crowded with processional displays. There has been a coronation. We see it not; but its description is worth more than the sight: "The rich stream Of lords, and ladies, having brought the queen To a prepared place in the choir, fell off A distance from her: while her grace sat down To rest a while, some half an hour, or so, In a rich chair of state, opposing freely The beauty of her person to the people." Anne passes from the stage;-Katharine is led in sick. Her great enemy is dead. She cannot but number up his faults; but she listens to "his good." They have a fellowship in misfortune; and she honours his ashes. She is passing from the world. The grave hides that pure, and gentle, and noble sufferer. Anne is crowned. Her example of "How soon this mightiness meets misery" was not to be shown. But who can forget it? Then comes the shadowing out of new intrigues and new hatreds; and the despot puts on an attitude of justice. Elizabeth is born. The link is completed between the generation which is past and the generation which looks upon "The very persons of our noble story, As they were living." Shakspere has closed his great series of 'Chronicle Histories.' This last of them was to be "sad, high, and working." It has laid bare the hollowness of worldly glory; it has shown the heavy "load" of "too much honour." It has given us a picture of the times which succeeded the feudal strifes of the other 'Histories.' Were they better times? To the mind of the poet the age of corruption was as "sad" as the age of force. The one tyrant rides over the obligations of justice, wielding a power more terrible than that of the sword. The poet's consolation is to be found in the prophetic views of the future. The prophecy of Cranmer upon the reigns of Elizabeth and James is the eulogy of just government-partially realized in the age of Shakspere, but not the less a high conception, (however beyond the reality,) of "What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so." We have a few words to add on the style of this drama. It is remarkable for the elliptical construction of many of the sen tences and for an occasional peculiarity in the versification, which is not found in any other of Shakspere's works. The Roman plays, decidedly amongst the latest of his productions, possess a colloquial freedom of versification which in some cases approaches almost to ruggedness. But in the 'Henry VIII.' this freedom is carried much farther. We have repeated instances in which the lines are so constructed that it is impossible to read them with the slightest pause at the end of each line:-the sentence must be run together, so as to produce more the effect of measured prose than of blank-verse. As an example of what we mean, we will write a sentence of fourteen lines as if it had been printed as prose :— "Hence I took a thought this was a judgment on me; that my kingdom, well worthy the best heir of the world, should not be gladded in 't by me: Then follows, that I weigh'd the danger which my realms stood in by this my issue's fail: and that gave to me many a groaning throe. Thus hulling in the wild sea of my conscience, I did steer towards this remedy, whereupon we |