KING HENRY THE EIGHTH.

Several Lords and Ladies in the dumb shows; Women attending upon the Queen; Spirits which appear to her; Scribes, Officers, Guards, and other Attendants.

SCENE,-CHIEFLY IN LONDON AND WESTMINSTER: ONCE, at

KIMBOLTON.

PROLOGUE.

I come no more to make you laugh; things now,
That bear a weighty and a serious brow,
Sad, high, and working a, full of state and woe,
Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow,
We now b 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

d

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, wanton f play,

Things of a lofty character, and of stirring interest, or full of stirring influences.

b The last word of the first line is here repeated, in consequence of three lines intervening between it and the expression, we present, to which it refers. It seems better to let this excusable redundancy remain, than to substitute, as some editors do, 'We shall present.'

The infrequency of the public representation of this play is chiefly owing to the expense required for the production of its showscenes, such as the banquet at York Place, Katharine's vision, and the coronation and christening processions. Coleridge calls this drama 'a sort of historical masque or show-play.'

And agree to approve the play, if it be satisfactory in this respect.

• In Shakspeare's time only one play was performed in the day; and the time it occupied was generally about two hours. The performance commenced at one or two o'clock, afternoon.

Most of the dramatists of the reigns of Elizabeth and James were guilty of the frequent introduction of indelicate and licentious language in their plays. It is true that licentious speech was the

A noise of targets, or to see a fellow
In a long motley coat guarded a 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 b
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

vice of the times; but it is sad to think that the stage should have publicly and unreprovingly represented that vice. Two things, however, should be remembered in connexion with this subject; --that in those days no woman having any pretension to refinement attended public theatrical performances; and that female characters were then represented only by boys. In allusion to this latter circumstance Cleopatra (in Shakspeare's play) indignantly anticipates that if she goes as a captive to Rome she will see herself made a subject of stage representation: 'I shall see some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness;' but we may imagine that, when Shakspeare wrote these words, he felt how great was the misfortune of being obliged to commit the representation of female character to the action of boys. May we not suppose, however, that this purest of all the dramatists of his age, in the brightness of whose perpetual day all the rest have so 'paled their ineffectual fire,' anticipated a time when a worthier stage should more appropriately express his wonderful conceptions of woman's heart and mind?

а

Guarded, that is, bound or protected at the edges, bordered. The coat of many colours was the fool's wear.

b The following appears to us to be the meaning of this somewhat obscure passage: - Besides making fools of ourselves, and forfeiting the opinion that we have brought into the house, viz. that what we now intend shall consist only of what is true (see Introductory Remarks, sec. 2)—will leave us without any friend on terms of good understanding with us.

• To honour the cause of goodness, and because you who frequent this theatre are known to be the most respectable and the best disposed of London auditors.

The first and happiest hearers of the town,
Be sad, as we would make you: Think ye see a
The very persons of our noble story,

As they were living; think you see them great,
And followed 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.

The theatre here referred to is the Globe at the Bankside, Southwark. (See the note under sec. 2 of Introductory Remarks.)

'The Bankside,' says Knight, 'was the landing-place to which the inhabitants of Westminster, and of the Strand, and of London west of Paul's, would daily throng in the days of the drama's glory; when the Globe could boast of the highest of the land amongst its visitors; when Essex and Southampton, out of favour at court, repaired thither to listen, unsatiated, to the lessons of the great master of philosophy; when crowds of earnest people, not intent only upon amusement, went there to study their country's history, or learn the “humanities,” in a school where the poet could dare to proclaim universal truths in an age of individual dissimulation.'-Knight's 'London,' vol. i. p. 11.

a

Imagine you see the very personages of our noble story as they were in their life-time. Theobald proposes to read Think before ye, as more nearly rhyming with story; the Epilogue, however, has a similar imperfection in its ninth and tenth lines. The consonance called rhyme should be always at the tenth syllable, in Heroic verse.