or some other dramatist, altered the play for a revival representation in the reign of James. It certainly appears probable that this drama has in some of its parts been retouched by another than the original hand; but that the first acting of the piece, as composed by Shakspeare, was in 1613, appears equally probable from evidence preserved in some letters of the period, respecting a new play, called Henry the Eighth or All is True, brought out in June of that year at the Globe Theatre. Sir Henry Wotton, writing to his nephew, on 6th July 1613, says, "The king's players had a new play called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty. Now, King Henry making a mask at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper or other stuff, wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where being thought at first but an idle smoke, and their eyes being more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming, in less than an hour, the whole house to the very ground."* *** If we are justified by such evidence as this in believing that the first representation of Shakspeare's Henry the Eighth is here referred to, we should, perhaps, claim for the same writer the authorship of the Prologue and Epilogue, which some of the commentators have attributed to Ben Jonson. And then we may feel that the poet probably spoke in harmony with a graver cast of thought which may have come upon him in his 50th year, when he said— *The Globe and the Blackfriars were the two principal London theatres in Shakspeare's time. The former was a public theatre, the latter a private one; but both belonged to the same company of players, Shakspeare himself being for some time one of the proprietors. The Globe, built about 1596, was an hexagonal building, open in the middle over the yard or pit, where the "groundlings" stood, and thatched over the boxes. It was situated at the Bankside, Southwark, near London Bridge, and took its name from an herculean figure supporting the globe, on which were the Latin words, Totus mundus agit histrionem, i. e. All the world acts as the player; or, as Shakspeare has said, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." "I come no more to make you laugh; things now III. The historical guides followed by Shakspeare in this play are-The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, by George Cavendish; The Union of the Families of Lancaster and York, by Edward Hall; The Chronicle of Raphael Holinshed, and The Acts and Monuments of the Church, by John Fox. Fox, the well-known martyrologist, died in 1587; his Acts and Monuments was printed in 1563. Hall, who was some time Recorder of London, died in 1547; the first edition of his Chronicle was in 1548. The Chronicle of Holinshed, an obscure clergyman, was first published in 1577; he copied largely from Cavendish, who was one of Wolsey's gentlemanushers, and whose Life of the Cardinal was written very shortly after the death of Henry VIII. This biography was not printed till 1641; but there were many manuscript copies of it in Shakspeare's time, though differing from each other in many of the readings. We have two good modern editions of Cavendish's "Wolsey,"-one by Singer, the other by Wordsworth in his Ecclesiastical Biography. IV. In these authorities Shakspeare found many details requiring only a very slight alteration of the language to give them a dramatic form, as will be seen from the opportunities of comparison which we have supplied in the present volume. The poet did not feel much at liberty to vary from the acknowledged records of such recent times; and hence many portions of his "chosen truth" appear somewhat prosaic.* Several *Shakspeare must have anticipated that many portions of his story would be of a prosaic character, which may account for the generally loose structure of the versification. That structure may appear negligent, but it is really indicative of the poet's judicious conformity to the nature of his subject. The form of verse employed by Shakspeare is that species of Iambic measure called the Heroic, in which the line consists normally of five feet or ten syllables, with the accent, or pressure of voice, on the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th syllables. "After the tenth syllable," says Craik, "an unaccented syllable, or even two, may be added, without any prosodical effect. The rhythm is completed with the tenth passages, indeed, were they printed in the form of prose, would hardly be observed to be metrical; as, for example, that passage, near the beginning of the Fourth Act: "The Archbishop of Canterbury, accompanied with other learned and reverend fathers of his order, held a late court at Dunstable, six miles off from Ampthill where the princess lay; to which she was often cited by them, but appeared not. And, to be short, for not-appearance, and the king's late scruple, by the main assent of all these learned men she was divorced." By no means few, however, are the instances which this play contains, of a transmutation of the plain statements of the chroniclers into poetry of the most exalted kind,—the transmutation being effected sometimes by condensation, sometimes by enlargement, and not unfrequently by mere touches of gentlest delicacy. Nor are the instances few in which the dramatist has enriched his story by the noblest original emanations of poetic sentiment and language. V. It may be requisite for many youthful readers to be guarded against an erroneous judgment as to the manner in which historic truth is presented in this drama; there being several deviations from chronological truth,—as, for instance, the following : The reversal of the decree for taxing the commons (1525), and the examination of Buckingham's surveyor (1521), are in one scene. The banqueting scene (1526) precedes that of Bucking syllable; and what follows is only as it were a slight reverberation or echo."-"What mainly gives its character to the English Heroic line is its being poised upon the tenth syllable." (See Craik's "English of Shakspeare," for some excellent remarks on the Prosody of Shakspeare's Plays.) In the play of Henry VIII. we find an unusually great proportion of lines ending with redundant syllables; such as the first two of the following lines: Your grace has given a precedent of wis/dom In the last of these lines we have an instance of an unaccented tenth syllable. ham's condemnation (1521); in the latter of which is introduced mention of the king's scruples about his marriage (1527), and of the arrival of Campeggio (1529). The scene in which Anne is advanced to the dignity of Marchioness of Pembroke (1532) precedes that of the legatine court (1529). In the same scene in which the birth of Elizabeth (1533) is announced to the king, he converses with Cranmer about the charge of heresy (1543). In the council scene, in which Cranmer is accused (1543), Henry requests him to be godfather at the approaching baptism (1533). Now, these instances show that the poet intentionally violated the order of time; yet so far from introducing confusion into history hereby, he has really methodised it in its moral elements, and made it both intelligible and instructive. Coleridge gives us a just idea of what a dramatic history should be, when he says, "it is a collection of events borrowed from history, but connected together, in respect of cause and time, poetically and by dramatic fiction; and thus while the unity from mere succession may be destroyed, it is supplied by a unity of a higher order, which connects the events by reference to the workers, gives a reason for them in the motives, and presents men in their causative character." It is by this principle of dramatic unity, -often bringing together and accounting for apparent inconsistencies of human conduct, and showing some general tendency or significancy of apparently isolated events,-that Shakspeare has made his countrymen so truly intelligent in those portions of English history which he has illustrated. His eye, while it glanced "from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven," saw and reverenced the interpositions of Providence in the affairs of men, and then gave such arrangement to human actions as should exhibit more distinctly and impressively their convergence towards a heaven-designed issue. He glanced also from one part to another of the recorded behaviour of an individual, and thence, through his wonderful knowledge of the human heart, was enabled to select such specimens of conduct, and to present them in such order, as might vividly realise to us the whole nature of the individual. He found in many instances the chronological order of events presenting a series of desultory things, but by his master mind they were soon so transposed as to present harmonious and explanatory pictures. In short, it is his manner of setting the facts of history that has made them reflect so fully and powerfully their real character and import. VI. The action of this play is commonly described as commencing shortly after the return of the English court from the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, and terminating with the christening of the infant princess Elizabeth in 1533, thus extending over a period of about thirteen years. It should be observed, however, that Shakspeare anticipates some important transactions belonging to the year 1543, whereby he has virtually extended the action of the play to within a very few years of Henry's death. And let it not be supposed that still there is presented too small a part of the monarch's conduct for a just exhibition of his character. The genius of Shakspeare ever loved the path of historic impartiality; and we shall find that in his Henry the Eighth he has made such a selection and arrangement of facts as may well serve for a history-the moral history—of that prince. Not that Henry himself is the great hero of the piece :-the most important and interesting 'persons of the drama" are Katharine and Wolsey; yet the temper and procedure and fate of Wolsey are developments arising out of Henry's behaviour; and the display of Katharine's sublime virtue, of her temperate but firm resistance of injustice, her magnanimity, her charity, her patience and saintly resignation, is an impressive commentary on the character of the monarch who treats her so unworthily. 66 VII. To comprehend all that essentially constituted the moral history of this tyrant, it was not necessary that the action of the play should begin earlier than the eleventh year of his reign. He came to the throne with an undisputed title, the rival pretensions of Lancaster and York being united in his person. |