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As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting
Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring,
(To make that only true we now intend,3)
Will leave us never an understanding friend.

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As fool and fight is,] This is not the only passage in which Shakspeare has discovered his conviction of the impropriety of battles represented on the stage. He knew that five or six men with swords, gave a very unsatisfactory idea of an army, and therefore, without much care to excuse his former practice, he allows that a theatrical fight would destroy all opinion of truth, and leave him never an understanding friend. Magnis ingeniis et multa nihilominus habituris simplex convenit erroris confessio. Yet I know not whether the coronation shown in this play may not be liable to all that can be objected against a battle.

3

the opinion that we bring,

JOHNSON.

(To make that only true we now intend,)] These lines I do not understand, and suspect them of corruption. I believe we may better read thus:

the opinion, that we bring

Or make; that only truth we now intend. JOHNSON.

To intend, in our author, has sometimes the same meaning as to pretend. So, in King Richard III:

Again:

"The mayor is here at hand: Intend some fear

"Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,
"Intending deep suspicion." STEEVENS.

If any alteration were necessary, I should be for only changing the order of the words, and reading:

That only true to make we now intend:

i. e. that now we intend to exhibit only what is true.

This passage, and others of this Prologue, in which great stress is laid upon the truth of the ensuing representation, would lead one to suspect, that this play of Henry the VIIIth. is the very play mentioned by Sir H. Wotton, [in his Letter of 2 July, 1613, Reliq. Wotton, p. 425,] under the description of " 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 VIIIth." The extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, with which, Sir Henry says, that play was set forth and the particular incident of certain cannons shot off at the

Therefore, for goodness' sake, and as you are known The first and happiest hearers of the town,*

King's entry to a masque at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, (by which the theatre was set on fire and burnt to the ground,) are strictly applicable to the play before us. Mr. Chamberlaine, in Winwood's Memorials, Vol. III. p. 469, mentions "the burning of the Globe, or playhouse, on the Bankside, on St. Peter's-day [1613,] which (says he) fell out by a peale of chambers, that I know not on what occasion were to be used in the play." Ben Jonson, in his Execration upon Vulcan, says, they were two poor chambers. [See the stage-direction in this play, a little before the King's entrance: "Drum and trumpet, chambers discharged." The Continuator of Stowe's Chronicle, relating the same accident, p. 1003, says expressly, that it happened at the play of Henry the VIIIth

In a MS. Letter of Tho. Lorkin to Sir Tho. Puckering, dated London, this last of June, 1613, the same fact is thus related: "No longer since than yesterday, while Bourbage his companie were acting at the Globe the play of Hen. VIII. and there shooting of certayne chambers in way of triumph, the fire catch'd," &c. MS. Harl. 7002. TYRWHITT.

I have followed a regulation recommended by an anonymous correspondent, and only included the contested line in a parenthesis, which in some editions was placed before the word beside. Opinion, I believe, means here, as in one of the parts of King Henry IV.character. ["Thou hast redeem'd thy lost opinion. King Henry IV. Part I. Vol. XI. p. 422.] To realize and fulfil the expectations formed of our play, is now our object. This sentiment (to say nothing of the general style of this prologue) could never have fallen from the modest Shakspeare. I have no doubt that the whole prologue was written by Ben Jonson, at the revival of the play, in 1613. MALone.

• The first and happiest hearers of the town,] Were it necessary to strengthen Dr. Johnson's and Dr. Farmer's supposition, (see notes on the epilogue,) that old Ben, not Shakspeare, was author of the prologue before us, we might observe, that happy appears, in the present instance, to have been used with one of its Roman significations, i. e. propitious or favourable: "Sis bonus O, felixque tuis!" Virg. Ecl. 5. a sense of the word which must have been unknown to Shakspeare, but was familiar to Jonson. STEEVENS.

Be sad, as we would make ye: Think, ye see
The very persons of our noble story,5

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
you can be merry then, I'll say,
A man may weep upon his wedding day.

Think, ye see

The very persons of our noble story,] Why the rhyme should have been interrupted here, when it was so easily to be supplied, I cannot conceive. It can only be accounted for from the negligence of the press, or the transcribers; and therefore I have made no scruple to replace it thus:

Think, before ye. THEOBALD.

This is specious, but the laxity of the versification in this prologue, and in the following epilogue, makes it not necessary. JOHNSON.

Mr. Heath would read:

of our history. STEEVENS.

The word story was not intended to make a double, but merely a single rhyme, though, it must be acknowledged, a very bad one, the last syllable, ry, corresponding in sound with see. I thought Theobald right, till I observed a couplet of the same kind in the epilogue:

"For this play at this time is only in

"The merciful construction of good women." In order to preserve the rhyme, the accent must be laid on the last syllable of the words women and story.

A rhyme of the same kind occurs in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, where Master Humphrey says:

"Till both of us arrive, at her request,

"Some ten miles off in the wild Waltham forest."

M. MASON.

King Henry the Eighth.

Cardinal Wolsey. Cardinal Campeius.
Capucius, Ambassador from the Emperor, Charles V.
Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Duke of Norfolk. Duke of Buckingham.
Duke of Suffolk. Earl of Surrey.

Lord Chamberlain. Lord Chancellor.

Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester.

Bishop of Lincoln. Lord Abergavenny. Lord Sands.
Sir Henry Guildford. Sir Thomas Lovell.
Sir Anthony Denny. Sir Nicholas Vaux.
Secretaries to Wolsey.

Cromwell, Servant to Wolsey.

Griffith, Gentleman-Usher to Queen Katharine.
Three other Gentlemen.

Doctor Butts, Physician to the King.

Garter, King at Arms.

Surveyor to the Duke of Buckingham.

Brandon, and a Sergeant at Arms.

Door-keeper of the Council-Chamber. Porter, and his Man.

Page to Gardiner. A Crier.

Queen Katharine, Wife to King Henry, afterwards divorced.

Anne Bullen, her Maid of Honour, afterwards
Queen.

An old Lady, Friend to Anne Bullen.
Patience, Woman to Queen Katharine.

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.

KING HENRY VIII.

ACT I. SCENE I.

London. An Ante-chamber in the Palace.

Enter the Duke of NORFOLK, at one Door; at the Mother, the Duke of BUCKINGHAM, and the Lord ABERGAVENNY."

BUCK. 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 2 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.

Lord Abergavenny.] George Nevill, who married Mary, daughter of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. REED. *—a fresh admirer-] An admirer untired; an admirer still feeling the impression as if it were hourly renewed.

o

JOHNSON.

Those suns of glory,] That is, those glorious suns. The editor of the third folio plausibly enough reads-Those sons of glory; and indeed as in old English books the two words are used indiscriminately, the luminary being often spelt son, it is

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