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KING HENRY VIII.*

VOL. XV.

B

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

FROM

THE BEQUEST OF

EVERT JANSEN WENDELL

1918

* KING HENRY VIII.] We are unacquainted with any dramatick piece on the subject of Henry VIII. that preceded this of Shakspeare; and yet on the books of the Stationers' Company appears the following entry: "Nathaniel Butter] (who was one of our author's printers) Feb. 12, 1604. That he get good allowance for the enterlude of King Henry VIII. before he begin to print it; and with the wardens hand to yt, he is to have the same for his copy." Dr. Farmer, in a note on the epilogue to this play, observes, from Stowe, that Robert Greene had written somewhat on the same story. STEEVens.

This historical drama comprizes a period of twelve years, commencing in the twelfth year of King Henry's reign, (1521,) and ending with the christening of Elizabeth in 1533. Shakspeare 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.

King Henry VIII. was written, I believe, in 1601. See An Attempt to ascertain the Order of Shakspeare's Plays, Vol. II. Dr. Farmer, in a note on the epilogue, observes, from Stowe, that "Robert Greene had written something on this story;" but this, I apprehend, was not a play, but some historical account of Henry's reign, written not by Robert Greene, the dramatick poet, but by some other person. In the list of "authors out of whom Stowe's Annals were compiled," prefixed to the last edition printed in his life time, quarto, 1605, Robert Greene is enumerated with Robert de Brun, Robert Fabian, &c. and he is often quoted as an authority for facts in the margin of the history of that reign. MAlone.

PROLOGUE.

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

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, bawdy play,
A noise of targets; or to see a fellow
In a long motley coat,' guarded with yellow,
Will be deceiv'd: for, gentle hearers, know,
To rank our chosen truth with such a show

or to see a fellow

In a long motley coat,] Alluding to the fools and buffoons, introduced in the plays a little before our author's time: and of whom he has left us a small taste in his own.

THEOBALD.

In Marston's 10th Satire there is an allusion to this kind of dress:

"The long foole's coat, the huge slop, the lugg'd boot, "From mimick Piso all doe claime their roote."

Thus also Nashe, in his Epistle Dedicatory to Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, 1596: "-fooles, ye know, alwaies for the most part (especiallie if they bee naturall fooles) are suted in long coats." STEEVENS.

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