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Perfons Reprefented.

King Henry the Eighth.

Cardinal Wolfey. Cardinal Campeius.
Capucius, Ambaffador 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 Wolfey.

Cromwell, Servant to Wolley.

Griffith, Gentleman-Ufher to Queen Catharine.
Three other Gentlemen.

Doctor Butts, Phyfician to the King.

Garter, King at Arms.

Surveyor to the Duke of Buckingham.

Brandon, and a Serjeant at arms.

Door-keeper of the Council-Chamber. Porter, and his Man. Page to Gardiner. A Cryer.

Queen Catharine, wife to King Henry; afterwards die

vorced :

Anne Bullen, her maid of honour; afterwards Queen.
An old Lady, Friend to Anne Bullen.
Patience, Woman to Queen Catharine.

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 Weftminster; once, at Kimbolton.

I come no more to make you laugh; things now,
That bear a weighty and a ferious brow,
Sad, high, and working, full of flate and woe,
Such noble fcenes as draw the eye to flow,
We now prefent. Thofe, that can pity, here
May, if they think it well, let fall a tear;
The fubject will deferve it. Such, as give
Their money out of hope they may believe,
May here find truth too. Thofe, that come to fee
Only a fhow or two, and fo agree,

The play may país; if they be still, and willing,
I'll undertake, may see away their fhilling
Richly in two fhort hours. Only they,
That come to hear a merry, bawdy play,
A noife of targets; or to fee a fellow

In a long motley coat', guarded with yellow,
Will be deceiv'd: for, gentle hearers, know,
To rank our chofen truth with such a show
As fool and fight is 2, befide forfeiting

Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring,

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or to fee a fellow

In a long motley coat,] Alluding to the fools and buffoons, intro duced for the generality in the plays a little before our author's time: and of whom he has left us a fmall tafte in his own.

THEOBALD.

So, Nath, in his Epistle Dedicatory to Have with you to Saffron Wal den, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is Up, 1596: "fooles, ye know, alwaies for the most part (efpeciallie if they bee naturall fooles) are futed in long coats." STEEVENS.

2 — fuch a show

As fiol and fight is,-] This is not the only paffage in which Shakspeare has difcovered his conviction of the impropriety of battles reprefented on the stage. He knew that five or fix men with fwords, gave a very unfatisfactory idea of an army, and therefore, without much care to excufe his former practice, he allows that a theatrical fight would deftroy all opinion of truth, and leave him never an underfanding friend. Magnis ingeniis et multa nibilominus babituris fimplex convenit erroris confeffio. Yet I know not whether the coronation fhewn in this play may not be liable to all that can be objected against a battle. JOHNSON.

T.

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(To make that only true we now intend,)
Will leave us never an understanding friend.

3

-the opinion that we bring,

Therefore

(To make that only true we now intend,)] Thefe lines I do not underftand, and fufpect them of corruption. I believe we may better read

thus:

-th' 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 pra tend. So, in the preceding play

Intend fome deep fufpicion." STEEVENS.

If any alteration were neceffary, I fhould 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 exbibit only what is true.

This paflage, and others of this Prologue in which great stress is laid upon the truth of the enfuing reprefentation, 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 defcription of a" a new play, [acted by the king's players at the Bank's Side] called All is True, reprefenting fome principal pieces The extraordinary circumstances of of the reign of Henry the VIIIth." pomp and majefty, with which, fir Henry fays, that play was fet forth, and the particular incident of certain cannons foot off at the king's entry to a mafque at the cardinal Wolfey's boufe, (by which the theatre was fet on fire and burnt to the ground,) are ftrictly 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 Bankfide, on St. Peter's-day [1613,] which, (fays he) fell out by a peale of chambers, that I know not on what occafion were to be used in the play." B. Jonfon, in his Execration upon Vulcan, fays, they were two poor chambers. [See the ftage-direction in this play, a little before Drum and trumpet, chambers dif.barged.] The the king's entrance. continuator of Stowe's Chronicle, relating the fame accident, p. 1003, fays exprefsly, that it happened at the play of Henry the VIIIth.

"No

In a MS. letter of Thomas Lorkin to fir Thomas Puckering, dated London, this laft of June, 1613, the fame fact is thus related. longer fince than yefterday, while Bourbage his companie were acting at the Globe the play of Henry VIII. and there fhooting of certayne chambers in way of triumph, the fire catch'd &c. MS. Harl. 17002.

TYRWHITTO

I have followed a regulation recommended by an anonymous correfpondent, and only included the contefted line in a parenthefis, which in fome editions was placed before the word befide. Opinion, I believe, means here, as in one of the parts of King Henry IV. character.-To realize and fulfil the expectations formed of our play, is now our object. This fentiment (to say nothing of the general ftyle of this prologue,) could

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

Be fad, as we could make ye: Think, ye fee
The very perfons of our noble ftory,

As they were living; think, you fee them great,
And follow'd with the general throng, and fweat,
Of thousand friends; then, in a moment, see
How foon this mightiness meets mifery !
And, if you can be merry then, I'll fay,
A man may weep upon his wedding day.

never have fallen from the modeft Shakspeare. I have no doubt that the whole prologue was written by Ben Jonson, at the revival of the play. in 1613. MALONE,

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