* 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 K. Henry VIII. before he begin to print it; and with the wardens hand to yt, he is to have the fame for his copy." Dr. Farmer in a note on the epilogue to this play, observes from Stowe, that Robert Greene had written fomewhat 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 chriftening of Elizabeth in 1533. Shakspeare has deviated from hiftory 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 afcertain the order of Shakespeare's Plays, Vol. I. Dr. Farmer in a note on the epilogue observes from Stowe, that "Robert Greene had written fomething on this story;" but this, I apprehend, was not a play, but fome historical account of Henry's reign, written not by Robert Greene, the dramatick poet, but by fome other perfon. In the list of "authors out of whom Stowe's Annals were compiled," prefixed to the laft 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. 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 fubject will deserve it. Such, as give Their money out of hope they may believe, May here find truth too. Those, that come to fee Only a show or two, and so agree, The play may pass; if they be still, and willing, I'll undertake, may fee away their fhilling Richly in two short 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, beside forfeiting 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 allufion to this kind of dress: "The long foole's coat, the huge flop, the lugg'd boot, 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 futed in long coats." STEEVENS. 3-fuch a show As fool and fight is,] This is not the only passage in which Shakfpeare has discovered his conviction of the impropriety of Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring, (To make that only true we now intend,+) Will leave us never an understanding friend. battles represented on the stage. He knew that five or fix men with swords, gave a very unfatisfactory 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 & multa nihilominus habituris fimplex convenit erroris confeffio. Yet I know not whether the coronation shown in this play may not be liable to all that can be objected against a battle. JOHNSON. the opinion that we bring, (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 fufpicion." STEEVENS. If any alteration were neceffary, 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 defcription of " a new play, [acted by the king's players at the Bank's Side] called, All is True, reprefenting fome 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 king's entry to a masque at the Cardinal Wolfey's house, (by which the theatre was fet 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'sday [1613,] which, (fays he) fell out by a peale of chambers, that |