feel any sympathy or interest; the Grecian chiefs, though varied and coloured in the highest style of relief, are any thing but amiable, and of the persons involved in the love-intrigue, two are proverbially inturous, whilst the forsaken Troilus appears in too tame and inefficient a light to call forth any share of admiration or regret. 23. King Henry the Eighth: 1602. Few of the plays of Shakspeare have occasioned more difference of opinion, with regard to the era of their production, than this historical drama. Mr. Malone contends that it was written in 1601 or 1602, and that, after having lain by for some years unacted, on account of the costliness of its exhibition, it was revived in 1613, under the title of All is True, with new decorations, and a new prologue and epilogue; and that this revival took place on the very day, being St. Peter's, on which the Globe Theatre was burnt down, occasioned, it is said, by the discharge of some small pieces, called chambers, on King Henry's arrival at Cardinal Wolsey's gate at Whitehall, one of which, being injudiciously managed, set fire to the thatched roof of the theatre. He also joins with Dr. Johnson and Dr. Farmer in conceiving, that the prologue, and even some part of the dialogue, were, on this occasion, written by Ben Jonson, to whom he also ascribes the conduct and superintendence of the representation. * Mr. Chalmers, on the contrary, believes that this piece was neither represented nor written before 1613, and that its first appearance on the stage was the night of the conflagration above-mentioned. He reprobates the folly of supposing "that Ben Jonson, who was in perpetual hostility with Shakspeare, made adycyons to Henry VIII., or even wrote the prologue for our poet." j And, lastly, Mr. Gifford declares it to be his conviction that the tragedy of our poet was produced in 1601; but that, on the supposed revival of it in 1613, neither the prologue was written by Jonson, nor *Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. pp. 312. 316. + Supplemental Apology, p. 446. et seq. the play by Shakspeare, the piece then performed being a new play, called All is Truth, constructed, indeed, on the history of Henry the Eighth, and, like that, full of shows, but not the composition of our author. He has here likewise, as every where else, very successfully combated the prejudice and credulity of the commentators, in their perpetual assumption of the enmity of Jonson to Shakspeare. For the arguments by which these conflicting opinions are maintained, we must refer to the respective writings of the combatants, our limits only permitting us to state and briefly to support one or two circumstances which, in our view of them, seem irresistibly to prove, that, in the first place, the play performed on the 29th of June, 1613, was Shakspeare's tragedy of Henry the Eighth; and, secondly, that it was his tragedy revived, with a new name, and with a new prologue, both emanating from himself. Now, if the prologue which has always accompanied our author's drama from its first publication in 1623, manifestly and repeatedly allude to the title of the play which was represented on the 29th of June, 1613, and which we know to have been founded on the history of King Henry the Eighth, can there be a stronger proof of their identity, or a more satisfactory reply to the query of Mr. Gifford, who asks, who would have recognised Henry the Eighth under the name of All is Truth? (or rather, as he should have said, All is True?) than what these intimations afford? That they have, indeed, been noticed both by Mr. Tyrwhitt and Mr. Malone, as alluding to the title in question, is true; but they appear to us so important and decisive, as to merit being brought forward more distinctly, especially as they have escaped Mr. Gifford's attention. We shall therefore transcribe them, being convinced that not accident but design dictated their insertion : "Such, as give Their money out of hope they may believe, * The Works of Ben Jonson, by W. Gifford, Esq. 9 vols. 8vo. 1816. vol. i. p. cclxxii. * Gentle readers, know, To rank our chosen truth with such a show As fool and fight is," &c.— "To make that only true we now intend." That the play represented at the Globe in 1613, was merely a revived play, wants no other proof than the following:- In a MS. letter of Tho. Lorkin to Sir Tho. Puckering, dated London, this last of June, 1613, Lorkin tells his friend, that "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 of triumph, the fire catched," &c. * way We would now enquire if it were possible that any rational person writing from London to his friend in the country, concerning a new play which had been performed, for the first time, but the day before the date of his letter, could make use of language such as this? Must he not necessarily have said, a play, or a new play, called Hen. VIII.? And does not the phraseology which he has adopted, namely, THE play of Hen. VIII.,” evidently imply that the piece had been long known? 66 So decidedly, in our opinion, do these two circumstances prove, that it was Shakspeare's Henry the Eighth REVIVED, which was performed at the Globe Theatre on St. Peter's day, 1613, that we no longer hesitate a moment in admitting, with the principal.commentators, that this tragedy was originally written but a short time anterior to the death of Elizabeth, to whom some elegant and appropriate praise is offered; and that the compliment to James the First, rather forcibly introduced into the closing scene, was composed by our poet expressly for the revival of 1613; admissions which not only seem warranted by the internal evidence of the play, but almost necessarily flow from the establishment of the two inferences for which we have contended. *MS. Harl. 7002.-Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 6. There is much reason to conclude that, in the long interval between the death of Queen Elizabeth, and the year 1613, our author's Henry the Eighth had never been performed; and it is further probable that, on this account, and in consequence of its receiving a new name, a new prologue and epilogue, and new decorations of unprecedented splendour, the players might, as Mr. Malone has suggested, have called it in the bills of that time a new play*; an epithet which we find Sir Henry Wotton has adopted, when describing the accident at the Globe Theatre, and which, if writing in haste, or with less attention to the history of the stage than occurs in the letter of Mr. Lorkin, he might, from similar causes, naturally be expected to repeat. † In adjusting the chronology of this play Mr. Malone has remarked, that Shakspeare, having produced so many plays in the preceding years," it is not likely that King Henry the Eighth was written before 1601. It might, perhaps, with equal propriety, be ascribed to 1602.”‡ We have fixed upon the latter date, for this obvious reason, that our enquiries, having led us to supply the preceding year with two plays, it has been thought more consonant to probability to assign it to the less occupied period of 1602. It appears to us, therefore, to have been composed about a twelvemonth previous to the death of the Queen, an event which occurred in March, 1603. It need scarcely be added, that, from Mr. Gifford's complete refutation of the slander which has been so long indulged in against the character of Ben Jonson, we utterly disbelieve that this calumniated poet had any concern in the revival of Henry the Eighth. The entire interest of this tragedy turns upon the characters of Queen Katharine and Cardinal Wolsey; the former being the finest picture of suffering and defenceless virtue, and the latter of disappointed ambition, that poet ever drew. The close of the second * Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 317. Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 312. + Reliq. Wotton. p. 425. scene of the third act, which describes the fall of Wolsey, and the whole of the second scene of the fourth, which paints the dying sorrows and devout resignation of the persecuted Queen, have, as lessons of moral worth, a never-dying value; and of the latter, especially, it may without extravagance be said, that, in its power of exciting sympathy and compassion, it stands perfectly unrivalled by any dramatic effort of ancient or of modern time. 24. TIMON OF ATHENS: 1602. The existence of a manuscript play on this subject, to which our author has been evidently indebted, ought, in the absence of all other direct testimony, to be considered as our guiding star. Here, says Mr. Malone, our poet "found the faithful steward, the banquet scene, and the story of Timon's being possessed of great sums of gold which he had dug up in the woods: a circumstance which he could not have had from Lucian, there being then no translation of the dialogue that relates to this subject * ;” and, in another place he remarks, that this manuscript comedy appears to have been written after Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour, (1599,) to which it contains a reference; but I have not discovered the precise time when it was composed. If it were ascertained, it might be some guide to us in fixing the date of our author's Timon of Athens, which I suppose to have been posterior to this anonymous play." † 66 Now Mr. Steevens, who accurately inspected the manuscript play, tells us that it appears to have been written about the year 1600 ‡, whilst Mr. Chalmers has brought forward several intimations which, he thinks, prove, that Shakspeare's drama was written during the reign of Elizabeth. § These statements, it is obvious, bring the subject into a small compass; for as the anonymous comedy must have been composed after 1599, referring, as it does, to a drama of that date, and as some * Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xix. p. 3. Ibid. vol. xix. p. 2. + Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 355, 356. § Supplemental Apology, p. 391. |