King Henry the Eightb.
Cardinal Wolfey. 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 Sande.
Sir Henry Guildford. Sir Thomas Lovell.
Sir Anthony Denny. Sir Nicholas Vaux.
Secretaries to Wolsey.
Cromwell, Servant to Wolsey.
Griffith, Gentleman-Usher to Queen Catharine.
Three oiber Gentlemen.
Doktor Butts, Physician 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 di.

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

Several Lords and Ladies in the dumb shows ;

Women tending upon the Queen; Spirits, which appear to her ;

Scribes, Officers, Guards, and other Attendants. SCENE, chiefly in London, and Westminster ; once, at

Kimbolton.

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 pretent. Those, that can pity, here
May, if they think it well, let fall a tear;
The subject will deferve 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 pais; if they be itill, 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 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
As fool and fight is?, beside forfeiting
Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring,
1 or 10 fee a fellcov

in a long motley coat,] Alluding to the foals 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 small taste in his own. THEOBALD.

So, Naih, in his Epiftie Dedicatory to Have witb you to Saffror Wal. der, or Gabriel Harvey's Hune is Up, 1596: " -- fcoles, ye know, al. waies for the most part (especiallie if they bee naturall fcoles) are futed in long coats." STIEVENS. 2 — fucb a first

As fol and figbe 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 fix 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 figne would destroy all opinion of trulb, and leave him never en underHarding friend. Magnis ingeniis et mulia nibilominus babituris fimplex convenir erroris confcio. Yet I know not whether the coronation thewn in this play may not be liable to all that can be cbjected against a battle. JOMNSON. B 2

T.

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

Therefore 3 tbe opinion ebat we bring,

(To make ebat only true we now intend,)] These lines I do not on. derstand, and suspect them of corruption. I believe we may better read tbus:

-ib' 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 pre tend. So, in the preceding play

“ Intend some deep fufpicion." STEEVENS. If any alteration were necesary, I thould 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 prae.

This pallage, and others of this Prologue in which great stress is laid upon obe trutb of the ensuing representation, would lead one to suspect, that this play of Henry the Vilith, 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 “ a new play, (acted by the king's players as 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, fir Henry says, that play was set forth, and the particular incident of certain cannons foot off at the king's entry to a masque at ibe cardinal Wolsey's boufe, (by which the theatre was set on fire and burnt to the ground,) are strictly applicable to the play be. fore us. Mr. Chamberlaine, in Winwood's Memorials, Vol. III. p. 469, mentions,“ the burning of obe Globe or playhouse, on the Banke fide, on St. Peter's-day (1613,] which, (says he) fell out by a peale of chambers, that I know not on what occafion were to be used in the play.” B. Jonson, in his Execration upon Vulcan, says, they were two poor cbambers. (See the stage direction in this play, a little before the king's entrance. Drum and trumpet, chambers disi barged.] The continuator of Stowe's Cbrenicle, relating the same accident, p. 1003, says expressly, that it happened at obe play of Henry obe VIllıb.

In a MS. letter of Thomas Lorkin to fir Thomas Puckering, dated London, ibis left of June, 1613, the same fact is thus related. " No longer fince than yefterday, while Bourbage his companie were acting at the Globe the play of Henry VIII. and there shooting of certayne obambers in way of triumph, the fire catch'd &c. MS. Harlo 17002.

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. cbarafier.-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

Therefore, for goodness' sake, and as you are knows
The first and happiest hearers of the town,
Be sad, as we could make ye: Think, ye fee
The very persons of our noble story,
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 merry then, I'll say,
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.
ia 1613. MALONI,