Therefore, for goodness' fake, and as you are known The very perfons of our noble story, 6 I know not on what occafion were to be used in the play." Ben Jonson, in his Execration upon Vulcan, says, they were two poor chambers. [See the stage-direction in this play, a little before the king's entrance. "Drum and trumpet, chambers discharged."] The continuator of Stowe's Chronicle, relating the fame accident, p. 1003, fays expressly, that it happened at the play of Henry the VIIIth. In a MS. letter of Tho. Lorkin to Sir Tho. Puckering, dated London, this last of June, 1613, the fame fact is thus related: "No longer fince than yesterday, while Bourbage his companie were acting at the Globe the play of Hen. VIII. and there shooting of certayne chambers in way of triumph, the fire catch'd," &c. MS. Harl. 7002. TYRWHITт. I have followed a regulation recommended by an anonymous correfpondent, and only included the contested line in a parenthesis, which in some editions was placed before the word befide. Opinion, I believe, means here, as in one of the parts of King Henry IV. character. [" Thou hast redeem'd thy loft opinion." King Henry IV. Part I. Vol. VIII. p. 585.] 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 never have fallen from the modest Shakspeare. I have no doubt that the whole prologue was written by Ben Jonfon, at the revival of the play, in 1613. MALONE. 5 The first and happiest bearers of the town, Were it necessary to strengthen Dr. Johnson's and Dr. Farmer's fuppofition (See notes on the Epilogue) that old Ben, not Shakspeare, was author of the prologue before us, we might observe that happy appears in the present instance to have been used with one of its Roman fignifications, i. e. propitious or favourable : " Sis bonus O, felixque tuis!" Virg. Ecl. 5. a sense of the word which must have been unknown to Shakspeare, but was familiar to Jonson. STEEVENS. Think, ye fee The very persons of our noble Aory,) Why the rhyme should have been interrupted here, when it was so easily to be fupplied, I cannot conceive. It can only be accounted for from the negligence of the press, or the transcribers; and therefore I have made no fcruple to replace it thus: -Think, before ye. THEOBALD. As they were living; think, you see them great, r This is specious, but the laxity of the versification in this pro logue, and in the following epilogue, makes it not neceffary. Mr. Heath would read: of our history. STEEVENS. JOHNSON, The word ftory was not intended to make a double, but merely a single rhyme, though, it must be acknowledged, a very bad one, the laft fyllable ry, corresponding in found with fee. I thought Theobald right, till I observed a couplet of the same kind in the epilogue: " For this play at this time is only in "The merciful construction of good women." In order to preserve the rhyme, the accent must be laid on the last fyllable of the words women and story. A rhyme of the fame kind occurs in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, where Master Humphrey says: "Till both of us arrive, at her request, "Some ten miles off in the wild Waltham forest." M. MASON, King Henry the Eighth. Cardinal Wolfey. Cardinal Campeius. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. Bishop of Lincoln. Lord Abergavenny. Lord Sands. Cromwell, Servant to Wolfey. Griffith, Gentleman-Usher to Queen Katharine. Three other Gentlemen. Doctor Butts, Physician to the King. Garter, King at Arms. Surveyor to the Duke of Buckingham. Door-keeper of the Council-Chamber. Porter, and his Man. Page to Gardiner. A Cryer. Queen Katharine, wife to King Henry; afterwards divorced. Anne Bullen, her maid of honour; afterwards Queen. Several Lords and Ladies in the dumb shows; Women SCENE, chiefly in London, and Westminster; once, at Kimbolton. KING HENRY VIII. ACT I. SCENE I. London. An Antechamber in the Palace. Enter the Duke of NORFOLK, at one door; at the other, the Duke of BUCKINGHAM, and the Lord ABERGAVENNY." BUCK. Good morrow, and well met. How have you done, Since last we faw in France? NOR. I thank your grace: Healthful; and ever since a fresh admirer 3 BUCK. An untimely ague Stay'd me a prisoner in my chamber, when Those funs of glory, those two lights of men, Met in the vale of Arde. 2 Lord Abergavenny.) George Nevill, who married Mary, daughter of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. REED. 3-a fresh admirer - An admirer untired; an admirer still feeling the impression as if it were hourly renewed. JOHNSON. + Those suns of glory,] That is, those glorious suns. The editor of the third folio plausibly enough reads-Those fons of glory; and indeed as in old English books the two words are used indifcriminately, the luminary being often spelt fon, it is sometimes difficult to determine which is meant; fun, or fon. However, the subsequent part of the line, and the recurrence of the fame expreffion afterwards, are in favour of the reading of the original copy. MALONE. Pope has borrowed this phrase in his Imitation of Horace's Epiftle to Augustus, v. 22: "Those funs of glory please not till they fet." STEEVENS, NOR. 'Twixt Guynes and Arde: 3 I was then present, saw them falute on horseback; Beheld them, when they lighted, how they clung In their embracement, as they grew together; 4 Which had they, what four thron'd ones could have weigh'd Such a compounded one? BUCK. All the whole time I was my chamber's prisoner. NOR. Then you loft The view of earthly glory: Men might say, To one above itself. Each following day 3 -Guyres and Arde:] Guynes then belonged to the English, and Arde to the French; they are towns in Picardy, and the valley of Ardren lay between them. Arde is Ardres, but both Hall and Holinshed write it as Shakspeare does. REED. 4 -as they grew together;] So, in All's well that ends well: "I grow to you, and our parting is as a tortured body." Again, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "So we grew together." STEEVENS. -as they grew together;] That is, as if they grew together. We have the fame image in our author's Venus and Adonis: - a sweet embrace; Incorporate then they feem; face grows to face." 5 Till this time, pomp was fingle; but now marry'd MALONE. To one above itself. The thought is odd and whimsical; and obfcure enough to need an explanation. Till this time (says the speaker) Pomp led a single life, as not finding a husband able to fupport her according to her dignity; but she has now got one in Henry VIII. who could fupport her, even above her condition, in finery. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton has here discovered more beauty than the author intended, who only meant to say in a noisy periphrafe, that pomp was encreased on this occafion to more than twice as much as it had ever been before. Pomp is no more married to the English than to the French king, for to neither is any preference given by the speaker. Pomp is only married to pomp, but the new pomp is greater than the old. JOHNSON. |