INTRODUCTION ΤΟ HENRY VIII. "THE Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth" was first printed, it is believed, in the folio of 1623. The date of its production is uncertain, and has been the subject of much discussion. The earlier editors, as Theobald and Malone, contended that it was written before the death of Elizabeth, which took place in the March of 1603, and that therefore the complimentary allusion to her successor (Act V. sc. iv. 40-56) was inserted perhaps by Ben Jonson at some later revisal of the play during the reign of James I. Most of the modern editors, however, such as Knight, Collier, Dyce, and White, believe that it was produced after the acces sion of James. In the registers of the Stationers' Company there is an entry, 12th February, 1604-1605, referring to an as yet unprinted interlude, entitled "King Henry the Eighth," which some suppose to refer to Shakespeare's play, but others to a play of Samuel Rowley's, "When you See me, you Know me, or the Famous Chronicle History of King Henry the Eighth," which was published in 1605. All that is certain is, that i' must have been produced before June, 1613, when the Globe Theatre was burned down, owing to the thatch of the roof being fired by the wadding of the chambers, or small guns, discharged during a performance. Sir Henry Wotton, in a detailed account of the accident given in a letter to his nephew, written on the 6th July, 1613, says the calamity occurred during the acting of a new play, called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth. Two other contemporaries give the name of the piece distinctly as Henry VIII., and there can be no doubt that this refers to the present play, in which, according to the original stage direction (I. iv.), we have "chambers discharged" at the entrance of the king to the "mask at the Cardinal's house." The phrase, a new play," may, of course, merely mean that Shakespeare's play was an old play altered, and revived with new dresses, new prologue, epilogue, and decorations. Such pieces were always called new. Our play seems at any rate to have borne originally a double title, but the "All is True" soon dropped, leaving only the more distinctive title corresponding to those in Shakespeare's other historical plays. It will not be forgotten, also, that the truth of the drama is much insisted on in the prologue.* The internal evidences, such as those from style and versification, go to show that this was one of Shakespeare's latest works. As White observes, "The exces * 66 May here find truth too" (line 9); "To rank our chosen truth with such a show" (line 18); and "To make that only true we now intend" (line 21). sively elliptical construction, and the incessant use of verbal contractions, are marks of Shakespeare's latest years—those which produced The Tempest and The Winter's Tale." It will also be found that many lines in this play end with an unaccented eleventh syllable, and this is but seldom found in those of Shakespeare's plays which are known to be the earliest. The ordinary line in Shakespeare's verse, of course, consists of five iambic feet, or feet of two syllables each, the second syllable in each foot being accented. The usual variations by which the monotony of a constant repetition of such lines is relieved, are the changing of the position of the accent, and the introduction of trisyllabic and monosyllabic feet. In Shakespeare's usage, the extra syllable is very rarely a monosyllable, still more rarely an emphatic monosyllable, but in Henry VIII.exceptions are found to this rule, and this of itself seems to Dr. Abbott a sufficient proof that Shakespeare did not write that play. It is, however, a fact that such endings became more and more frequent in the later plays of our dramatist. As Mr. Hudson says, "The truth seems to be, that Shakespeare's verse became less and less studious of iambic ending as he advanced in life; the comparative frequency of lines ending with amphibrachs [~~~], being one of the most special traits of his later style." One of the most strongly marked characteristics of Fletcher's verse is the very frequent occurrence of such amphibrachic or "double endings," and on this basis an attempt has been made to prove that a large portion of our play was written by that dramatist. This theory was first put forward |