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And let their heirs (God, if Thy will be so)
Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,
With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!
Rebate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,3
That would reduce these bloody days again,
And make poor England weep in streams of blood!
Let them not live to taste this land's increase,
That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!
Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again:
That she may long live here, God say amen.

[Exeunt.

The

The old copies read, "Abate the edge of traitors." change is derived from Mr. Collier's second folio. Abate is hardly capable of any sense that will apply to edge; while rebate is just the word wanted, its meaning being to beat back or blunt. Thus in Baret's Alvearie, 1580: "To rebate or make dull, Aciem ferri hebetare." Likewise in Measure for Measure, Act i. sc. 5 ·

"But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast."

H.

To reduce is to bring back; an obsolete sense of the word derived from its Latin original, reduco. "The mornynge forsak yng the golden bed of Titan, reduced the desyred day.” — Euri alus and Lucretia, 1560

INTRODUCTION

ΤΟ

THE LIFE OF HENRY VIII.

THE FAMOUS HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE EIGHTH was first published in the folio of 1623, with a text unusually correct for the time, with the acts and scenes reg ularly marked throughout, and with the stage-directions more full and particular than in any of the previous dramas. That it should have been printed so accurately is the more remarkable, inasmuch as the construction of the sentences is often greatly involved, the meaning in many places very obscure, and the versification irregular to the last degree of dramatic freedom through

out.

The date of the composition has been more variously argued and concluded than can well be accounted for, considering the clearness and coherence of the premises. The Globe Theatre was burned down the 29th of June, 1613. Howes, in his continuation of Stowe's Chronicle, recording this event some time after it took place, speaks of "the house being filled with people to behold the play of Henry the Eighth." And in the Harleian Manuscripts is a letter from Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, dated "London, this last of June," and containing the following: "No longer since than yesterday, while Burbage his company were acting at the Globe the play of Henry VIII., and there shooting of certain chambers in triumph, the fire catched, and fastened upon the thatch of the house, and there burned so furiously, as it consumed the whole house, and in less than two hours, the people having enough to do to save themselves." But the most particular account of the event is in a letter written by Sir Henry Wotton to his nephew, and dated July 6, 1613: "Now to let matters of state sleep, I will entertain you at the present with what happened this week at the Bankside. The king's players had a new play, called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth

And let their heirs (God, if Thy will be so)
Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,
With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!
Rebate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,"
That would reduce these bloody days again,
And make poor England weep in streams of blood!
Let them not live to taste this land's increase,

6

That would with treason wound this fair land's peace! Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again : That she may long live here, God say amen.

[Exeunt.

The old copies read, "Abate the edge of traitors." The change is derived from Mr. Collier's second folio. Abate is hardly capable of any sense that will apply to edge; while rebate is just the word wanted, its meaning being to beat back or blunt. Thus in Baret's Alvearie, 1580: "To rebate or make dull, Aciem ferri hebetare." Likewise in Measure for Measure, Act i. sc. 5 ·

"But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast."

H.

To reduce is to bring back; an obsolete sense of the word derived from its Latin original, reduco. "The mornynge forsak yng the golden bed of Titan, reduced the desyred day."— Euri alus and Lucretia, 1560

INTRODUCTION

ΤΟ

THE LIFE OF HENRY VIII.

THE FAMOUS HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE EIGHTH was first published in the folio of 1623, with a text unusually correct for the time, with the acts and scenes reg ularly marked throughout, and with the stage-directions more full and particular than in any of the previous dramas. That it should have been printed so accurately is the more remarkable, inasmuch as the construction of the sentences is often greatly involved, the meaning in many places very obscure, and the versification irregular to the last degree of dramatic freedom through

out.

The date of the composition has been more variously argued and concluded than can well be accounted for, considering the clearness and coherence of the premises. The Globe Theatre was burned down the 29th of June, 1613. Howes, in his continuation of Stowe's Chronicle, recording this event some time after it took place, speaks of "the house being filled with people to behold the play of Henry the Eighth." And in the Harleian Manuscripts is a letter from Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, dated 66 London, this last of June," and containing the following: "No longer since than yesterday, while Burbage his company were acting at the Globe the play of Henry VIII., and there shooting of certain chambers in triumph, the fire catched, and fastened upon the thatch of the house, and there burned so furiously, as it consumed the whole house, and in less than two hours, the people having enough to do to save themselves." the most particular account of the event is in a letter written by Sir Henry Wotton to his nephew, and dated July 6, 1613: "Now to let matters of state sleep, I will entertain you at the present with what happened this week at the Bankside. The king's players had a new play, called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth

But

with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage; the knights of the order with their Georges and Garter, the guards with their embroidered coats and the like; sufficient, in truth, within a while to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now, King Henry making a mask at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper, or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where, being thought at first but an idle smoke, and their eyes being more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very ground. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabric, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broiled him, if he had not, by the benefit of a provident wit, put it out with bottle ale."

From all which it would seem that the play originally had a double title, one referring to the plan, the other to the material, of the composition. At all events, Sir Henry's description clearly identifies the play to have been the one now in hand; and it will hardly be questioned that he knew what he was about when he called it a new play. And the title whereby he distinguishes it is in some sort bespoken in the Prologue; while, in the kind of interest sought to be awakened, the whole play is strictly corresponding therewith; the Poet being here more than in any other case studious of truth in the historical sense, and adhering, not always indeed to the actual order of events, but with singular closeness throughout to their actual import and form. In short, a kind of historical conscience, a scrupulous fidelity to fact, is manifestly the regulating and informing thought of the piece; as if the Poet had here undertaken to set forth a drama made up emphatically of "chosen truth," insomuch that it should in all fairness deserve the significant title, All is True.

This of course infers the play to have been written as late as 1612, and perhaps not before the beginning of 1613. And herewith agrees that part of Cranmer's prophecy in the last scene declaring that

"Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,
His honour and the greatness of his name
Shall be, and make new nations;"

which can scarce be understood otherwise than as referring to the new nation founded by King James in America, the first charter of Virginia being issued in 1606, the colony planted and JamesTown settled in 1607, and a second charter granted, and a lottery opened in aid of the colonists, in 1612. It will not be out of place to adduce here the well-known passage from the Diary of the Rev.

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