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 foon this mightiness meets mifery!
And, if you can be merry then, I'll say,
A man may weep upon his wedding day,

This is specious, but the laxity of the versification in this prologue, and in the following epilogue, makes it not neceffary.

Mr. Heath would read:

of our hiftory. STEEVENS.

JOHNSON.

The word story was not intended to make a double, but merely a single rhyme, though, it must be acknowledged, a very bad one, the laft syllable ry, corresponding in sound 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 conftru&ion of good women.

In order to preserve the rhyme, the accent must be laid on the daft syllable 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.

1

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 Sands.
Sir Henry Guildford. Sir Thomas Lovell.
Sir Anthony Denny. Sir Nicholas Vaux.
Secretaries to Wolfey.

Cromwell, Şervant 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.
Brandon, and a Serjeant at arms.

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.
An old Lady, Friend to Anne Bullen.
Patience, Woman to Queen Katharine.

Several Lords and Ladies in the dumb shows; Women attending upon the Queen; Spirits, which appear to her; Scribes, Officers, Guards, and other Attendants.

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.2

1

BUCK. Good morrow, and well met. How have

An untimely ague

Stay'd me a prisoner in my chamber, when Those suns of glory, 4 those two lights of men, Met in the vale of Arde.

1

* Lord Abergavenny.) George Nevill, who married Mary, daughter of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham., REED.

3

fresh admirer-] An admirer untired; an admirer ftill feeling the impression as if it were hourly renewed. Johnson. 4 Those funs 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 phrafe in his Imitation of Horace's Epifile to Auguftus, v. 22: "Those funs of glery not till they fet."

STEEVENS.

NOR.

'Twixt Guynes and Arde;5

I was then present, saw them salute 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.

I was my chamber's prisoner.

NOR.

All the whole time

Then you loft

The view of earthly glory: Men might say,
Till this time, pomp was single; but now marry'd

To one above itself. 5 Each following day

3

- Guynes and Arde:] Guynes then belonged to the English, and Arde to the French; they are towns in Picardy, and the valley of Arden 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 grow 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 :

5

a sweet embrace;

" Incorporate then they seem; face grows to face.

Till this time, pomp was fingle; but now marry'd

"

MALONE.

To one above itself. The thought is odd and whimsical; and obscure enough to need an explanation. - Till this time (says the speaker) Pomp led a single life, as not finding a husband able to support her according to her dignity; but she has now got one in Henry VIII. who could support 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 το 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.

Became the next day's master, till the last
Made former wonders it's: To-day, the French,
All clinquant,' all in gold, like heathen gods,
Shone down the English; and, to-morrow, they
Made Britain, India: every man, that food,
Show'd like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were
As cherubins, all gilt: the madams too,
Not us'd to toil, did almost sweat to bear
The pride upon them, that their very labour
Was to them as a painting: now this mafk
Was cry'd incomparable; and the ensuing night
Made it a fool, and beggar. The two kings,
Equal in lustre, were now beft, now worst,
As présence did present them; him in eye,
Still him in praise: * and, being present both,
'Twas faid, they saw but one; and no difcerner
Durst wag his tongue in cenfure. When these suns

Before this time all pompous shows were exhibited by one prince only. On this occafion the Kings of England and France vied with each other. To this circumstance Norfolk alludes. M. MASON.

6

Each following day

Became the next day's master, &c.] Dies diem docet. Every day learned something from the preceding, till the concluding day collected all the splendor of all the former shows. JOHNSON.

All clinquant, All glittering, all shining. Clarendon ufes this word in his description of the Spanish Juego de Toros.

JOHNSON.

It is likewise used in A Memorable Masque, &c. performed before King James at Whitehall in 1613, at the marriage of the Palsgrave and Princess Elizabeth :

8

66

his buskins clinquant as his other attire."

him in eye,

Still him in praise:] So, Dryden:

"Two chiefs

STEEVENS.

"So match'd, as each feem'd worthieft when alone."JOHNSON.

9 Durft wag his tongue in censure.) Censure for determination, of

which had the noblest appearance. WARBURTON.

See Vol. IV. p. 179, n. 5. MALONE.

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