.circumstances. Whereas the prediction, as it stands at present, is quite general, and such as might, without any hazard of error, have been pronounced in the life-time of her majesty; for the principal facts that it foretells are, that she should die aged, and a virgin. Of the former, supposing this piece to have been written in 1601, the author was sufficiently secure ; for she was then near seventy years old. The latter may, perhaps, be thought too delicate a subject, to have been mentioned while she was yet living. But, we may presume, it was far from being an ungrateful topick; for very early after her accession to the throne, she appears to have been proud of her maiden character; declaring, that she was wedded to her people, and that she desired no other inscription on her tomb, than-Here lyeth Elizabeth, who reigned and died a VIRGIN *. Besides, if Shakspere knew, as probably most people at that time did, that she became very solicitous about the reputation of virginity, when her title to it was at least equivocal, this would be an additional inducement to him to compliment her on that head.

5. Granting that the latter part of the panegyrick on Elizabeth implies that she was dead when it was composed, it would not prove that this play was written in the time of king James; for these latter lines in praise of the queen, as well as the whole of the compliment to the king, might have been added after his

* Camden, 27.

Melvil, 49.

accession

accession to the throne, in order to bring the speaker back to the object immediately before him, the infant Elizabeth. And this Mr. Theobald conjectured to have been the case. I do not, however, see any necessity for this supposition; as there is nothing, in my apprehension, contained in any of the lines, in praise of the queen, inconsistent with the idea of the whole of the panegyrick on her having been composed in her life-time.

In further confirmation of what has been here advanced, to shew that this play was probably written while queen Elizabeth was yet alive, it may be observed (to use the words of an anonymous writer *), that "Shakspere has cast the disagreeable parts of her father's character as much into shade as possible; that he has represented him as greatly displeased with the grievances of his subjects, and ordering them to be relieved; tender and obliging (in the early part of the play) to his queen; grateful to the cardinal; and, in the case of Cranmer, capable of distinguishing and rewarding true merit.” "He has exerted (adds the same author) an equal degree of complaisance, by the amiable lights in which he has shewn the mother of Elizabeth. Anne Bullen is represented as affected with the most tender concern for the sufferings of her mistress, queen Catharine; receiving the honour the king confers on her, by making her marchioness of Pembroke, with a graceful humility; and more

*The author of Shakspere illustrated.

4

anxious

anxious to conceal her advancement from the queen, lest it should aggravate her sorrows, than solicitous to penetrate into the meaning of so extraordinary a favour, or of indulging herself in the flattering prospect of future royalty.”

It is unnecessary to quote particular passages in support of these assertions; but the following lines, which are spoken of Anne Boleyn by the Lord Chamberlain, appear to me so evidently calculated for the ear of Elizabeth (to whom such incense was by no means displeasing), that I cannot forbear to transcribe them:

"I have perused her well;

"Beauty and honour are in her so mingled, "That they have caught the king: and who knows yet, "But from this lady may proceed a gem,

"To lighten all this isle.”

The Globe play-house, we are told by the continuator of Stowe's Chronicle, was burnt down on St. Peter's day, in the year 1613, while the play of King Henry VIII. was exhibiting. Sir Henry Wotton (as Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed) says, in one of his letters, that this accident happened during the exhibition of a new play, called All is True; which, however, appears both from Sir Henry's minute description of the piece, and from the account given by Stowe's continuator, to have been our author's play of King Henry VIII. If, indeed, Sir H. Wotton was accurate H h

in

in calling it a new play, all the foregoing reasoning on this subject would be at once overthrown; and this piece, instead of being ascribed to 1601, should have been placed twelve years later. But I strongly suspect that the only novelty attending this play, in the year 1613, was its title, decorations, and, perhaps, the prologue and epilogue. The Elector Palatine was in London in that year; and it appears from the MS. register of lord Harrington, treasurer of the chambers to King James I. that many of our author's plays were then exhibited for the entertainment of him and the princess Elizabeth. By the same register we learn, that the titles of many of them were changed * in that year. Princes are fond of opportunities to display their magnificence before strangers of distinction; and James, who, on his arrival here, must have been dazzled by a splendour foreign to the poverty of his native kingdom, might have been peculiarly ambitious to exhibit before his son-in-law the mimick pomp of an English coronation †. King Henry VIII. therefore,

after

*Thus Henry IV. P. I. was called Hotspur; Henry IV. P. II. or The Merry Wives of Windsor, was exhibited under the name of Sir John Falstaff; Much Ado about Nothing was new-named Benedict and Beatrix; and Julius Cæsar seems to have been represented under the title of Casar's Tragedy.

The Prince Palatine was not present at the representation of King Henry VIII. on the 30th of June, O. S. when the Globe playhouse was burnt down, having left England

some

after having lain by for some years unacted, on account of the costliness of the exhibition, might have been revived in 1613, under the title of All is True, with new decorations, and a new prologue and epilogue. Mr. Tyrwhitt observes, that the prologue has two or three direct references to this title; a circumstance which authorises us to conclude, almost with certainty, that it was an occasional production, written some years after the composition of the play. King Henry VIII. not being then published, the fallacy of calling it a new play on its revival, was not easily detected.

Dr. Johnson long since suspected, from the contemptuous manner in which "the noise of targets, and the fellow in a long motley coat," or, in other words, most of our author's plays, are spoken of in this prologue, that it was not the composition of Shakspere, but written after his departure from the stage, on some accidental revival of King Henry VIII. by B. Jonson, whose style it seemed to him to resemble *.

Dr.

some time before. But the play might have been revived for his entertainment in the beginning of the year 1613; and might have been occasionally represented afterwards.

* In support of this conjecture it may be observed, that Ben Jonson has in many places endeavoured to ridicule our author, for representing battles on the stage. So, in his prologue to Every Man in his Humour: