general state of things, in his characterization of the age, and his delineation of its peculiar interests and tendencies, the poet has preserved the truth of history, and has exhibited the same skill here as elsewhere in unveiling its inmost core.

But is this the case with details also? In spite of the long defence of the poet, by F. Horn and others, I feel compelled to answer this question in the negative. Henry's character, it is true, is by no means spared: he appears throughout the same capricious, ill-humoured, selfish, and heartless tyrant, the same creature of his passions and favourites, that he really was. That Shakspeare does not expressly describe him in this light, but rather allows him to characterize himself by his own acts and deeds, while he purposely and wittingly puts his best traits into the foreground of the picture, is only what we should look for from a national poet who lived in the reign of Henry's daughter-the all-beloved Elizabeth. That, further, he has not painted Anne Boleyn in her true colours, who, after rejecting Henry's addresses, nevertheless lived with him for three years in open adultery, and was pregnant by him as she stood at the altar, may perhaps be pardoned, since Anne was the mother of Elizabeth, and her true conduct was not generally known, or at least was not so described in the popular histories and chronicles of Shakspeare's day. And further, if the opinions of the eminent theologians consulted by Henry were not so unanimously in his favour as Shakspeare supposes-if Cranmer was not quite the noble and amiable christian character he here appears-these are inaccuracies which may well be left out of consideration. It is not in them that the fault lies of which we complain: they are mere trifles and secondary matters, of which the poet was free to dispose as he might. The objection to which he justly lies open is, that he has not given us the fate and fortunes of Henry and Anne fully and entirely. By this defect he has rendered the representation ideally untrue. Not only does it offend against poetical justice-though that, indeed, is nothing more than the creature of human thought-but he has also unpardonably done indignity to the natural and manifest justice of God, as it is revealed in the history of the world. When we see Henry-that slave of passion, caprice, and pleasure, the puppet of a favourite like the ambitious, intriguing, revengeful

Wolsey-condemn to death, without cause or justice, the Duke of Buckingham, (a rash zealot no doubt) and to gratify a sinful lust repudiate his pious, noble, and amiable consortwhen we see such a man rewarded with the possession of his beloved, and rendered happy by the birth of his child, the natural sense of right is offended. And as little agreeable to justice does it seem, to behold Anne Boleyn, who, even in the drama itself, appears any thing but free from deep criminality, intruded into the place of the injured Katharine, and apparently the happy, envied mother and wife, and in undisturbed enjoyment of her unrighteous usurpation. Such is not the justice of History. It is well known, and must have then been known, that Henry died in the prime of life, to speak mildly, in a most disturbed state of mind, and of diseases which were the effects of his mental and bodily excesses; we know it, and it cannot even then have been a secret, that Anne Boleyn, after a short space of happiness, was accused of levity, and put to death in prison, by the command of her own husband.

Such poetical violations of the ideal truth of history, work however their own punishment. The whole drama is poetically untrue and without life-a poetic abortion, since it wants, what alone could give it an intrinsic organization and shape, moral vitality. It cannot pretend even to be a perfect whole. At best it is a shewy piece of patchwork, and consequently without true mind—a mere semblance, since it is without any fundamental idea which alone could give it life and organization. Wherever the conclusion stands out in such stiff and irreconcileable opposition to the beginning and middle, as it does in the play of " Henry the Eighth," there it is vain to look for totality, or a pervading idea, since the latter is nothing less than the intrinsic unity of all the parts, and consequently the very essence of the whole. The character of Wolsey, of Katharine, of Henry, and severally of all the other personages of the drama, may, no doubt, be sketched and filled up with wonderful verisimilitude and pathos; but still, this only tends to confirm the opinion we have already advanced, that characterization and well-drawn characters do not alone make a dramatic work. Turn the piece as we may-whether we take the life of Katharine or of Wolsey for the centre of interest--we shall

be unable to discover, without forcing and untruth, that which is the first requisition of art, and without which it must forfeit its pretensions to the title of art.

And here, then, my critical labours terminate. There is no place here for true positive criticism; it cannot artistically reproduce there, where no artistic production originally existed. It is painful to be compelled to close our criticisms on these noble historic dramas with so grave a censure. But it cannot be helped. Even against the greatest poet, perhaps of any age, we must maintain the truth, that art cannot flatter with impunity-even where, as in the case of Elizabeth, a glorious and successful reign, and general esteem, might urge so fair a plea. I forbear to adduce any more definite reasons for my unfavourable judgment, even because it would hardly grieve me to be shewn to be in error. But until this shall have been done, I shall indulge a belief, that it was Shakspeare's intention to write a second and concluding part to " Henry the Eighth," but was prevented by external circumstances from accomplishing his design. On the supposition that such a continuation was contemplated, I should not hesitate to place "Henry the Eighth" by the side of the best works of this great master of the stage.

Or perhaps it was written merely as a court piece, and by express command. This idea occurred to me years ago, from the perusal merely of the fifth act, and has lately grown almost to a conviction upon a better acquaintance with the attempts of Malone, Drake, and Chalmers, to trace the origin and dates of Shakspeare's tragedies. In the first place, all internal marks, whether of style, language, characters, and versification, are in favour of its being assigned to the latter half of Shakspeare's poetic carcer. Malone and Drake place it in 1601 or 2, on the single ground that the flattery of Elizabeth implies that it was written in her life-time. But with these compliments to Elizabeth the praises of James are interwoven, which again are mixed up with allusions to events of 1606, and even of 1612. Besides, the closing lines, in which Elizabeth's character is drawn, clearly intimate that they were not written until after her death. But lastly-and this is the important point-the play which was acted on the day that the Globe was burnt down is called in the con

temporary letter of Sir H. Wotton, a new piece, and this piece was "Henry the Eighth," as clearly appears from the continuation of Stowe's Chronicle, and from Sir Henry's own words. These reasons induced Chalmers even to place the first appearance of this drama in 1613. Malone does not, indeed, deny the weight of this evidence, but he argues on the other hand, that since the laudations of Elizabeth would necessarily have been offensive to James, whose feelings for his predecessor were anything but friendly, it could not have been first written in his reign, and that to appease him, the verses in honour of James were introduced, and that consequently Sir H. Wotton must have been deceived by a new title and a new prologue and epilogue, especially as the title he gives to the piece acted on the day of the fire, is "All is True," and not "Henry the Eighth." If Malone's first argument can be shewn to be untenable, there will be little difficulty about the second, since it was much more reasonable to suppose that the change of title had taken place subsequently, or that it originally appeared with a double title, which Wotton had given imperfectly. Now Malone's first argument loses much of its weight if we suppose that the piece was first acted, and probably written, in honour of the nuptials of the Palsgrave Frederic and the Princess Elizabeth in 1613—as, indeed, is not improbable, since it is a wellestablished fact, that during the visit of Palsgrave, several of Shakspeare's pieces were represented before the court, and among others the "Tempest," which contains many palpable allusions to the marriage festival. Now on this supposition the praises of Elizabeth may have sounded more tolerable in the King's ears, since the princess in whose honour the festivities were held, was also named Elizabeth, and they might therefore pass for covert compliments to her. This conjecture derives its chief support from an examination of the language and versification of "Henry the Eighth." It contains, for instance, as Roderick long ago remarked, almost twice as many verses with a redundant syllable as any other drama of Shakspeare; the Cesuras also are less uniform and more free and careless-peculiarities which Steveens accounted for by the haste with which Shakspeare borrowed entire scenes from Holinshed's Chronicles, and want of time to give them a regular and harmonious versification. The latter critic has another alter

native by which to explain them, in which indeed Malone concurs, and he refers them to a supposed revision of the whole play by Ben Jonson, with a view to its representation before the court. But this is a most gratuitous and unsubstantial hypothesis, for in 1613 Shakspeare was without doubt still in London. But other passages also--as, for instance, the obscurely written third and fourth acts, as well as Cranmer's enigmatical and abrupt speech in praise of Elizabeth and James-betoken haste. Now with Shakspeare's practice of continually revising and correcting his earlier pieces, this appearance of haste and carelessness can only be explained by external circumstances. We must therefore assume, either that Shakspeare was hurried by the sudden command of the court to produce a new drama for the nuptial festivities, or probably merely by the event itself, or that he composed the piece in the last years of his life, and consequently had no time either for a careful revision of it, or for the completion of his original design, by the composition of a second part. In either case these faults and defects admit at least of excuse.

OF CERTAIN PLAYS ASCRIBED TO SHAKSPEARE, THE GENUINENESS OF WHICH IS QUESTIONED.

The reasons on which English critics, from Theobald and Johnson down to Drake and Collier, almost unanimously reject as spurious many old dramas, which in addition to those admitted in the first collective edition (Folio 1623), have been ascribed to our great poet, are drawn principally from the assumption that Shakspeare did not come before the public as an original writer prior to 1591-3, and that up to this date he had chiefly employed himself with altering and improving the productions of others. So far as this hypothesis is grounded on external evidence it certainly deserves a strict examination. The reasons of his predecessors in support of this view have been collected by Malone, who has also sifted and enlarged them, and it is on the result of his labours that his successors have for the most part rested. Malone, however, contradicts himself, for in his chronological arrangement of Shakspeare's plays (Reed, ii. 230) he places the three parts of