I served my King, He would not in mine age Cromwell. Good sir, have patience. Wolsey. So I have.-Farewell . The hopes of Court! my hopes in Heaven do dwell." "Man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain: he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them. And now, Lord, what is my hope truly my hope is in Thee." The Fourth Act contains two contrasted scenes. One is the coronation of Anne Boleyn; the other is the death of Katharine. The two gentlemen who meet at the crowning of Anne significantly remember that they last met at the execution of Buckingham. One tells another of the dying and deserted Queen at Kimbolton. There is a sigh for the fall of Queen Katharine, followed immediately by the sound of trumpets in the celebration of the rise of Queen Anne. 66 Alas, good lady! [Trumpets. The trumpets sound: stand close, the Queen is coming." Then enters another show of pomp-the manner of presenting the play being designed to give "the view of earthly glory." The description of the coronation includes talk of the sickness of the ruined Cardinal, of the rise of Gardiner to be Bishop of Winchester, of Cranmer to the Arch bishopric, of Thomas Cromwell to the Privy Council; rise and fall everywhere of the waves of fortune. The second scene includes the telling of the death of Wolsey with the showing of the death of Katharine. Wolsey died, in fact, on the 29th of November, 1530, and Katharine in January, 1536, more than two years after the birth of Elizabeth ; and the coronation of Anne Boleyn was in June, 1533. But in poetry essential truths are shown by bringing suggestive incidents into the most significant relation to each other. So the death of Wolsey is told as recent to the dying Katharine. Wolsey's ambition ends with his appeal to the Abbot of Leicester: 66 An old man, broken with the storms of state, Katharine's last remenibrance of their opposition to each other is lost in words of charity that show the better side of the fallen Cardinal and tell how "His overthrow heaped happiness upon him; Than man could give him, he died fearing God." The death of Katharine with her last hope in God is marked by soft music: "Cause the musicians play me that sad note Her vision then presents to the eyes of the spectators, while music suggests also, the heavenly crown she has attained. The spark of royal feeling near the close is the last flash of her mortality, but the last words are of kind thought for those whom she has loved and is now leaving. Then in the Fifth Act comes the application to the sum of life, to the community of man as to the single man, of the faith expressed by fallen Buckingham: "Heaven has an end in all." The whole Act is concerned with two things a picture in little of the divisions in the Church, with a control tending towards Reformation; and the birth of Elizabeth, with the prophecy that she, for whom so many seeming chances of unequal fortune had prepared the way, would be a Queen in whose day every man should sing the merry songs of peace to all his neighbours, God should be truly known, and characters of men should give the measure of their greatness. The hope was large, and true although for full accomplishment England must wait long years beyond the days of Elizabeth or of Victoria. But Shakespeare heard, as we all may hear, the voice of God in History, "Fear thou not, for I am with thee: Be not dismayed, for I am thy God." H. M. KING HENRY VIII. DRAMATIS PERSON Æ. KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. CARDINAL WOLSEY. CARDINAL CAMPEIUS. CAPUCIUS, Ambassador from CRANMER, Archbishop of Can- DUKE OF NORFOLK. GARDINER, Bishop of Win- BISHOP OF LINCOLN. SIR HENRY GUILDFORD. Garter King-at-Arms. Surveyor to the Duke of Buck- BRANDON, and a Serjeant-at- Door-keeper of the Council- Porter, and his Man. Page to Gardiner. A Crier. QUEEN KATHARINE, Wife to ANNE BULLEN, her Maid of An Old Lady, Friend to Anne 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. PROLOGUE, I COME no more to make you laugh: things now That bear a weighty and a serious brow, |