brandishing cane darts of the finest gold, attended by Indian slaves and Indian torch-bearers, the staves of their torches being "great canes all over gilded." Has it been ever suggested that the Indian who came to court with the long tool was one of these, and that Fletcher, after his way, could not forbear an unbecoming double entendre? Certainly in the spring of 1613 it may well have occurred to those who managed the Globe that the London people who could not obtain admission to Whitehall might be glad to witness a coronation, a masque, and a royal baptism upon the stage, and all at the price of a shilling. Royal persons had been the central figures in the splendid celebrations of February. Royal persons might play their parts at the Globe in June. The chronicle history might be revived for an occasion, but it should be a chronicle history in the new fashion, spectacular, dazzling, and at the same time, in order that it might not be a mere show, pathetic, presenting things "That bear a weighty and a serious brow, And thus "King Henry VIII" may come to have been composed. Attention has been given by students of our drama to the influence of dramatic example. A new form of drama, a new type of character, is invented and proves popular. A score of imitative plays follows, the authors hoping by like means to capture a like popularity. "Philaster," we are told by one distinguished critic, introduces the new stage Romance; and then, in a kind of gallant rivalry, "Cymbeline" is produced. Perhaps sufficient attention has not been directed to the influence of a desire for dramatic difference. Such a desire is potent with actors upon the stage. One eminent actor presents a Hamlet brimming over with tender sentiment; the ground for such a presentation is occupied; and the next Hamlet will be one possessed by a Berserker rage. In 1605 appeared in print a play dealing with the person and the reign of King Henry VIII, by Samuel Rowley, which bore the odd title "When You see Me, You know Me." It was a somewhat farcical play, abounding in "fool and fight —a phrase of Fletcher's, which occurs not only in the Prologue to "King Henry VIII," but reversed ("fight and fool") in the fifth act of "Women Pleased." It paid little or no regard to historical truth or even verisimilitude. The King, disguised, comes to blows with his disreputable subject Black Will, and is for a time a prisoner in the Counter. One fool is not enough for one play, and Will Summers contends in wit with Patch. The historical play of 1613 must not repeat the fantasies and follies of Rowley; in the Prologue the contrast is emphasised; it is a drama "full of state and woe, Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow"; and also it is a drama in which those who give their money "out of hope they may believe "can" find truth"; one of its titles, indeed, expresses this distinction -" All is True." Yet it should not be overlooked, on the other hand, that to Rowley's play the authors of “ King Henry VIII" are indebted for at least one or two dramatic points; these have been noted by Karl Elze, the editor of the earlier of the two Jacobean presentations of the reign of King Henry VIII. If the play was in part a response to the popular desire for spectacle, quickened by the ceremonies and masques, unseen by the London crowd, of February, 1613, there was need of haste to catch the enthusiasm of the moment. Two authors could produce a play faster than one. No dramatist of equal distinction had a pen more facile and fluent than that of Fletcher. But the great name in chronicle history was not "Fletcher"; it was the name of Shakespeare. It is possible-though highly doubtful — that Shakespeare and Fletcher had already worked in collaboration upon "The Two Noble Kinsmen." Shakespeare had now withdrawn from dramatic authorship, but it is at least conceivable that an urgent request made on behalf of the Globe Theatre may have induced him to lend his name to the great pageant chronicle-play, and to contribute some five or six scenes. We are in the region of conjecture, but conjectures may have their use and value, if only they are not-as too often happens -put forward in the guise of ascertained fact. It seems reasonable to suppose that Fletcher, whose relations with the stage were closer and more active than those of Shakespeare, and whose zeal of invention was at its height, while Shakespeare's had certainly declined, formed the general plan or scheme of the play. Splendid spectacle was required; he had himself, at least from the date of the production of "Philaster," a reputation for mastery in the pathetic and what we should now call the sentimental. He planned the whole drama in such a way that great opportunities should be given for spectacular display, and that great opportunities should be given for his own gift in moving pity and tender sentiment. The scheme of "King Henry VIII," we may say with some confidence, is one which could not have been devised by Shakespeare. It has no dramatic centre ; no ascent, no culmination, no subsidence. The tragedy of Buckingham is succeeded by the tragedy of Wolsey, and this by the tragedy of Queen Katharine; then the play closes with triumphs and rejoicings. The fifth act, for one who has been deeply interested in the story of the Cardinal and the story of the Queen, is an artistic impertinence. The only way in which unity can be educed out of the dramatic incoherence of the play is by subordinating our interest in persons to interest in an idea of national progress; but this is a way proper rather to a philosophy of history than to a work of dramatic art. If the dominant facts of the reign of Henry VIII were the ruin of feudalism, the growth of a great monarchy, the fall of Catholicism, and the establishment of the reformed faith, we can discover these facts in the chronicle history. Buckingham is crushed; Wolsey falls; Katharine is forced into retirement and dies; Anne Bullen, a "spleeny Lutheran," takes the place of the Catholic Queen; and the same strong hand that overthrew the Cardinal supports and sustains Cranmer; finally, there is a prophecy of the maintenance of the monarchy and the peaceful establishment of Protestantism under Elizabeth and James. Thus, in a sense, the nation of England becomes the protagonist of the play, and, though we sympathise with the sorrows and afflictions of this individual or of that, once exalted but inevitably overwhelmed by the law of national evolution, we must needs close our survey of the reign with a chant of triumph. This is, indeed, a coherent conception, but it does not lend itself to the purposes of drama. of drama. And it was not with the aid of philosophical conceptions such as this that Shakespeare created his plays. 66 Having made the conjecture that Fletcher formed the scheme of the play, let us go on to conjecture on what principles the work was apportioned to each author. Shakespeare's part could be no insignificant or subordinate one. His name in historical drama was still in the modern phrase the name to conjure with. It is not unlikely that the play was generally supposed in 1613 to be the work of the author of "King Henry IV" and King Henry V," for when "The Chronicle History of Thomas Lord Cromwell," first printed in 1602, was republished in 1613, the publisher, probably with a view to catch the coins of those who had been interested in the drama announced as to be given at the Globe in June, put upon his title-page the wholly unwarranted words "written by W. S." W. S. had come before the public once again, and the old play, dealing with the reign of King Henry VIII, was palmed off upon unwary buyers as the work of the author whose name at that moment |