Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/326

[ 310 ] highly pleaing at court, rather than at a period when it mut have been les intereting.

Queen Catherine, it is true, is repreented as an amiable character, but till he is ecliped; and the greater her merit, the higher was the compliment to the mother of Elizabeth, to whoe uperior beauty he was obliged to give way.

2. Had K Henry VIII. been written in the time of king James I. the author, intead of expatiating o largely in the lat cene, in praie of the queen, which he could not think would be very acceptable to her ucceSS undefinedor, would probably have made him the principal figure in the prophecy, and thrown her into the back-ground as much as poSS undefinedible.

3. Were James I. Shakpeare’s chief object in the original contruction of the lat act of this play, he would probably have given a very hort character of Elizabeth, and have dwelt on that of James, with whoe praie he would have concluded, in order to make the tronger impreSS undefinedion on the audience, inftead of returning again to queen Elizabeth, in a very aukward and abrupt manner, after her character eemed to be quite finihed: an aukwardnes that can only be accounted for, by uppoing the panegyrick on king James an after-production.