ies his enemy, who has an attendant spirit, and who
through magic compels the captive prince to carry logs, may come from
some old folk tale; since a German play, _Die Schoene Sidea_, by Jakob
Ayrer of Nuremberg (died 1605), possesses all these details. The
relations, if any, between the two plays are remote.

+The Life of Henry the Eighth+, the last of the historical plays, in
date of composition as in the history it pictures, suffers from the
very fact that it boasts in its second title, _All is True_. The play
might have been built around any one of the half-dozen persons which in
turn claim our chief interest,--Buckingham, Queen Katherine, Anne
Bullen; the King, Wolsey, or {208} Cranmer; but fidelity to history,
while it did not hinder some slight alteration of incident and time,
required that each of these should in turn be distinguished, if a
complete picture of the times of Henry VIII were to be given. The
result was a complete abandonment of anything like unity of theme.

It is, of course, a disappointment to one who has just read _I Henry
IV_. On the other hand, this play may be regarded as a kind of
pageant, as the word is used nowadays in England and America. It
presents, in the manner of a modern pageant, a series of brilliant
scenes telling of Buckingham's fall, of Wolsey's triumph and ruin, of
Katherine's trial and death, of Anne Bullen's coronation, and of
Cranmer's advancement, joined together by the well-drawn character of
the King, powerful, masterful, selfish, and vindictive, but not without
a suggestion of better qualities. The gayety of the Masque, in the
first act, where King Henry first meets Anne Bullen, is also in perfect
harmony with the modern pageant, which always employs music and dancing
as aids to the picture.

In Queen Katherine we have a suffering and wronged woman, gifted with
queenly grace and dignity, and with strong sympathies and a keen sense
of justice. From her first entrance, when she ventures, Esther-like,
into the presence of the king to intercede for an oppressed people,
through all her vain struggle against the King's wayward inclination
and the Cardinal's wiles, up to the very moment when she is stricken
with mortal illness, she holds our sympathy. If in her great trial
scene she is weaker and more impulsive than Hermione in hers, yet the
circumstances are {209} different; she is not keyed up to so high an
endeavor as that lady, nor in so much danger for herself