or her
children.

+Authorship+.--Differences in style and meter, and the fragmentary
quality of the whole play have long confirmed the theory that
Shakespeare in _Henry VIII_ engaged in a very loose sort of
collaboration. Only the Buckingham scene (I, i,), the scenes of
Katherine's entrance and trial (I, ii, II, iv), a brief scene of Anne
Bullen (II, iii), and the first half of the scene in which Wolsey's
schemes are exposed and Henry alienated from him (III, i, 1-203) are
confidently ascribed to Shakespeare. The rest of the play fits best
the style and metrical habit of John Fletcher, at this time one of the
most popular dramatists of London.

+Date+.--The Globe Theater was burned on June 29, 1613, when a play
called _Henry VIII or All is True_ was being performed. So far as
stylistic tests can decide, this was not long after the composition of
the play. Sir Henry Wotton, the antiquarian, writing from hearsay
knowledge, says that the play being acted at the time of the fire was
"a new play called All is True." Shakespeare's scenes in this drama
may thus have been his last dramatic work. A praise of King James in
the last scene was probably written not later than the rest of the
play, and thus insures a date later than 1603. The earliest print of
the play was the First Folio, 1623.

+Source+.--Holinshed was the chief source. Halle furnished certain
details. Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_ tells the Cranmer story.

{210}

CHAPTER XIV

FAMOUS MISTAKES AND DELUSIONS ABOUT SHAKESPEARE

The mystery which enwraps so much of Shakespeare's life, combined with
the interest which naturally centers around a great genius, is ideally
calculated to stimulate human imagination to fantastic guess-work. It
is probably for this reason that a number of famous delusions about
Shakespeare have at different times arisen. Some of these are of
sufficient importance to deserve attention. Three widely different
types of mistakes can be observed.

+The Shakespeare Apocrypha+.--The most excusable of these delusions was
the belief that Shakespeare wrote a large number of plays which are now
known to be the work of other men. Some of these plays were printed,
either during the poet's life or after his death, with "William
Shakespeare" or "W. S." on the title-page. It is now practically
certain that the full name was a printer's forgery, and that the
letters W. S. were either designed to deceive or else the initials of
some