them; and he could not give that weight
to her curses, without supposing a right in her to utter them. This,
indeed is the authority which I do not pretend to combat.
Shakespeare's immortal scenes will exist, when such poor arguments
as mine are forgotten. Richard at least will be tried and executed
on the stage, when his defence remains on some obscure shelf of a
library. But while these pages may excite the curiosity of a day, it
may not be unentertaining to observe, that there is another of
Shakespeare's plays, that may be ranked among the historic, though
not one of his numerous critics and commentators have discovered the
drift of it; I mean The Winter Evening's Tale, which was certainly
intended (in compliment to queen Elizabeth) as an indirect apology
for her mother Anne Boleyn. The address of the poet appears no where
to more advantage. The subject was too delicate to be exhibited on
the stage without a veil; and it was too recent, and touched the
queen too nearly, for the bard to have ventured so home an allusion
on any other ground than compliment. The unreasonable jealousy of
Leontes, and his violent conduct in consequence, form a true
portrait of Henry the Eighth, who generally made the law the engine
of his boisterous passions. Not only the general plan of the story
is most applicable but several passages are so marked, that they
touch the real history nearer than the fable. Hermione on her trial
says,

. . . . . For honour,
'Tis a derivative from me to mine,
And only that I stand for.

This seems to be taken from the very letter of Anne Boyleyn to the
king before her execution, where she pleads for the infant princess
his daughter. Mamillius, the young prince, an unnecessary character,
dies in his infancy; but it confirms the allusion, as queen Anne,
before Elizabeth, bore a still-born son. But the most striking
passage,' and which had nothing to do in the Tragedy, but as it
pictured Elizabeth, is, where Paulina, describing the new-born
princess, and her likeness to her father, says, she has the very
trick of his frown. There is one sentence indeed so applicable, both
to Elizabeth and her father, that I should suspect the poet inserted
it after her death. Paulina, speaking of the child, tells the king,

. . . . . . 'Tis yours;
And might we lay the old proverb to your charge,
So like you, 'tis the worse.

The Winter Evening's Tale was therefore in reality a second part of
Henry the Eighth.

Wi