and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper, or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where, being thought at first but an idle smoke, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming, within an hour, the whole house to the very grounds. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabric, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks: only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broiled him if he had not, by the benefit of a provident wit, put it out with bottle ale.”

Here, then, is clear identification of the scene in Shakespeare's play which gave occasion to the firing of the thatch. There is allusion in the. ballad to the trial of Queen Katharine. This, with the omission of two verses that can well be spared, was the ballad written on occasion of

THE LAMENTABLE BURNING OF THE GLOBE PLAY-HOUSE ON S. PETER'S DAY.

"Now, set thee down, Melpomene,

Wrapp'd in a coal-black robe,

And tell the doleful tragedy

Late played at the Globe;

Where all men that could sing or say

Were scarr'd upon S. Peter's day.

O, sorrow! O, pitiful sorrow!
And yet it All is True.

"All you that please to understand,
Come listen to my story,

And see Death with his rake-hell brand
Amongst the auditory;

Regarding neither Cardinal's state,

Nor bearded face of Henry the Eight.

O, sorrow! &c.

"This fearful fire began above
By firing chambers two;
And to the stage did soon remove,
And burn'd th' apparel new:
Consuming every garish rag,
Not sparing even the silken flag.

O, sorrow! &o.

"Away ran knights, away ran lords,

Away ran Burbage too :

Some lost their hats, their cloaks and swords,

For there was such ado.

Old Tooley, careful of his bundle,

Was forc'd to fly with Harry Cundell.

O, sorrow! &c.

"Away ran poets, eight or nine,

Who would take no denial;

Away ran Lady Katharine,

Nor waited out her trial. Such trial was not in her part;

Escape was all she had at heart.

O, sorrow! &c.

"Then perriwigs and drum-heads fry,
And blaze like butter firkin;
Coal-black was presently the dye

Of many a good buff jerkin.

While with swell'd lips, like drunken Fleming,
Distraught and sad stood stuttering Hemming.
O, sorrow! &c.

"Go, poets, and prepare petitions,
And through all London beg:

To the Lord Mayor now make submission,
And fawn, and make a leg.

Take heed you be not too too witty,
Or you'll get nothing in the City.
O, sorrow! O, pitiful sorrow!
And yet it All is True."

A letter from John Chamberlain, dated the 8th of July, said, "The burning of the Globe, or playhouse, on the Bankside on St. Peter's Day, cannot escape you; which fell out by a peal of chambers that, I know not on what occasion, were to be used in the play-the tampin or stopple of one of them, lighting in the thatch that covered the house, burnt it to the ground in less than two hours, with a dwelling-house adjoining, and it was a great marvel and fair grace of God that the people had so little harm, having but two narrow doors to get out."

Ben Jonson was perhaps among those who escaped, for he may speak literally and not only with poetic vision, when he says in his "Execration to Vulcan," upon the burning of his own

Library, that he "saw" also this one among the fiery god's misdeeds.

"But O, those reeds! Thy mere disdain of them
Made thee beget that cruel stratagem,

Which some are pleased to style but thy mad prank,
Against the Globe, the glory of the Bank;

Which, though it were the fort of the whole parish,
Flanked with a ditch, and forced out of a marish,

I saw with two poor chambers taken in,

And razed, ere thought could urge, 'This might have been.'"

Another account of the burning of the Globe Theatre is in the edition of Stow's "Annales" (first published in 1580), that appeared, "continued and augmented by Edmond Howes," in 1615. Howes writes of 1613: "Also upon St. Peter's Day last the playhouse or theatre, called the Globe, upon the Bankside, near London, by negligent discharging of a piece of ordnance close to the south side thereof the thatch took fire, and the wind suddenly dispersed the flame round about, and in a very short space the whole building was quite consumed, and no man hurt; the house being filled with people to behold the play, viz., of Henry the Eighth and the next spring it was new builded in far fairer manner than before."

:

Shakespeare, at the time of the burning of the Globe, had entered his fiftieth year, and

retired to Stratford.

He died only three years

afterwards at the age of fifty-two. Sir Henry Wotton speaks of All is True as a new play, but he writes as one who has no great interest in the stage. He was not yet made Provost of Eton, but was much employed in missions to Germany and Italy; and it was he who had then lately described an ambassador as "" a good man sent to lie abroad for the sake of his country." The seventeen-year-old Princess Elizabeth had been married on the 14th of February in that year (1613) to the seventeen-year-old Elector Palatine. There had been pomp, masques and plays. They had left England on the 25th of April. The MS. Register of Lord Harrington, King James's treasurer of the chambers, shows that they had seen several of Shakespeare's plays acted under altered names : Part I. of Henry IV. as Hotspur, Part II. as Sir John Falstaff, Much Ado about Nothing as Benedict and Beatrix, Julius Cæsar as Cæsar's Tragedy. A new name for King Henry VIII. (All is True) might be enough to lead Sir Henry Wotton to the belief that it was a new play.

If really new in 1613, King Henry VIII. was probably the last play written by Shakespeare. I am disposed to agree with Johnson, Steevens and Malone in thinking that it was written towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth; but this is not