Though mute the song -- to grace the rite
Untouch'd the hawthorn bough,
Thy Spirit triumphs o'er the slight;
Man changes, but not Thou!"

50 et seq. On a picture of King James, which formerly belonged
to Bacon, the King is styled Imperii Atlantici Conditor. In 1612
there was a lottery for the plantation of Virginia. The lines prob-
ably allude to the settlement of that colony.

76. The last Act is the indispensable sequel and completion to
those that precede, and clinches the vast political determination
that was gathering and moving onward, in the intrigues and re-
actions of the earlier scenes. The business of the divorce opened
the question of independence of Rome -- or reopened it, and it is
furthered by the dispositions of Anne Bullen and her feud with
the cardinal. In the last Act we find the King in personal exercise
of absolute power, and giving sign of casting it decisively into the
scale of the party of the new opinions, by crushing the intrigue
of Gardiner. Cranmer and Cromwell are indicated in the play
as the ecclesiastical and lay leaders of the impending innovation,
and if with brevity, we must remember that the ears of Shake-
speare's generation were still tingling with their doings, and
parties took sides at once at the very mention of their names.
Hence the significance to the course of the play, of the support
they receive from the King, and the seal of the alliance is the se-
lection of the new man Cranmer to be godfather to the infant
princess -- of Elizabeth, who was destined to carry forward not
only the better public tendencies peace and power -- of honours
open to all, and as nobly gained as bestowed, but also to secure
the strongest establishment for the church of liberty and liberali-
zing enlightenment, that the marriage of her mother was the occa-
sion of first effectually promoting.

-178-