Corruption wins not more than honesty. To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not: Let all the ends, thou aim'st at, be thy country's, Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. And,-Pr'ythee, lead me in: Serve the king; There take an inventory of all I have', I dare now call my own. O Cromwell, Cromwell, CROM. Good sir, have patience. So I have. Farewell The hopes of court! my hopes in heaven do dwell. [Exeunt. I am unwilling wantonly to contradict so ingenious a remark, but that the reader may not be misled, and believe the emendation proposed to be necessary, he should remember that this is not a time for Wolsey to speak only as a statesman, but as a christian. Shakspeare would have debased the character, just when he was employing his strongest efforts to raise it, had he drawn it otherwise. Nothing makes the hour of disgrace more irksome, than the reflection, that we have been deaf to offers of reconciliation, and perpetuated that enmity which we might have converted into friendship. STEEVENS. ' - Pr'ythee, lead me in: There take an inventory of all I have,] This inventory Wolsey actually caused to be taken upon his disgrace, and the particulars may be seen at large in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 546, edit. 1631. Among the Harl. MSS. there is one intitled, "An Inventorie of Cardinal Wolsey's rich Housholde Stuffe. Temp. Henry VIII. The original book, as it seems, kept by his own officers." See Harl. Catal. No. 599. DoUCE. 2 Had I but serv'd my God, &c.] This sentence was really uttered by Wolsey. JOHNSON. When Samrah, the deputy governor of Basorah, was deposed ACT IV. SCENE I. A Street in Westminster. Enter Two Gentlemen, meeting. 1 GENT. You are well met once again3. 2 GENT. So are you. 1 GENT. You come to take your stand here, and behold The lady Anne pass from her coronation? 2 GENT. 'Tis all my business. At our last encounter, The duke of Buckingham came from his trial. by Moawiyah the sixth caliph, he is reported to have expressed himself in the same manner : "If I had served God so well as I have served him, he would never have condemned me to all eternity." Á similar sentiment also occurs in The Earle of Murton's Tragedy, by Churchyard, 1593; "Had I serv'd God as well in euery sort, "As I did serue my king, and maister still; My scope had not this season beene so short, "Nor world haue had the power to doe me ill." STEEVENS. Antonio Perez, the favourite of Philip the Second of Spain, made the same pathetick complaint; "Mon zele etoit si grand vers ces benignes puissances [la cour de Turin,] que si j'en eusse eu autant pour Dieu, je ne doubte point qu'il ne m'eut deja recompensé de son paradis." MALONE. This was a strange sentence for Wolsey to utter, who was disgraced for the basest treachery to his King in the affair of the divorce but it shows how naturally men endeavour to palliate their crimes even to themselves. M. MASON. : There is a remarkable affinity between these words and part of the speech of Sir James Hamilton, who was supposed by King James V. thus to address him in a dream: “Though I was a sinner against God, I failed not to thee. Had I been as good a servant to the Lord my God, as I was to thee, I had not died that death." Pinscottie's History of Scotland, p. 261, edit. 1788, 12mo. Douce. 3-once again.] Alluding to their former meeting in the second Act. JOHNSON. 4 AND So are you] The conjunction-And was supplied by Sir Thomas Hanmer, to complete the measure. STEEVENS. 1 GENT. 'Tis very true: but that time offer'd sorrow; This, general joy. 2 GENT. 'Tis well: The citizens, I am sure, have shown at full their royal minds 5; As, let them have their rights, they are ever forward In celebration of this day with shows, 6 Pageants, and sights of honour. 1 GENT. Never greater, Nor, I'll assure you, better taken, sir. 2 GENT. May I be bold to ask what that contains, That paper in your hand? 1 GENT. The duke of Suffolk is the first, and claims 2 GENT. I thank you, sir; had I not known those customs, S - their ROYAL minds;] i. e. their minds well affected to their King. Mr. Pope unnecessarily changed this word to loyal. In King Henry IV. Part II. we have "royal faith," that is, faith due to kings; which Sir T. Hanmer changed to loyal, and I had too hastily followed Dr. Johnson and the late editions, in adopting the emendation. The recurrence of the same expression, though it is not such a one as we should now use, convinced me that there is no error in the text in either place. See vol. xvii. p. 156, n. 8. MALONE. Royal, I believe, in the present instance, only signifies-noble. So, Macbeth, speaking of Banquo, mentions his "royalty of nature." STEEVENS. 6 THIS day-] Sir Thomas Hanmer reads: 66 these days —.” But Shakspeare meant such a day as this, a coronation day. And such is the English idiom, which our author commonly prefers to grammatical nicety. JOHNSON. Perhaps we should put the words" As, let them have their rights, they are ever forward" in a parenthesis, and then-this day will be employed in its usual sense. They have celebrated this day with shows;' and the answer is, "Never greater." BOSWELL. I should have been beholden to your paper. But, I beseech you, what's become of Katharine, The princess dowager? how goes her business? 1 GENT. That I can tell you too. The archbishop Of Canterbury, accompanied with other Learned and reverend fathers of his order, 2 GENT. Alas, good lady!— [Trumpets. The trumpets sound: stand close, the queen is coming. * First folio, Kymmalton. BEHOLDEN- The old copy reads-beholding; and this is the word which constantly occurs in Shakspeare, but has throughout been considered as a corruption, and altered as in the text. But Butler, in his English Grammar, 1633, is of a contrary opinion: "Beholding to one, of to behold or regard: which by a synecdoche generis, signifyeth to respect and behold, or look upon with love and thanks for a benefit received, &c. yet some now adays had rather write it-beholden, i. e. obliged, answering to that teneri et firmiter obligari: which conceipt would seem the more probable, if to behold did signify to hold; as to bedek, to dek; to besprinkle, to sprinkle. But indeed neither is beholden English; neither are behold and hold any more all one, than become and come, or beseem and seem." Boswell. -NOT appearance,] I suppose, our author wrote-nonappearance. So, in The Winter's Tale: 66 the execution did cry out Against the non-performance." STEEVENS. - the LATE marriage- i. e. the marriage lately considered as a valid one. STEEVENS. 81 THE ORDER OF THE PROCESSION. A lively flourish of Trumpets; then enter 1. Two Judges. 2. Lord Chancellor, with the purse and mace before him. 3. Choristers singing. [Musick. 4. Mayor of London bearing the mace. Then Garter, in his coat of arms, and on his head, a gilt copper crown. 5. Marquis Dorset, bearing a sceptre of gold, on his head a demi-coronal of gold. With him the Earl of Surrey, bearing the rod of silver with the dove, crowned with an earl's coronet. Collars of SS. 6. Duke of Suffolk, in his robe of estate, his coronet on his head, bearing a long white wand, as high-steward. With him, the Duke of Norfolk, with the rod of marshalship, a coronet on his head. Collars of SS. 7. A canopy borne by four of the Cinque-ports; under it, the Queen in her robe; in her hair richly adorned with pearl, crowned. On each side of her, the Bishops of London and Winchester. 8. The old Duchess of Norfolk, in a coronal of gold, wrought with flowers, bearing the Queen's train. 9. Certain Ladies or Countesses, with plain circlets1 of gold without flowers. 9-in his coat of arms,] i. e. in his coat of office, emblazoned with the royal arms. STEEVENS. 1-coronal- -circlets-] I do not recollect that these two words occur in any other of our author's works; a circumstance that may serve to strengthen Dr. Farmer's opinion-that the directions for the court pageantry throughout the present drama, were drawn up by another hand. STEEVENS. |