Of a full-charg'd confederacy,5 and give thanks that chok'd it.-Let be call'd before us

Το

you

Such another thought occurs in The famous Hiftory of Thomas Stukely, 1605:

"He is the fubftance of my shadowed love."

There is likewife a paffage fimilar to the conclufion of this, in Rollo, or the Bloody Brother, of Beaumont and Fletcher: is drawn fo high, that, like an ominous comet,

66

"He darkens all your light."

We might, however, read-pouts on; i. e. looks gloomily upon. So, in Coriolanus, A& V. sc. i:

"We pout upon the morning, are unapt
"To give, or to forgive."

Again, in Romeo and Juliet, A& III. fc. iii :

"Thou pout'ft upon thy fortune and thy love."

Wolfey could only reach Buckingham through the medium of the King's power. The Duke therefore compares the Cardinal to a cloud, which intercepts the rays of the fun, and throws a gloom over the object beneath it. "I am (fays he) but the fhadow of poor Buckingham, on whofe figure this impending cloud looks gloomy, having got between me and the sunshine of royal favour."

Our poet has introduced a fomewhat fimilar idea in Much Ado about Nothing:

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the pleached bower,

"Where honeyfuckles, ripen'd by the fun,

"Forbid the fun to enter;-like favourites
"Made proud by princes

To pout is at this time a phrafe defcriptive only of infantine fullenness, but might anciently have had a more confequential meaning.

I should wish, however, instead of

By dark'ning my clear fun,

to read

The following paffage in Greene's Doraftus and Fawnia, 1588, (a book which Shakspeare certainly had read,) adds fupport to Dr. Johnfon's conjecture: "Fortune, envious of fuch happy fucceffe,-turned her wheele, and darkened their bright

That gentleman of Buckingham's: in perfon
I'll hear him his confeffions justify;

And point by point the treafons of his mafter
He fhall again relate.

funne of profperitie with the miftie cloudes of mishap and mifery."

Mr. M. Mafon has obferved that Dr. Johnfon did not do justice to his own emendation, referring the words whofe figure to Buckingham, when, in fact, they relate to Shadow. Sir W. Blackstone had already explained the paffage in this manner. MALONE.

By adopting Dr. Johnson's firft conjecture, "puts out," for puts on, a tolerable fenfe may be given to thefe obfcure lines. "I am but the shadow of poor Buckingham: and even the figure or outline of this fhadow begins now to fade away, being extinguished by this impending cloud, which darkens (or interpofes between me and) my clear fun; that is, the favour of my fovereign." BLACKSTONE.

4 and the best heart of it,] Heart is not here taken for the great organ of circulation and life, but, in a common, and popular fenfe, for the most valuable or precious part. Our author, in Hamlet, mentions the heart of heart. Exhaufted and effete ground is faid by the farmer to be out of heart. The hard and inner part of the oak is called heart of oak.

5

-Stood i' the level

JOHNSON.

Of a full-charg'd confederacy,] To ftand in the level of a 'gun is to stand in a line with its mouth, fo as to be hit by the fhot, JOHNSON.

So, in our author's Lover's Complaint:

not a heart which in his level came
"Could fcape the hail of his all-hurting aim."

Again, in our author's 117th Sonnet :

Bring me within the level of your frown, "But thoot not at me," &c.

STEEVENS.

See alfo Vol. IX. p. 271, n. 4; and p. 294, n. 8. MALONE.

1

The King takes his State. The Lords of the Council take their feveral Places. The Cardinal places himfelf under the King's Feet, on his right Side.

A Noife within, crying, Room for the Queen. Enter the Queen, ushered by the Dukes of NORFOLK and SUFFOLK: She kneels. The King rifeth from his State, takes her up, kisses, and placeth her by him.

Q. KATH. Nay, we muft longer kneel; I am a fuitor.

K. HEN. Arife, and take place by us:-Half your fuit

Never name to us; you have half our power:
The other moiety, ere you afk, is given;
Repeat your will, and take it.

Q. KATH.

Thank your majefty.

That you would love yourself; and, in that love,
Not unconfider'd leave your honour, nor

The dignity of your office, is the point

Of my petition.

K. HEN.

Lady mine, proceed.

Q. KATH. 1 am folicited, not by a few, And those of true condition, that your fubjects Are in great grievance: there have been commiffions Sent down among them, which hath flaw'd the heart Of all their loyalties:wherein, although, My good lord cardinal, they vent reproaches Moft bitterly on you, as putter-on

Of these exactions, yet the king our mafter,

as putter-on

Of these exactions,] The inftigator of these exactions; the

1

(Whose honour heaven fhield from foil!) even he escapes not

Language unmannerly, yea, fuch which breaks
The fides of loyalty, and almoft appears

In loud rebellion.

NOR.

Not almoft appears,

It doth appear: for, upon these taxations,
The clothiers all, not able to maintain
The many to them 'longing," have put off
The fpinfters, carders, fullers, weavers, who,
Unfit for other life, compell'd by hunger
And lack of other means, in desperate manner
Daring the event to the teeth, are all in uproar,
And Danger ferves among them.8

person who fuggefted to the King the taxes complained of, and incited him to exact them from his fubjects. So, in Macbeth: The powers above

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"Put on their inftruments."

Again, in Hamlet :

"Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause."

MALONE.

? The many to them 'longing,] The many is the meiny, the train, the people. Dryden is, perhaps, the last that used this word:

"The kings before their many rode." JOHNSON.

I believe the many is only the multitude, the of moλλol. Thus, Coriolanus, fpeaking of the rabble, calls them

the mutable rank-fcented many." STEEVENS.

8 And Danger ferves among them.] Could one easily believe that a writer, who had, but immediately before, funk fo low in his expreffion, fhould here rife again to a height so truly fublime? where, by the nobleft stretch of fancy, Danger is perfonalized as ferving in the rebel army, and shaking the established government. WARBURTON.

Chaucer, Gower, Skelton, and Spenfer, have perfonified Danger. The first, in his Romaunt of the Rofe; the fecond, in his fifth Book, De Confeffione Amantis; the third, in his Bouge of Court

K. HEN.

Taxation!

Wherein? and what taxation ?My lord cardinal, You that are blam'd for it alike with us,

Know you of this taxation?

WOL.

Please you, fir,

I know but of a fingle part, in aught

Pertains to the ftate; and front but in that file9
Where others tell steps with me.

Ο. ΚΑΤΗ.
No, my lord,
You know no more than others: but you frame
Things, that are known alike;' which are not
wholesome

To those which would not know them, and yet muft
Perforce be their acquaintance. These exactions,
Whereof my fovereign would have note, they are
Moft peftilent to the hearing; and, to bear them,
The back is facrifice to the load. They fay,
They are devis'd by you; or else you fuffer
Too hard an exclamation.

K. HEN.

Still exaction!

The nature of it? In what kind, let's know,
Is this exaction?

"With that, anone out ftart dangere ;"

and the fourth, in the 10th Canto of the 4th Book of his Fairy Queen, and again in the fifth Book and the ninth Canto.

9

STEEVENS.

front but in that file-] I am but primus inter pares, I am but firft in the row of counfellors. JOHNSON.

This was the very idea that Wolfey wished to disclaim. It was not his intention to acknowledge that he was the first in the row of counsellors, but that he was merely on a level with the reft, and stept in the fame line with them. M. MASON.

You know no more than others: &c.] That is, you know no more than other counsellors, but you are the person who frame those things which are afterwards propofed, and known equally by all. M. MASON.