.

SCENE II.

The Council-Chamber.

Cornets. Enter King HENRY, Cardinal WOLSEY, the Lords of the Council, Sir THOMAS LOVELL, Officers, and Attendants. The King enters leaning on the Cardinal's Shoulder.

K. HEN. My life itself, and the best heart of it,4 Thanks you for this great care: I ftood i' the level

are inexplicable, and must be left, I fear, to fome happier fagacity. If the usage of our author's time could allow figure to be taken, as now, for dignity or importance, we might read: Whofe figure even this inftant cloud puts out. But I cannot please myself with any conjecture.

Another explanation may be given, somewhat harsh, but the beft that occurs to me:

I am the Shadow of poor Buckingham,

Whofe figure even this inftant cloud puts on,

whofe port and dignity is affumed by the Cardinal, that overclouds and oppreffes me, and who gains my place

By dark ning my clear fun. JOHNSON.

Perhaps Shakspeare has expreffed the fame idea more clearly in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Antony and Cleopatra, and King John:

"O, how this fpring of love resembleth

"Th' uncertain glory of an April day,

"Which now fhows all the beauty of the fun,

"And, by and by, a cloud takes all away."

Antony, remarking on the various appearances affumed by the flying vapours, adds:

now thy captain is

"Even fuch a body: here I

am Antony,

"But cannot hold this visible shape, my knave."

Or yet, more appofitely, in King John:

-being but the fhadow of your fon

"Becomes a fun, and makes your fon a fhadow."

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

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

"He is the fubftance of my fhadowed love."

There is likewife a paffage fimilar to the conclufion of this, in Rollo, or the Bloody Brother, of Beaumont and Fletcher : is drawn so high, that, like an ominous comet, "He darkens all your light."

We might, however, read-pouts on; i. e. looks gloomily upon. So, in Coriolanus, A& V. fc. 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 funshine of royal favour.

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

"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 consequential meaning.

I fhould wifh, however, inftead 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 master
He fhall again relate.

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

Mr. M. Mason has obferved that Dr. Johnson did not do juftice to his own emendation, referring the words whofe figure to Buckingham, when, in fact, they relate to Shadow. Sir W. Blackftone had already explained the paffage in this manner.

MALONE.

By adopting Dr. Johnson's first conjecture, "puts out," for puts on,' a tolerable sense may be given to these obscure lines. "I am but the fhadow 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.

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 thot.

JOHNSON.

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

not a heart which in his level came

"Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim.”

Again, in our author's 117th Sonnet :

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

STERVENS.

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

The King takes his State. The Lords of the Council take their feveral Places. The Cardinal places himself 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 must 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 majesty.

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 thofe 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,

6

as putter-on

Of these exactions,] The infligator of thefe exactions; the

(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 spinfters, 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."

See Vol. X p. 252, n. 4. STEEVENS.

MALONE.

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

"The kings before their many rode." JOHNSON.

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

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the mutable rank-fcented many." STEEVENS.

8 And Danger ferves among them.] Could one eafily believe that a writer, who had, but immediately before, funk fo low in his expreffion, fhould here rife again to a height fo truly fublime? where, by the nobleft ftretch 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 second, in his fifth Book, De Confeffione Amantis; the third, in his Bouge of Court