1

P. 75, 1. 4. that am, have,

and will be.] I can find no meaning in these words, or see how they are connected with the rest of the sentence; and should therefore strike them out. M. MASON.

I suppose, the meaning is, that, or such a man, I am, have been, and will ever be. Our author has many hard and forced expressious in his plays; but many of the hardnesses in the piece, before us appear to me of a different colour from those of Shakpeare. MALONE.

हे

P. 76, 1. 15. 16. Re-enter the Dukes of NORFOLK and SUFFOLK, the Earl of SURREY, It may not be improper here to repeat that the time of this play is from 1521, just before the Duke of Buckingham's commitment, to the year 1533, when Queen Elizabeth was born and christened. The Duke of Norfolk, therefore, who is intro, duced in the first scene of the first act, or in 1522, is not the same person who here, or in 1529, demands the great seal from Wolsey; for Thomas Howard, who was created Duke of Norfolk, 1514, died we are informed by Holinshed p. 891, at Whit suntide, 1525. As our author has here made two, persons into one, so on the contrary, he has made one person into two. The Earl of Surrey here is the same with him who married the Duke of Buckingham's daughter, as appears from his own month: "I am joyful

"To meet the least occasion that may give mę "Remembrance of my father-in-law, the Duke."

But Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, who married the Duke of Buckingham's daughter, was at this time the individual above mentioned Duke of Norfolk. The reason for adding the third or fourth person is interlocutors in this scene is not very

apparent, for Holinshed, p. yog, mentions only the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk being sent to demand the great seal, and all that is spoken would proceed with sufficient propriety out of their months. The cause of the Duke of Norfolk's amimosity to Wolsey is obvious, and Cavendish mentions that an open quarrel at this time subsisted between the Cardinal and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. REED.

P. 76, 1. 21. 22, and to confine yourself!3 To Asher-house, my lord of Winchester's,] Asher-house, thus the old copy. Asher was the ancient name of Esher; as appears from Hồlinshed: and everie man took their horses and rode strait to Asher. WARNER. Shakspeare forgot that Wolsey was himself Bishop of Winchester, unless he meant to say, you must confine yourself possess as Bishop of Winchester. Asher, near Hampton-Court, was one of the houses belonging to the bishoprick. MALONE.

to that house which you

Fox, Bishop of Winchester, died Sept. 14, 1528, and Wolsey held this see in commendam. Esher therefore was his own house. REED.

P. 76, 1. 3-33. Wol. Till I find more than will, or words, to do it, (I mean, your malice,) know, officions Lords,

and

I dares must deny it.] Wolsey had said:

cannot carry

Authority so weighty.

To which they reply:

"Who dare cross them?" &c.

Wolsey answering them, continues his own speech, Till I find more than will or words (I mean more than your malicious will and words)

to do it; that is, to carry authority so mighty; I will deny to return what the King has given me, JOHNSON.

P. 77, 1. 18. Within these forty hours-] Why, forty hours? But a few minutes have passed since Wolsey's disgrace. I suspect that Shakspeare* within these four hours,

wrote

and that the person who revised and tampered with this play, not knowing that hours was used by our poet as a dissyllable, made this injudicious alteration. MALONE.

1 adhere to the old reading. Forty (I know not why) seems anciently to have been the familiar number on many occasions, where no very exact reckoning was necessary. In a former scene, the Old Lady offers to lay Anne Bullen a wager of forty pence;" Slender, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, says "I had rather than forty

shillings —

-

"and in The Taming of the Shrew, the humour of forty fancies" is the ornament of Grumio's hat: Thus also, in Coriolanus:

on fair ground

"I could beat forty of them." STEEVENS, P. 78, 1. 15. To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,] To be abused and ill-treated, like a worthless horse; or perhaps to be ridden by a priest; to have him mounted above us: MALONE

P. 78, 6. 17. let his Grace go forward,

And dare us with his cap, like larks.] It is well known that the hat of a Cardinal is scarlet; and the method of daring larks was by small mirrors fastened on scarlet cloth, which engaged the attention of these birds while the fowler drew his net over them. STEEVENS.

P. 78, 1. 33.
VOL. XIII.

the sacring bell, The little

20

bell, which is rung to give notice of the Host ap proaching when it is carried in procession, as also in other offices of the Romish church, is called the sacring, or consecration bell; from the French word, sacrer, THEOBALD.

31

P. 80, 1, 1-5. you have caus'd

་་

Your holy hat to be stamp'd on the King's coin.] In the long string of articles exhibited by the Privy Council against Wolsey, which Sir Edward Coke transcribed from the original, this offence composed one of the charges: 40. Also the said Lord Cardinal of his further pompous and presumptuous minde, hath enterprised to joyn and imprint the Cardinal's hat under your armes in your coyn of groats made at your city of York, which like deed hath not been. seen to be done by any subject in your realm before this time." 4 Inst. 94. HOLT WHITE.

This was certainly one of the articles exhibited against Wolsey, but rather with a view to swell the catalogue, than from any serious cause of accusation; inasmuch as the Archbishops Cranmer, Bainbrigge, and Warham were indulged with the same privilege. See Snelling's View of the Silver Coin and Coinage of England. DOUCE.

P. 80, 1. g. the mere undoing] Mere is absolute. STELVENS.

P. So, 1. 23. It is almost unnecessary to observe that praemunire is a barbarous word used instead of praemonere. STEEVENS.

P. 80, 1. 25. 26. To forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements,

Chattles,] The old copy castles. I. have ventured to substitute chattels here, as the author's genuine word, because the judgement in a writ of Praemunire is, that the defendant shal

be out of the King's protection; and his lands and tenements, goods and chattels forfeited to the King; and that his body should remain in prison at the King's pleasure. THEOBALD.

I

The emendation made by Mr. Theobald,' think, fully justified by the passage in Holinshed's Chronicle on which this is founded; in which it is observable that the word chattels is spelt cattels, which might have been easily confounded with castles. MALONE. « As spring

P. 81, 1. 10. - nips his root,] frosts are not injurious to the roots of fruit-trees," Dr. Warburton reads shoot. Such capricious alterations I am sometimes obliged to mention, merely to introduce the notes of those, who, while they have shewn them to be unnecessary, have illustrated our author. MALONE.

Vernal frosts indeed do not kill the root, but then to nip the shoots does not kill the tree or make it fall. The metaphor will not in either reading correspond exactly with nature. JOHNSON.

I adhere to the old reading, which is countenanced by a passage in Gascoigne's Works, 1587. STEEVENS. P. 81, 1. 22. Their ruin, is, their displeasure, producing the downfall and ruin him on whom it lights. MALONE.

P. 82, 1.33. May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on 'em!] The chancellor is the general guardian of orphans. A tomb of tears is very harsh. JOHNSON.

This idea will not appear altogether indefensible to those who recollect the following epigram of Martial:

Flentibus Heliadum ramis dum vipera serpit,