Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Line 566. A springhalt reign'd among them.] The stringhalt or springhalt is a disease incident to horses, which gives them a convulsive motion in their paces. STEEVENS.

ACT I. SCENE IV.

[ocr errors]

Line 644. noble bevy,] Milton has copied this word: A bevy of fair dames.

JOHNSON.

. Line 646. As first-good company, &c.] i.e. he would have you as merry as these three things can make you, the best company in the land, of the best rank, good wine, &c. THEOBALD. 7 Line 654. a running banquet-] i. e. a hasty banquet. MALONE.

-chambers discharged.]. Chambers are very small guns, used only on occasions of rejoicing. They are so contrived as to carry great charges, and thereby to make a noise more than proportioned to their size. Some of them are still fired in the Park, and at the places opposite to the parliament-house, when the king goes thither. Camden enumerates them among other guns, as follows, -cannons, demi-cannons, chambers, arquebuse, musquet.'

[ocr errors]

STEEVENS.

Line 757. take it.] That is, take the chief place.

JOHNSON.

-761. You have found him, cardinal:] Holinshed says the cardinal mistook, and pitched upon sir Edward Neville; upon which the king laughed, and pulled off both his own mask and sir Edward's. Edwards's MSS. STEEVENS.

Line 764.

unhappily.] That is, unluckily, mischievously.

1

ACT II. SCENE I.

JOHNSON.

Line 28. Was either pitied in him, or forgotten.] Either pro duced no effect, or produced only ineffectual pity.

MALONE.

Line 43. -he sweat extremely,] This circumstance is taken from Holinshed." After he was found guilty, the duke was brought to the bar, sore chafing, and sweat marvellously.”

STEEVENS.

Line 92. -You few that lov'd me, &c.] These lines are remarkably tender and pathetic. JOHNSON.

[ocr errors]

Line 131.

-I now seal it ; &c.] I now seal my truth, my

loyalty, with blood, which blood shall one day make them groan.

Line 176. Strong faith-] Is great fidelity.

JOHNSON

JOHNSON.

ACT II. SCENE II.

Line 268. From princes into pages:] This may allude to the retinue of the cardinal, who had several of the nobility among; his menial servants. JOHNSON.

Line 270. Into what pitch he please.] The mass must be fashioned into pitch or height, as well as into particular form. The meaning is, that the cardinal can, as he pleases, make high. or low. JOHNSON.

NORFOLK opens, &c.] The stage direction in the old copy is a singular one. Exit Lord Chamberlain, and the King draws the curtain, and sits reading pensively.

[blocks in formation]

STEEVENS,

I be not found a talker.] I take the meaning to be,' Let care be taken that my promise be performed, that my professions.

of welcome be not found empty talk.

Line 316.

proud.

JOHNSON

-so sick though,] That is, so sick as he is

JOHNSON.

Line 378. Kept him a foreign man still:] Kept him out of the king's presence, employed in foreign embassies. JOHNSON.

ACT II. SCENE III.

Line 406. To give her the avaunt!] To send her away contemptuously; to pronounce against her a sentence of ejection.

JOHNSON.

Line 413. Yet, if that quarrel, fortune,] I think the poet may be supposed to use quarrel for quarreller, as murder for murderer, the act for the agent. JOHNSON

Line 417. stranger now again.] Again an alien; not only no longer queen, but no longer an Englishwoman. JOHNSON -our best having.] That is, our best possession

Line 425.

So in Macbeth,

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

Line 436.cheveril-] Is kid-skin, soft leather. JOHNS. 458. You'd centure an emballing:] You would venture to be distinguished by the ball, the ensign of royalty. JOHNSON. Line 484. More than my all is nothing:] Not only my all is nothing, but if my all were more than it is, it were still nothing. JOHNSON.

Line 493. I shall not fail &c.] I shall not omit to strengthen by my commendation the opinion which the king has formed.

⚫a gem

JOHNSON.

Line 498. To lighten all this isle?] Perhaps alluding to the carbuncle, a gem supposed to have intrinsic light, and to shine in the dark; any other gem may reflect light, but cannot give it.

JOHNSON.

Line 511. -is it bitter? forty pence, no.] Forty pence was in those days the proverbial expression of a small wager. Money was then reckoned by pounds, marks, and nobles. Forty pence is half a noble, or the sixth part of a pound. Forty pence, or three and four pence, still remains in many offices the legal and established fee. STEEVENS.

ACT II. SCENE IV.

-Sennet,] A sennet appears to have signified a short flourish
MALONE.

on cornets.

-Pillars;] Pillars were some of the ensigns of dignity carried before cardinals. Sir Thomas More, when he was speaker to the commons, advised them to admit Wolsey into the house with his maces and his pillars. More's Life of Sir T. More. JOHNSON. -goes about the court,] "Because (says Cavendish) she could not come to the king directlie, for the distance severed between them."

[ocr errors]

MALONE.

Line 549. Sir, I desire you, do me right and justice; &c.] This speech of the queen's and the king's reply are taken from the old chronicles.

STEEVENS.

i. e. that you

Line 602. That longer you desire the court;] desire to protract the business of the court; that you solicit a more distant session and trial.

MALONE.

[blocks in formation]

You shall not be my judge:] Challenge is here a verbum juris, a law term. The criminal, when he refuses a juryman, says, I challenge him.

JOHNSON.

Line 658. You sign your place and calling,] Sign, for answer. WARBURTON.

I think, to sign must here be to show, to denote. By your outward meekness and humility, you show that you are of an holy order, but, &c. Line 663.

JOHNSON.

Where powers are your retainers: and your words,

Domesticks to you, serve your will,] You have now got power at your beck, following in your retinue; and words therefore are degraded to the servile state of performing any office which you shall give them. In humbler and more common terms; having now got power you do not regard your word. JOHNSON.

Line 694.

could speak thee out,)] If thy several qualities

had tongues to speak thy praise.

Line 703. although not there

JOHNSON.

At once, and fully satisfied,)] The sense is this. I must be loosed, though when so loosed, I shall not be satisfied fully and at once; that is, I shall not be immediately satisfied. JOHNS. Line 722.

-on my honour,

I speak my good lord cardinal to this point,] The king, having first addressed to Wolsey, breaks off; and declares upon his honour to the whole court, that he speaks the cardinal's sentiments upon the point in question; and clears him from any attempt, or wish, to stir that business. THEOBALD.

Line 730. Scruple, and prick,] Prick of conscience was the term in confession.

[blocks in formation]

JOHNSON.

The bosom of my conscience,] Shakspeare, in all his historical plays, was a most diligent observer of Holinshed's Chronicle. Now Holinshed, in the speech which he has given to king Henry upon this subject, makes him deliver himself thus: "Which words, once conceived within the secret bottom of my "conscience, ingendred such a scrupulous doubt, that my consci"ence was incontinently accombred, vexed, and disquieted." Vide Life of Henry VIII. p. 907. THEOBALD.

[blocks in formation]

The wild sea-] That is,, floating without guidance: toss'd here and there.

JOHNSON.

The expression belongs to navigation. A ship is said to hull, when she is dismasted, and only her hull, or hulk, is left at the direction and mercy of the waves. STEEVENS.

Line 780. I then mov'd you,] I have rescued the text from Holinshed.—" I moved it in confession to you, my lord of Lin"coln, then ghostly father. And forasmuch as then you yourself "were in some doubt, you moved me to ask the counsel of all "these my lords. Whereupon I moved you, my lord of Canterbury, first to have your licence, in as much as you were metro"politan, to put this matter in question; and so I did of all you, my "lords.". Holinshed's Life of Henry VIII. p. 908. THEOBALD.

66

ACT III. SCENE I.

Line 46. Envy and base opinion against them,] I would be glad that my conduct were in some publick trial confronted with mine enemies, that envy and corrupt judgment might try their utmost power against me. JOHNSON.

Line 48. and that way I am wife in,] That is, if you come to examine the title by which I am the king's wife; or, if you come to know how I have behaved as a wife. JOHNSON. Line 94. For her sake that I have been, &c.] For the sake of that royalty which I have heretofore possessed. MALONE.

Line 105. (Though he be grown so desperate to be honest,)] Do you think that any Englishman dare advise me; or, if any man should venture to advise with honesty, that he could live? JOHNS.

Line 107. -weigh out my afflictions,] This phrase is obscure. To weigh out, is, in modern language, to deliver by weight; but this sense cannot be here admitted. To weigh is likewise to deliberate upon, to consider with due attention. This may, perhaps, be meant. Or the phrase, to weigh out, may signify to counterbalance, to counteract with equal force. JOHNSON.

Line 127. The more shame for ye;] If I mistake you, it is by your fault, not mine; for I thought you good. The distress of Katharine might have kept her from the quibble to which she is irresistibly tempted by the word cardinal. JOHNSON.

Line 161. superstitious to him?] That is, served him with superstitious attention; done more than was required. JOHNS.

« ZurückWeiter »