That once was mistress of the field, and flourish'd, I'll hang my head, and perish. WOL. If your grace Could but be brought to know, our ends are honest, You'd feel more comfort: why should we, good lady, Upon what cause, wrong you? alas! our places, We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow them. How you may hurt yourself, ay, utterly do; Grow from the king's acquaintance, by this carriage. The hearts of princes kiss obedience, So much they love it; but, to stubborn spirits, vants. CAM. Madam, you'll find it so. You wrong your virtues -the lily, That once was mistress of the field,] So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, Book II. c. vi. st. 16: "The lily, lady of the flow'ring field." HOLT WHITE. 3 The hearts of princes kiss obedience, So much they love it; but, to stubborn spirits, They swell, and grow as terrible as storms.] It was one of the charges brought against Lord Essex, in the year before this play was probably written, by his ungrateful kinsman, Sir Francis Bacon, when that nobleman, to the disgrace of humanity, was obliged, by a junto of his enemies, to kneel at the end of the council-table for several hours, that in a letter written during his retirement, in 1598, to the Lord Keeper, he had said, “There is no tempest to the passionate indignation of a prince." MALONE. With these weak women's fears. A noble spirit, As yours was put into you, ever casts Such doubts, as false coin, from it. The king loves you; Beware, you lose it not: For us, if you please If I have 'us'd myself unmannerly;4 You know, I am a woman, lacking wit He has my heart yet; and shall have my prayers, 4 If I have us'd myself unmannerly ;] That is, if I have behaved myself unmannerly. M. MASON. t SCENE II. Ante-chamber to the King's Apartment. Enter the Duke of NORFOLK, the Duke of SUFFOLK, the Earl of SURREY, and the Lord Chamberlain. NOR. If you will now unite in your complaints And force them5 with a constancy, the cardinal Cannot stand under them: If you omit The offer of this time, I cannot promise, SUR. SUF. And force them-] Force is enforce, urge. JOHNSON. So, in Measure for Measure: 66 Has he affections in him "That thus can make him bite the law by the nose, Strangely neglected? Which of the peers has not gone by him contemned or neglected? JOHNSON. Our author extends to the words, strangely neglected, the negative comprehended in the word uncontemn'd. M. MASON. Uncontemn'd, as I have before observed in a note on As you like it, must be understood, as if the author had written not contemn'd. See Vol. VIII. p. 34, n. 7. MALONE. The stamp of nobleness in any person, CHAM. My lords, you speak your pleasures: NOR. SUR. Sir, I should be glad to hear such news as this NOR. appears, The stamp of nobleness in any person, 8 Out of himself?] The expression is bad, and the thought false. For it supposes Wolsey to be noble, which was not so: we should read and point: - when did he regard The stamp of nobleness in any person ; i. e. When did he regard nobleness of blood in another, having none of his own to value himself upon? WARburton. I do not think this correction proper. The meaning of the present reading is easy. When did he, however careful to carry his own dignity to the utmost height, regard any dignity of another? JOHNSON. — contrary proceedings-] Private practices opposite to his publick procedure. JOHNSON. |