SCENE III.

An Ante-chamber in the Queen's Apartments.

Enter ANNE BULLEN, and an old Lady.

ANNE. Not for that neither;-Here's the pang that pinches :

His highness having liv'd so long with her: and she
So good a lady, that no tongue could ever
Pronounce dishonour of her,-by my life,
She never knew harm-doing ;-O now, after
So many courses of the sun enthron'd,

Still growing in a majesty and pomp,-the which
To leave is a thousand-fold more bitter, than
'Tis sweet at first to acquire,-after this process,
To give her the avaunt! it is a pity

Would move a monster.

OLD L.

Hearts of most hard temper

Melt and lament for her.

ANNE. She ne'er had known pomp: though it be temporal, Yet, if that quarrel, fortune," do divorce

O, God's will! much better,

5 To leave is-] The latter word was added by Mr. Theobald. MALONE.

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

7

JOHNSON.

Yet, if that quarrel, fortune,] She calls Fortune a quarrel or arrow, from her striking so deep and suddenly. Quarrel was a large arrow so called. Thus Fairfax:

66

twang'd the string, out flew the quarrel long." WARBURTON.

Such is Dr. Warburton's interpretation. Sir Thomas Hanmer

reads:

That quarreller Fortune.

It from the bearer, 'tis a sufferance, panging
As soul and body's severing.3

OLD L.

She's a stranger now again."

Alas, poor lady!

I think the poet may be easily supposed to use quarrel for reller, as murder for the murderer, the act for the agent.

JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson may be right. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

your royalty

"Hold idleness your subject, I should take you

"For Idleness itself."

Like Martial's" Non vitiosus homo es, Zoile, sed Vitium." We might, however, read:

Yet if that quarrel fortune to divorce

It from the bearer.

i. e. if any quarrel happen or chance to divorce it from the bearer. To fortune is a verb used by Shakspeare in The Two Gentlemen of Verona:

I'll tell you as we pass along,

"That you will wonder what hath fortuned."

Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. I. c. ii:

"It fortuned (high heaven did so ordaine)" &c.

panging

STEEVENS.

As soul and body's severing.] So Bertram, in All's well that ends well: "I grow to you, and our parting is a tortur'd body." STEEVENS.

9

Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"The soul and body rive not more at parting,

"Than greatness going off." MALONE.

stranger now again.] Again an alien; not only no longer queen, but no longer an Englishwoman. JOHNSON.

It rather means, she is alienated from the King's affection, is a stranger to his bed; for she still retained the rights of an Englishwoman, and was princess dowager of Wales. So, in the second scene of the third Act:

"Shall be call'd queen; but princess dowager,
"And widow to prince Arthur." TOLLET.

Dr. Johnson's interpretation appears to me to be the true one.

MALONE.

ANNE.

So much the more

her. Verily,

Must pity drop upon her.

I swear, 'tis better to be lowly born,
And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.

And venture maidenhead for't; and so would you,
For all this spice of your hypocrisy :

You, that have so fair parts of woman on you,
Have too a woman's heart; which ever yet
Affected eminence, wealth, sovereignty;
Which, to say sooth, are blessings: and which gifts
(Saving your mincing) the capacity

Of your soft cheveril conscience would receive,
If you might please to stretch it.

ANNE.

Nay, good troth, OLD L. Yes, troth, and troth,-You would not be a queen?

I agree with Mr. Tollet. So, in King Lear:

"Dower'd with our curse, and stranger'd with our oath,"

i. e. the revocation of my love has reduced her to the condition of an unfriended stranger. STEEVENS.

1

our best having.] That is, our best possession. So, in Macbeth:

"Of noble having and of royal hope."

In Spanish, hazienda. JOHNSON.

So, in Histriomastix, 1610:

"The cheveril conscience of corrupted law."

STEEVENS.

ANNE. No, not for all the riches under heaven. OLD L.'Tis strange; a three-pence bowed would hire me,

Old as I am, to queen it: But, I pray you,
What think you of a duchess? have you limbs
To bear that load of title?

ANNE.

No, in truth.

OLD L. Then you are weakly made: Pluck off a

little;

I would not be a young count in your way,
For more than blushing comes to: if your back
Cannot vouchsafe this burden, 'tis too weak
Ever to get a boy.

ANNE.

How you do talk!

I swear again, I would not be a queen
For all the world.

OLD L.

In faith, for little England

You'd venture an emballing: I myself

Would for Carnarvonshire, although there 'long'd

3

Pluck off a little; &c.] What must she pluck off? I think we may better read:

Pluck

up a

little.

Pluck up! is an idiomatical expression for take courage.

JOHNSON.

The old lady first questions Anne Bullen about being a queen, which she declares her aversion to; she then proposes the title of a duchess, and asks her if she thinks herself equal to the task of sustaining it; but as she still declines the offer of greatness,

Pluck off a little,

says she; i. e. let us still further divest preferment of its glare, let us descend yet lower, and more upon a level with your own quality; and then adds:

I would not be a young count in your way,

which is an inferior degree of honour to any before enumerated.

* In faith, for little England

You'd venture an emballing: I myself

STEEVENS.

Would for Carnarvonshire,] Little England seems very

No more to the crown but that. Lo, who comes here?

properly opposed to all the world; but what has Carnarvonshire to do here? Does it refer to the birth of Edward II. at Carnarvon? or may not this be the allusion? By little England is meant, perhaps, that territory in Pembrokeshire, where the Flemings settled in Henry Ist's time, who speaking a language very different from the Welsh, and bearing some affinity to the English, this fertile spot was called by the Britons, as we are told by Camden, Little England beyond Wales; and, as it is a very fruitful country, may be justly opposed to the mountainous and barren county of Carnarvon. WHALLEY.

So, in A short Relation of a long Journey &c. by John Taylor the Water Poet: "Concerning Pembrookskire, the people do speak English in it almost generally, and therefore they call it Little England beyond Wales, it being the farthest south and west county in the whole principality." STEEVENS.

You'd venture an emballing:] You would venture to be distinguished by the ball, the ensign of royalty. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson's explanation cannot be right, because a queenconsort, such as Anne Bullen was, is not distinguished by the ball, the ensign of royalty, nor has the poet expressed that she was so distinguished. TOLLET.

Mr. Tollet's objection to Johnson's explanation is an hypercriticism. Shakspeare did not probably consider so curiously his distinction between a queen consort and a queen regent. M. MASON.

Might we read

You'd venture an empalling;

i. e. being invested with the pall or robes of state? The word occurs in the old tragedy of King Edward III. 1596:

"As with this armour I impall thy breastAnd, in Macbeth, the verb to pall is used in the sense of enrobe: "And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell."

MALONE.

The word recommended by Mr. Malone occurs also in Chapman's version of the eighth Book of Homer's Odyssey: such a radiance as doth round empall "Crown'd Cytherea,-" STEEVENS.

66

Might we not read-an embalming? A queen consort is

VOL. XV.

G