Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Enter CROMWELL, amazedly.

Why, how now, Cromwell?

CROM. I have no power to speak, sir.

WOL.

What, amaz'd

At

my

misfortunes? can thy spirit wonder, A great man should decline? Nay, an you weep, I am fallen indeed.

CROM.

WOL.

How does your grace ?

Why, well;

Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell.
I know myself now; and I feel within me

A peace above all earthly dignities,

A still and quiet conscience. The king has cur'd

me,

I humbly thank his grace; and from these shoulders,
These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken

A load would sink a navy, too much honour :
O, 'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden,
Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven.

CROM. I am glad, your grace has made that right use of it.

WOL. I hope, I have: I am able now, methinks, (Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,)

To endure more miseries, and greater far,

In The Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey, &c. a poem, by Tho. Storer, student of Christ-church, in Oxford, 1599, the Cardinal expresses himself in a manner somewhat similar:

"If once we fall, we fall Colossus-like,

"We fall at once, like pillars of the sunne," &c.

STEEVENS.

[blocks in formation]

CROM. The next is, that sir Thomas More is

chosen

Lord chancellor in your place.

WOL. That's somewhat sudden : But he's a learned man. May he continue Long in his highness' favour, and do justice For truth's sake, and his conscience; that his bones, When he has run his course, and sleeps in blessings, May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on 'em!3 What more?

I am able now, methinks,

(Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,)
To endure more miseries, and greater far,

Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.] So, in King Henry VI. Part II:

“ More can I bear, than you dare execute." Again, in Othello:

3

"Thou hast not half the power to do me harm,
"As I have to be hurt." MALONE.

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

"Flentibus Heliadum ramis dum vipera serpit,

"Fluxit in obstantem succina gemma feram :
"Quæ dum miratur pingui se rore teneri,
"Concreto riguit vincta repente gelu.

"Ne tibi regali placeas Cleopatra sepulchro,

"Vipera si tumulo nobiliore jacet.'

[ocr errors]

The Heliades certainly wept a tomb of tears over the viper. The same conceit, however, is found in Drummond of Hawthornden's Teares for the Death of Moeliades:

CROM. That Cranmer is return'd with welcome, Install❜d lord archbishop of Canterbury.

WOL. That's news indeed.

CROM.

Last, that the lady Anne,

Whom the king hath in secrecy long married,
This day was view'd in open, as his queen,
Going to chapel; and the voice is now
Only about her coronation.

WOL. There was the weight that pull'd me down. O Cromwell,

The king has gone beyond me, all

my glories In that one woman I have lost for ever: No sun shall ever usher forth mine honours, Or gild again the noble troops that waited Upon my smiles. Go, get thee from me, Cromwell;

"The Muses, Phoebus, Love, have raised of their teares "A crystal tomb to him, through which his worth appeares." STEEVENS.

A similar conceit occurs in King Richard II. Act III. sc. iii.

HENLEY.

The old copy has-on him. The error, which probably arose from similitude of sounds, was corrected by Mr. Steevens.

MALONE.

-in open,] A Latinism, [in aperto] perhaps introduced by Ben Jonson, who is supposed to have tampered with this play. Et castris in aperto positis: Liv. I. 33. i. e. în a place exposed on all sides to view. STEEVENS.

Or gild again the noble troops that waited

Upon my smiles.] The number of persons who composed Cardinal Wolsey's household, according to the printed account, was eight hundred. "When (says Cavendish, in his Life of Wolsey,) shall we see any more such subjects, that shall keepe such a noble house? Here is an end of his houshold. The number of persons in the cheyne-roll [check-roll] were eight hundred persons."

But Cavendish's work, though written in the time of Queen Mary, was not published till 1641; and it was then printed most unfaithfully, some passages being interpolated, near half of

I am a poor fallen man, unworthy now

To be thy lord and master: Seek the king;
That sun, I pray, may never set! I have told him
What, and how true thou art: he will advance thee;
Some little memory of me will stir him,

(I know his noble nature,) not to let

Thy hopeful service perish too: Good Cromwell, Neglect him not; make use now, and provide For thine own future safety.

CROM. O my lord, Must I then leave you? must I needs forego So good, so noble, and so true a master? Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron, With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord.The king shall have my service; but my prayers For ever, and for ever, shall be yours.

WOL. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear

the MS. being omitted, and the phraseology being modernised throughout, to make it more readable at that time; the covert object of the publication probably having been, to render Laud odious, by shewing how far church-power had been extended by Wolsey, and how dangerous that prelate was, who, in the opinion of many, followed his example. The persons who procured this publication, seem to have been little solicitous about the means they employed, if they could but obtain their end; and therefore, among other unwarrantable sophistications, they took care that the number" of troops who waited on Wolsey's smiles," should be sufficiently magnified; and, instead of one hundred and eighty, which was the real number of his household, they printed eight hundred. This appears from two MSS. of this work in the Museum; MSS. Harl. No. 428, and MSS. Birch, 4233.

In another manuscript copy of Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, in the Publick Library at Cambridge, the number of the Cardinal's household, by the addition of a cypher, is made 1800. MALONE.

6

make use- -]. i. e. make interest. about Nothing: "I gave him use for it."

So, in Much Ado
STEEVENS.

« AnteriorContinuar »