3 GENT.

I know it;

But 'tis so lately alter'd, that the old name

Is fresh about me.

2 GENT.

What two reverend bishops Were those that went on each side of the queen?

3 GENT. Stokesly and Gardiner; the one, of Winchester,

(Newly preferr'd from the king's secretary,) The other, London.

2 GENT.

He of Winchester

Is held no great good lover of the archbishop's, The virtuous Cranmer.

3 GENT.

All the land knows that:

However, yet there's no great breach; when it

comes,

Cranmer will find a friend will not shrink from him. 2 GENT. Who may that be, I pray you?

3 GENT.
Thomas Cromwell;
A man in much esteem with the king, and truly
A worthy friend.—The king

Has made him master o'the jewel-house,
And one, already, of the privy-council.

2 GENT. He will deserve more.

;

Yes, without all doubt.

. 3.GENT. Come, gentlemen, ye shall go my way, which Is to the court, and there ye shall be my guests; Something I can command. As I walk thither, I'll tell ye more.

Вотн.

You may command us, sir.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.8

Kimbolton.

Enter KATHARINE, Dowager, sick; led between GRIFFITH and PATIENCE.

GRIF. How does your grace?

KATH. O, Griffith, sick to death: My legs, like loaden branches, bow to the earth, Willing to leave their burden: Reach a chair;So, now, methinks, I feel a little ease. Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, as thou led'st me, That the great child of honour, cardinal Wolsey, Was dead?

9

GRIF. Yes, madam; but, I think,' your grace, Out of the pain you suffer'd, gave no ear to't. KATH. Pr'ythee, good Griffith, tell me how he died:

If well, he stepp'd before me, happily,
For my example.2

Scene II.] This scene is above any other part of Shakspeare's tragedies, and perhaps above any scene of any other poet, tender and pathetick, without gods, or furies, or poisons, or precipices, without the help of romantick circumstances, without improbable sallies of poetical lamentation, and without any throes of tumultuous misery. JOHNSON.

9

1

child of honour,] So, in King Henry IV. Part I: "That this same child of honour and renown

STEEVENS. 1-I think,-] Old copy-I thank. Corrected in the second folio. MALONE.

2 he stepp'd before me, happily,

For my example.] Happily seems to mean on this occasionperadventure, haply. I have been more than once of this opi

GRIF.

Well, the voice goes,

madam:

For after the stout earl Northumberland3
Arrested him at York, and brought him forward
(As a man sorely tainted,) to his answer,
He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill,

He could not sit his mule."

nion, when I have met with the same word thus spelt in other passages. STEEVENS.

Mr. M. Mason is of opinion that happily here means fortunately. Mr. Steevens's interpretation is, I think, right. So, in King Henry VI. Part II:

3

Chase:

4

"Thy fortune, York, hadst thou been regent there,
Might happily have prov'd far worse than his."

66

the stout earl Northumberland-]

"The stout earl of Northumberland
"A vow to God did make" &c.

MALONE.

So, in Chevy

STEEVENS.

He could not sit his mule.] In Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, 1641, it is said that Wolsey poisoned himself; but the words"at which time it was apparent that he had poisoned himself," which appear in p. 108 of that work, were an interpolation, inserted by the publisher for some sinister purpose; not being found in the two manuscripts now preserved in the Museum. See a former note, p. 141. MAlone.

Cardinals generally rode on mules. "He rode like a cardinal, sumptuously upon his mule." Cavendish's Life of Wolsey. REED.

In the representation of the Champ de Drap d'Or, published by the Society of Antiquaries, the Cardinal appears mounted on one of these animals very richly caparisoned. This circumstance also is much dwelt on in the ancient Satire quoted p. 88, n. 6: "Wat. What yf he will the devils blisse? "Jef. They regarde it no more be gisse "Then waggynge of his mule's tayle. "Wat. Doth he then use on mule's to ryde? "Jef. Ye, and that with so shamful pryde "That to tell it is not possible."

Again:

"Then foloweth my lorde on his mule
"Trapped with golde under her cule

"In every poynt most curiously."

KATH.

Alas, poor man!

GRIF. At last, with easy roads,5 he came to

Leicester,

Lodg'd in the abbey; where the reverend abbot,
With all his convent, honourably receiv'd him;
To whom he gave these words,-O father abbot,
An old man, broken with the storms of state,
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;
Give him a little earth for charity!

So went to bed: where eagerly his sickness
Pursu'd him still; and, three nights after this,
About the hour of eight, (which he himself
Foretold, should be his last,) full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,
He gave his honours to the world again,
His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.

KATH. SO may he rest; his faults lie gently on him! Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak him, And yet with charity,-He was a man

Of an unbounded stomach," ever ranking
Himself with princes; one, that by suggestion
Ty'd all the kingdom: simony was fair play;

Again:

6

7

"The bosses of his mulis brydles
"Myght bye Christ and his disciples
"As farre as I coulde ever rede."

STEEVENS.

with easy roads,] i. e. by short stages. STEEVENS.

• Of an unbounded stomach,] i. e. of unbounded pride, or haughtiness. So, Holinshed, speaking of King Richard III: "Such a great audacitie and such a stomach reigned in his bodie." STEEVENS.

7 one, that by suggestion

Ty'd all the kingdom:] The word suggestion, says the critick [Dr. Warburton], is here used with great propriety and seeming knowledge of the Latin tongue: and he proceeds to settle the sense of it from the late Roman writers and their

His own opinion was his law: I'the presence
He would say untruths; and be ever double,

glossers. But Shakspeare's knowledge was from Holinshed, whom he follows verbatim:

"This cardinal was of a great stomach, for he computed himself equal with princes, and by craftie suggestions got into his hands innumerable treasure: he forced little on simonie, and was not pitifull, and stood affectionate in his own opinion: in open presence he would lie and seie untruth, and was double both in speech and meaning: he would promise much and perform little he was vicious of his bodie, and gave the clergie euil example." Edit. 1587, p. 922.

Perhaps, after this quotation, you may not think, that Sir Thomas Hanmer, who reads tyth'd-instead of ty'd all the kingdom, deserves quite so much of Dr. Warburton's severity.Indisputably the passage, like every other in the speech, is intended to express the meaning of the parallel one in the chronicle; it cannot therefore be credited, that any man, when the original was produced, should still choose to defend a cant acceptation, and inform us, perhaps, seriously, that in gaming language, from I know not what practice, to tye is to equal! A sense of the word, as I have yet found, unknown to our old writers; and, if known, would not surely have been used in this place by our author.

But, let us turn from conjecture to Shakspeare's authorities. Hall, from whom the above description is copied by Holinshed, is very explicit in the demands of the cardinal: who having insolently told the lord mayor and aldermen," For sothe I thinke, that halfe your substance were too little," assures them, by way of comfort, at the end of his harangue, that, upon an average, the tythe should be sufficient: "Sirs, speake not to breake that thyng that is concluded, for some shall not paie the tenth parte, and some more." And again: "Thei saied, the cardinall by visitacions, makyng of abbottes, probates of testamentes, graunting of faculties, licences, and other pollyngs in his courtes legantines, had made his threasure egall with the kynges." Edit. 1548, p. 138, and 143. FARMER.

In Storer's Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey, a poem, 1599, the Cardinal says:

"I car'd not for the gentrie, for I had
"Tithe-gentlemen, yong nobles of the land," &c.

STEEVENS.

Ty'd all the kingdom :] i. e. he was a man of an unbounded