Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye; Enter CROMWELL, amazedly. Why, how now, Cromwell? What, amaz'd CROM. I have no power to speak, sir. WOL. 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. me, The king has cur'd -our 9 and THEIR ruin,] Most of the modern editors readruin. STEEVENS. "Their ruin" is, 'their displeasure,' producing the downfall and ruin of him on whom it lights. So before: "He parted frowning from me, as if ruin And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,] So, in Churchyard's Legend of Cardinal Wolsey, Mirrour for Magistrates, 1587: "Your fault not half so great as was my pride, "For which offence fell Lucifer from the skies." MALONE. 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. I humbly thank his grace; and from these shoulders, A load would sink a navy, too much honour: 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, Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer 2. CROM. The heaviest, and the worst, God bless him! Is your displeasure with the king. WOL. CROM. The next is, that sir Thomas More is chosen Lord Chancellor in your place. WOL. But he's a learned man. That's somewhat sudden: 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! What more? 2 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: "Thou hast not half the power to do me harm, "As I have to be hurt." MALONE. 3- 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: CROM. That Cranmer is return'd with welcome, Install'd lord archbishop of Canterbury. WOL. That's news indeed. Last, that the lady Anne, Whom the king hath in secrecy long married, 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, Flentibus Heliadum ramis dum vipera serpit, Ne tibi regali placeas Cleopatra sepulchro, 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: 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. 4-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. in a place exposed on all sides to view. STEEVENS. 5 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 household. The 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 6 Thy hopeful service perish too: Good Cromwell, Neglect him not; make use now, and provide For thine own future safety. CROM. WOL. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear 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 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. So, in Much Ado About Nothing: "I gave him use for it." STEEVENS. In all my miseries; but thou hast forc'd me And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention 7 fling away AMBITION;] Wolsey does not mean to condemn every kind of ambition; for in a preceding line he says he will instruct Cromwell how to rise, and in the subsequent lines he evidently considers him as a man in office: "then if thou fall'st," &c. Ambition here means a criminal and inordinate ambition, that endeavours to obtain honours by dishonest means. MALONE. 8 By that sin fell the angels,] See p. 428, n. 1. STEEVENS. 9- cherish those hearts that HATE thee;] Though this be good divinity, and an admirable precept for our conduct in private life, it was never calculated or designed for the magistrate or publick minister. Nor could this be the direction of a man experienced in affairs to his pupil. It would make a good christian, but a very ill and very unjust statesman. And we have nothing so infamous in tradition, as the supposed advice given to one of our kings, "to cherish his enemies, and to be in no pain for his friends." I am of opinion the poet wrote: 66 cherish those hearts that wait thee;" i. e. thy dependants. For the contrary practice had contributed to Wolsey's ruin. He was not careful enough in making dependants by his bounty, while intent in amassing wealth to himself. The following line seems to confirm this correction : "Corruption wins not more than honesty." i. e. You will never find men won over to your temporary occasions by bribery, so useful to you as friends made by a just and generous munificence. WARBURTON. |