NOR. And so we'll leave you to your meditations How to live better. For your stubborn answer, About the giving back the great seal to us, The king shall know it, and, no doubt, shall thank you. So fare you well, my little good lord cardinal. [Exeunt all but WOLSEY. WOL. So farewell to the little good you bear me. Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness! This is the state of man; To-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope," to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him: The third day, comes a frost, a killing frost; And,-when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a ripening,-nips his root,8 that his body shall remain in prison at the king's pleasure. This very description of the pramunire is set out by Holinshed, in his Life of King Henry VIII. p. 909. THEOBALD. The emendation made by Mr. Theobald, is, I think, fully justified by the passage in Holinshed's Chronicle, on which this is founded; in which it is observable that the word chattels is spelt cattels, which might have been easily confounded with castels: "After this, in the King's Bench his matter for the præmunire being called upon, two attornies which he had authorised by his warrant signed with his own hand, confessed the action, and so had judgment to forfeit all his landes, tenements, goods, and cattels, and to be put out of the king's protection." Chron. Vol. II. p. 909. MALONE, "This is the state of man; To day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope, &c.] So, in our author's 25th Sonnet: "Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread, "And in themselves their pride lies buried, "For at a frown they in their glory die." MAlone. nips his root,] "As spring-frosts are not injurious to the roots of fruit-trees," Dr. Warburton reads-shoot. Such capricious alterations I am sometimes obliged to mention, merely And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd, But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride to introduce the notes of those, who, while they have shewn them to be unnecessary, have illustrated our author. MALONE, Vernal frosts, indeed, do not kill the root, but then to nip the shoots does not kill the tree or make it fall. The metaphor will not, in either reading, correspond exactly with nature. JOHNSON. I adhere to the old reading, which is countenanced by the following passage in A. W.'s Commendation of Gascoigne and his Poesies: "And frosts so nip the rootes of vertuous-meaning minds." See Gascoigne's Works, 1587. STEEVENS. 9 and their ruin,] Most of the modern editors read→→→ .our ruin. 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 "Leap'd from his eyes." MALone. 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, MALONE. 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, CROM. WOL. How does your grace? Why, well; Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell. A still and quiet conscience. The king has cur'd me, 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, In The Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey, &c. à 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. Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.2 CROM. The heaviest, and the worst, Is your displeasure with the king. WOL. God bless him! 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: "Thou hast not half the power to do me harm, 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 : 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, WOL. There was the weight that pull'd me down. O Cromwell, The king has gone beyond me, all my glories No sun shall ever usher forth mine honours, 5 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. in 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 |