put into the mouth of one of the ancient, unlettered, martial nobility. JOHNSON. It ought to be remembered that the speaker is afterward pronounced by the King himself a learned gentleman. RITSON. P. 12, 1. 14. He bores me with some trick:] He stabs or wounds me by some artifice or fiction. P. 12, 1. 26-28, This Ipswich JOHNSON. And from a mouth of honour There's difference in no persons.] I will crush this base-born fellow, by the due influence of my rank, or say that all distinction of persons is at an end. JOHNSON. P. 12, 1. 30. 31. Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot That it do singe yourself:] Might not Shakspeare allude to Dan. iii. 22? 'Therefore because the King's commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshac, and Abednego. STEEVENS. P. 13, 1. 8. 9. (Whom from the flow of gall I name not, but From sincere motions,] From honest indignation; warmth of integrity. Perhaps name 1 not, should be blame not. Whom from the flow of gall I blame not. JOHNSON. P. 13, 1. 17. equal ravenous.] Equal for equally. Shakspeare frequently uses adjectives adverbially. See King John, Vol. IV. p. 114, n. 7. MALONE. P. 13, 1. 19. 20. — his mind and place Infecting one another,] This is very satirical. His mind he represents as highly corrupt; and yet he supposes the contagion of the place of first minister as adding an infection to it. we a WARBURTON. P. 13, 1. 22. Suggests, for excites. P. 13, 1. 53. WARBURTON. Count-Cardinal] Wolsey is afterwards called King Cardinal. Mr. Pope and the subsequent editors read court-cardinal. the Cardinal MALONE. and von buy and sell his honour as he pleases,} This was a proverbial expression. See King Richard III. Act V, sc. iii, MALONE. P. 14, 1. 22. 23. ༞་་,, he were Something mistaken in't.] That is, that he were something different from what he is taken or supposed by you to be. MALone. P. 15, 1. 3. device and practice.] i. e. un¬ fair stratagem. REED. P. 15, 1.4-6. I am sorry 5 To see you ta'en from liberty, to look on The business present:] I am sorry that I am obliged to be present and an eye-witness of your loss of liberty. JOHNSON. P. 15, 1. 24. -to attach Lord Montacute;] This was Henry Pole, grandson to George Duke of Clarence, and eldest brother to Cardinal Pole. He had married the Lord Abergavenny's daughter. was restored to favour at this juncture, but was afterwards executed for another treason in this REED. reign. of this 68 John de la Court,] The name of the Chartreux was John de la Car, alias de la Court. See Holinshed, p. 863. STEEVENS. ], The old P. 15, 1.27. - his chancellor, copies have it his counsellor, but I, from the authorities of Hall and Holinshed, changed it to chancellor. And our poet himself, in the beginning of the second act, vouches for this correction: nova At which, appear'd against him his sur THEOBALD. P.5, 1. 31. Nicholas Hopkins?] The old Michael Hopkins. copy has Mr. Theobald made the emendation, conformably to the Cronicle:"Nicholas Hopkins, a monk of an house of the Chartreux order, beside Bristow, called Henton." In the MS. Nich. only was probably set down, and mistaken for Mich. MALONE. P. 5, last 1. my life is spann'd already:] To span is to gripe, or enclose in the hand; to span is also to measure by the palm and fingers. The meaning, therefore, may either be, that hold is taken of my life, my life is in the gripe of mine enemies; or, that my time is measured, the length of my life is now determined. JOHNSON. Man's life in Scripture is said to be but a span [long. Probably therefore it means, when 'tis spann'd 'tis ended. REED. caft P. 16, by 4-3, I am the shadow of poor Buckingham; 67 Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on, By dark'ning my clear sun.] These lines have passed all the editors. Does the reader understand them? By me they are inexplicable, and must be left, I fear, to some happier sagacity. If the usage of our author's time could allow figure to be taken, as now, for dignity or importance, we might read : T Whose figure even this instant cloud puts out. But I cannot please myself with any conjecture. Another explanation may be given, somewhat harsh, but the best that occurs to me: Y I am the shadow of poor Buckingham, Jon, whose port and diguity is assumed by the Cardinal, that overclouds and oppresses me, and who gains my place By dark'ning my clear. sun. JOHNSON, Wolsey could only reach Buckingham through the medium of the King's power. The Duke therefore compares the Cardinal to a cloud, which intercepts the rays of the sun, and throws a gloom over the object beneath it. "I am (says he) but the shadow of poor Buckingham, on whose figure this impending cloud looks gloomy, having got between me and the sunshine of royal favour." STEEVENS. The following passage in Greene's Dorastus and Fawnia, 1588, (a book which Shakspeare certainly had read,) adds support to Dr. Johnson's conjecture: Fortune, envious of such happy suc→ turned her wheele, and darkened their ' bright sunne of prosperitie with the mistie cloudses of mishap and misery." cesse, Mr. M. Mason has observed that Dr. Johnson did not do justice to his own emendation, referring the words whose figure to Buckingham, when in fact they relate to shadow. Sir W. Blackstone had already explained the passage in this manner. MALONE. By adopting Dr. Johnson's first conjecture, “puts out," for "puts on," a tolerable sense may be given to these obscure lines. "I am but the shadow of poor Buckingham; and even the figure or outline of this shadow begins now to fade away, being extinguished by this impending cloud, which darkens (or interposes between me and) my clear sun; that is, the favour of my sovereign." BLACKSTONE, P. 16, 1. 11, My life itself, and the best heart of it] Heart is not here taken for the great organ of circulation and life, but, in a common, and popular sense, for the most valuable or precious part. Our author, in Hamlet, mentions the heart of heart, Exhausted and effete ground is said by the farmer to be out of heart, The hard and inner part of the oak is called heart of oak. JOHNSON. P. 16, 1. 12-14, Of a full-charg'd confederacy,] To stand in the level of a gun is to stand in a line with its mouth, so as to be hit by the shot. JOHNSON. P. 17, 1. 20. as putter-on Of these exactions,] The instigator of these exactions; the person who suggested to the King the taxes complained of, and incited him to <exact them from his subjects, MALONE, P. 17, 1. 30. The many is the meiny, the train, the people. Dryden is, perhaps, the last that used this word: "The Kings before their many rode. ". TOW JOHNSON. "I believe, the many is only the multitude, the oi |