But minifter communication of Grievingly I think, A most poor issue? NOR. The peace between the French and us not values The coft that did conclude it. BUCK. Every man, After the hideous storm that follow'd, was "Towardys this vyage "What in horses and other aray "All my land to mortgage." Chapman has introduced the same idea into his verfion of the second Iliad: "Proud-girle-like, that doth ever beare her dowre upon her backe." So, in King John : STEEVENS. "Rash, inconfiderate, fiery voluntaries, " Bearing their birth-rights proudly on their backs, Again, in Camden's Remains, 1605: "There was a nobleman merrily conceited, and riotously given, that having lately fold a mannor of an hundred tenements, came ruffling into the court, saying, am not I a mighty man that beare an hundred houses on my backe?" MALONE. See also Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, edit. 1780, Vol. V. p. 26; Vol. XII. p. 395. REED. So also Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy: "Tis an ordinary thing to put a thousand oakes, or an hundred oxen, into a fute of apparell, to weare a whole manor on his back." Edit. 1634, p. 482. WHALLEY. I What did this vanity, But minister &c.] What effect had this pompous show, but the production of a wretched conclufion. JOHNSON. 2 Every man, After the hideous storm that follow'd, &c.] From Holinshed: "Monday the xviii. of June was such an hideous storme of wind and weather, that many conjectured it did prognosticate trouble and hatred shortly after to follow between princes."Dr. Warburton has quoted a fimilar passage from Hall, whom A thing inspir'd; and, not confulting, broke NOR. Which is budded out; For France hath flaw'd the league, and hath attach'd Our merchants' goods at Bourdeaux. The ambassador is filenc'd ? 3 ABER. NOR. Is it therefore Marry, is't. ABER. A proper title of a peace; 4 and purchas'd At a fuperfluous rate ! BUCK. Why, all this business Our reverend cardinal carried.5 'Like it your grace, he calls Shakspeare's author; but Holinshed, and not Hall, was his author: as is proved here by the words which I have printed in Italicks, which are not found so combined in Hall's Chronicle. This fact is indeed proved by various circumstances. MALONE. 3 The ambasador is filene'd?] Silenc'd for recalled. This being proper to be faid of an orator; and an ambaffador or publick minister being called an orator, he applies filenc'd to an ambassador. WARBURTON. I understand it rather of the French ambassador refiding in England, who, by being refused an audience, may be faid to be filenc'd. JOHNSON. 4 A proper title of a peace;] A fine name of a peace. Ironically. JOHNSON. So, in Macbeth : 5 "O proper stuff! "This is the very painting of your fear." STEEVENS. this business Our reverend cardinal carried.] To carry a business was at this time a current phrafe for to conduct or manage it. So, in this Act: The state takes notice of the private difference What his high hatred would effect, wants not rock,6 That I advise your shunning. Enter Cardinal WOLSEY, (the Purse borne before him,) certain of the Guard, and two Secretaries with Papers. The Cardinal in his Passage fixeth his Eye on BUCKINGHAM, and BUCKINGHAM on him, both full of Disdain. WOL. The duke of Buckingham's surveyor? ha? Where's his examination? 1 SECR Here, so please you. WOL. Is he in person ready? 1 SECR. Ay, please your grace. WOL. Well, we shall then know more; and Buckingham Shall lessen this big look. 6 [Exeunt WOLSEY, and Train. - comes that rock,] To make the rock come, is not very just. JOHNSON. BUCK. This butcher's cur is venom-mouth'd, and I Have not the power to muzzle him; therefore, best Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar's book Out-worths a noble's blood.8 NOR. What, are you chaf'd? Afk God for temperance; that's the appliance only, Which your disease requires. BUCK. I read in his looks Matter against me; and his eye revil'd He bores me with some trick: He's gone to the king; I'll follow, and out-stare him. NOR. 7 Stay, my lord, butcher's cur-] Wolfey is said to have been the fon of a butcher. JOHNSON. Dr. Grey observes, that when the death of the Duke of Buckingham was reported to the Emperor Charles V. he said, "The first buck of England was worried to death by a butcher's dog." Skelton, whose satire is of the groffest kind, in Why come you not to Court, has the same reflection on the meanness of Cardinal Wolfey's birth : "For drede of the boucher's dog, *" Wold wirry them like an hog." STEEVENS. $ -A beggar's book Out-worths a noble's blood.] That is, the literary qualifications of a bookish beggar are more prized than the high defcent of hereditary greatness. This is a contemptuous exclamation very naturally 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. 9 He bores me with fome trick:) He stabs or wounds me by some artifice or fiction. JOHNSON. So, in The Life and Death of Lord Cromwell, 1602: "One that hath gull'd you, that hath bor'd you, fir." STEEVENS. And let your reason with your choler question As you would to your friend. BUCK. There's difference in no persons. NOR. Be advis'd; Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot If with the sap of reason you would quench, I -Anger is like A full-hot horse; So, Maffinger, in The Unnatural Combat: "Let paffion work, and, like a hot-rein'd horse, Again, in our author's Rape of Lucrece: "Till, like a jade, self-will himself doth tire." MALONE. 2-from a mouth of honour-] I will crush this baseborn fellow, by the due influence of my rank, or say that all distinction of persons is at an end. JOHNSON. 3 Heat not a furnace &c.] 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 flew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshac, and Abednego." STERVENS. |