Remove these thoughts from you: The which before His highness shall speak in, I do befeech

You, gracious madam, to unthink your speaking, And to say so no more.

2. KATH.

My lord, my lord,

I am a simple woman, much too weak

To oppose your cunning. You are meek, and hum

ble-mouth'd;

You fign your place and calling, in full seeming,
With meekness and humility: but your heart
Is cramm'd with arrogancy, spleen, and pride.
You have, by fortune, and his highness' favours,
Gone flightly o'er low steps; and now are mounted,
Where powers are your retainers: and your words,
Domesticks to you, serve your will, as't please

* You fign your place and calling,] Sign, for answer.

WARBURTΟΝ.

I think, to figu, must here be to show, to denote. By your out ward meekness and humility, you show that you are of an holy order, but, &c. JOHNSON.

So, with a kindred sense, in

"

Julius Cæfar:

Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy lethe."

9 Where powers are your retainers: and your words,

STEEVENS.

Domesticks to you, ferve your will, You have now got power at your beck, following in your retinue; and words therefore are degraded to the servile state of performing any office which you shall give them. In humbler and more common terms; Having now got power, you do not regard your word. JOHNSON.

The word power, when used in the plural and applied to one perfon only, will not bear the meaning that Dr. Johnson wishes to give it.

By powers are meant the Emperor and the King of France, in the pay of one or the other of whom Wolfey was constantly retained; and it is well known that Wolfey entertained fome of the nobility of England among his domefticks, and had an absolute power over the rest. M. MASON.

Whoever were pointed at by the word powers, Shakspeare, surely, does not mean to say that Wolfey was retained by them, but that they were retainers, or subservient, to Wolfey. MALONE.

Yourself pronounce their office. I must tell you,
You tender more your person's honour, than
Your high profession spiritual: That again
I do refuse you for my judge; and here,
Before you all, appeal unto the pope,
To bring my whole cause 'fore his holiness,
And to be judg'd by him.

[She curt'fies to the King, and offers to depart.
The queen is obstinate,

CAM.

Stubborn to justice, apt to accuse it, and
Difdainful to be try'd by it; 'tis not well.
She's going away.

K. HEN. Call her again.

CRIER. Katharine queen of England, come into

the court.

GRIF. Madam, you are call'd back.

2. KATH. What need you note it? pray you, keep

your way:

When you are call'd, return.-Now the Lord help, They vex me past my patience!-pray you, pass on : I will not tarry; no, nor ever more,

I believe that-powers, in the present instance, are used merely to express perfons in whom power is lodged. The queen would infinuate that Wolfey had rendered the highest officers of state subfervient to his will. STEEVENS.

I believe we should read:

Where powers are your retainers, and your wards,
Domesticks to you, &c.

The Queen rises naturally in her description. She paints the powers of government depending upon Wolfey under three images; as his retainers, his wards, his domestick fervants. TYRWHITT.

So, in Storer's Life and Death of Thomas Wolfey, Cardinal, a poem, 1599:

"I must have notice where their wards must dwell;
" I car'd not for the gentry, for I had
"Yong nobles of the land," &c. STEEVENS.

Upon this business, my appearance make
In any of their courts.

[Exeunt Queen, GRIFFITH, and her other At

tendants.

K. HEN. Go thy ways, Kate: That man i'the world, who shall report he has A better wife, let him in nought be trusted, For speaking false in that: Thou art, alone, If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness, Thy meekness saint-like, wife-like government, Obeying in commanding, and thy parts Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out,2) The queen of earthly queens :- She is noble born; And, like her true nobility, she has

Carried herself towards me.

WOL.

Most gracious fir,

In humblest manner I require your highness,
That it shall please you to declare, in hearing
Of all these ears, (for where I am robb'd and

bound,

There must I be unloos'd; although not there
At once and fully fatisfied,') whether ever I
Did broach this business to your highness; or
Laid any fcruple in your way, which might
Induce you to the question on't? or ever

2

could speak thee out,)) If thy several qualities had

tongues to speak thy praise. JOHNSON.

Rather-had tongues capable of speaking out thy merits; i. e. of doing them extensive justice. In Cymbeline we have a fimilar expreffion :

3

"You speak him far."

although not there

STEEVENS.

At once and fully fatisfied,)] The sense, which is encumbered with words, is no more than this-I must be loosed, though when fo loofed, I shall not be fatisfied fully and at once; that is, I shall not be immediately fatisfied. JOHNSON.

Have to you, but with thanks to God for fuch A royal lady, -fpake one the least word, might Be to the prejudice of her present state,

Or touch of her good perfon?

K. HEN.

My lord cardinal,

I do excuse you; yea, upon mine honour,
I free you from't. You are not to be taught
That you have many enemies, that know not
Why they are so, but, like to village curs,
Bark when their fellows do: by some of these
The queen is put in anger. You are excus'd:
But will you be more justify'd? you ever
Have wish'd the fleeping of this business; never
Defir'd it to be stirr'd; but oft have hinder'd; oft
The passages made toward it: -on my honour,
I fpeak my good lord cardinal to this point,
And thus far clear him. Now, what mov'd me

to't,

I will be bold with time, and your attention :

2-might-] Old copy, redundantly-that might.

STEEVENS.

3 Defir'd it to be stirr'd;] The useless words to be, might, in my opinion, be safely omitted, as they clog the metre, without enforcement of the sense. STEEVENS.

4 The passages made toward it:] i. e. closed, or fastened. So, in The Comedy of Errors, Act III. fc. i:

Why at this time the doors are made against you."

For the prefent explanation and pointing, I alone am anfwerable. A fimilar phrafe occurs in Macbeth :

Stop up the accefs and passage to remorse."

Yet the sense in which these words have hitherto been received, may be the true one. STEEVENS.

on my honour,

I speak my good lord cardinal to this point, The King, having firft addressed to Wolfey, breaks off; and declares upon his honour to the whole court, that he speaks the Cardinal's sentiments upon the point in question; and clears him from any attempt, or with, to ftir that business. THEOBALD.

Then mark the inducement. Thus it came;-give

heed to't:

My confcience first receiv'd a tenderness,
Scruple, and prick, on certain speeches utter'd
By the bishop of Bayonne, then French ambassador;
Who had been hither sent on the debating
A marriage, 'twixt the duke of Orleans and
Our daughter Mary: I'the progress of this business,
Ere a determinate resolution, he

(I mean, the bishop) did require a respite;
Wherein he might the king his lord advértise
Whether our daughter were legitimate,
Respecting this our marriage with the dowager,
Sometimes our brother's wife. This refpite fhook
The bofom of my confcience, enter'd me,

6 Scruple, and prick,) Prick of confcience was the term in confeffion. JOHNSON.

The expreffion is from Holinshed, where the king says: "The special cause that moved me unto this matter was a certaine scrupulositie that pricked my confcience," &c. See Holinshed, p. 907. STEEVENS.

1 A marriage,] Old copy-And marriage. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

8 This respite hook

The bofom of my confcience,] Though this reading be sense,

yet, I verily believe, the poet wrote:

The bottom of my confcience,

Shakspeare, in all his historical plays, was a most diligent observer of Holinshed's Chronicle. Now Holinshed, in the speech which he has given to King Henry upon this subject, makes him deliver himself thus: "Which words, once conceived within the secret bottom of my confcience, ingendred such a fcrupulous doubt, that my confcience was incontinently accombred, vexed, and difquieted." Vid. Life of Henry VIII. p. 907. THEOBALD.

The phrafe recommended by Mr. Theobald occurs again, in King Henry VI. Part I:

"for therein should we read

"The very bottom and foul of hope."

It is repeated alfo in Meajure for Meafure, All's well that ends well, King Henry VI. P. II. Coriolanus, &c. STEEVENS.