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Think you, I pray you, my lords, will any Englishmen counsel or be friendly unto me against the king's pleasure, they being his subjects? Nay forsooth, my lords! and for my counsel in whom I do intend to put my trust be not here; they being in Spain, in my native country. Alas, my lords! I am a poor woman lacking both wit and understanding sufficiently to answer such approved wise men as ye be both, in so weighty a matter. I pray you to extend your good and indifferent minds in your authority unto me, for I am a simple woman, destitute and barren of friendship and counsel here in a foreign region and as for your counsel, I will not refuse, but be glad to hear.'

"And with that, she took my lord by the hand and led him into her privy chamber with the other cardinal; where they were in long communication: we, in the other chamber, might sometime hear the queen speak very loud, but what it was we could not understand. The communication ended, the cardinals departed and went directly to the king, making to him relation of their talk with the queen; and after resorted home to their houses to supper."

(2) SCENE II.

when did he regard

The stamp of nobleness in any person,
Out of himself?]

Wolsey's arrogant behaviour to all with whom he came in contact, is acknowledged even by those who were best disposed towards him: "In his time of authority and glory," says Cavendish, "he was the haughtiest man in all his proceedings that then lived." It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that his enemies and satirists should make his "high-blown pride" a frequent theme for spiteful comment, nor can it be doubted that the picture Skelton has given us of the Cardinal's overweening assumption, though grossly exaggerated, was not altogether an imaginary one :—

"The Erle of Northumberlande
Dare take nothynge on hande;
Our barons be so bolde,
Into a mouse hole they wolde
Rynne away and crepe,
Lyke a mayny of shepe:
Dare nat loke out at dur

For drede of the mastyve cur,
For drede of the bochers dogge
Wold wyrry them lyke an hogge.

For and this curre do gnar,
They must stand all a far,
To holde up their hande at the bar.
For all their noble blode

He pluckes them by the hode,

And shakes them by the eare,

And brynge[s] them in suche feare,

He bayteth them lyke a bere,

Like an oxe or a bull:

Theyr wyttes, he saith, are dull;

He sayth they have no brayne

Theyr astate to mayntayne;

And maketh them to bow theyr kne

Before his majeste.

Juges of the kynges lawes,

He countys them foles and dawes;

Sergyantes of the coyfe eke,

He sayth they are to seke

In pletynge of theyr case

At the Commune Place,

Or at the Kynges Benche;

He wryngeth them such a wrenche,

That all our learned men

Dare nat set theyr penne

To plete a trew tryall
Within Westmynster hall;

In the Chauncery where he syttes
But suche as he admyttes

None so hardy to speke:

He sayth, thou huddypeke,

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Thy lernynge is to lewde,
Thy tonge is nat well thewde,
To seke before our grace;
And openly in that place
He rages and he raves,

And calls them cankerd knaves:
Thus royally he dothe deale

Under the kynges brode seale:

And in the Checker he them cheks;

In the Star Chambre he noddis and beks,
And bereth him there 30 stoute,
That no man dare route,
Duke, erle, baron, nor lorde,
But to his sentence must accorde:
Whether he be knyght or squyre,
All men must folow his desyre."

"Why Come Ye Nat To Courte?" &c. §.

ACT IV.

(1) SCENE II.-Give him a little earth for charity So Cavendish :

"And the next day he took his journey with Master Kingston and the guard. And as soon as they espied their old master, in such a lamentable estate, they lamented him with weeping eyes. Whom my lord took by the hands, and divers times, by the way, as he rode, he would talk with them, sometime with one, and sometime with another; at night he was lodged at a house of the Earl of Shrewsbury's, called Hardwick Hall, very evil at ease. The next day he rode to Nottingham, and there lodged that night, more sicker, and the next day we rode to Leicester Abbey; and by the way he waxed so sick that he was divers times likely to have fallen from his mule; and being night before we came to the abbey of Leicester, where at his coming in at the gates the abbot of the place with all his convent met him with the light of many torches; whom they right honourably received with great reverence. To whom my lord said, 'Father Abbot, I am come hither to leave my bones among you,' whom they brought on his mule to the stairs foot of his chamber, and there alighted, and Master Kingston then took him by the arm and led him up the stairs; who told me afterwards that he never carried so heavy a burden in all his life. And as soon as he was in his chamber, he went incontinent to his bed, very sick."

(2) SCENE II.-His blessed part to heaven.] By his "blessed part" is of course meant his “spiritual or immortal part:" and we apprehend that the expression "better part," in the much-controverted passage in "As You Like It," Act III. Sc. 2: -"Atalanta's better part," bears a similar signification; in proof of this may be cited the trite old epitaph mentioned by Whalley ::

"Sarah's obedience, Lydia's open heart,

And Martha's care, and Mary's better part."

And the following passage from Overbury's "Characters: "-"Lastly," (he is depicting a Melancholy Man,) "he is a man onely in shew, but comes short of the better part, a whole reasonable soule, which is mans chief pre-eminence," &c.

(3) SCENE II.

and urge the king To do me this last right.]

The letter referred to in this passage, which Katharine addressed to the king a short time before her death, is preserved in Polydore Virgil's History, and has been translated as follows by Lord Herbert:

"My most dear lord, king, and husband,

"The hour of my death now approaching, I cannot choose but, out of the love I bear you, advise you of your soul's health, which you ought to prefer before all considerations

of the world or flesh whatsoever: for which yet you have cast me into many calamities, and yourself into many troubles.-But I forgive you all, and pray God to do so likewise. For the rest, I commend unto you Mary our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father to her, as I have heretofore desired. I must entreat you also to respect my maids, and give them in marriage, (which is not much, they being but three,) and to all my other servants a year's pay besides their due, lest otherwise they should be unprovided for. Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things. Farewell."

ACT V.

(1) SCENE III.-Parish-garden.] This is usually printed Paris garden, but Parish was possibly the vulgar pronunciation of the word. Paris Garden was a district of St. Saviour's parish, in Southwark, wherein were two famous gardens set apart for the diversion of bear-baiting. On the 25th of May, 1599, soon after her accession to the throne, Queen Elizabeth gave a splendid dinner to the French ambassadors, who were afterwards entertained with the baiting of bulls and bears, and the queen herself stood with the ambassadors looking on the pastime till six at night. The next day, the same ambassadors went by water to Paris Garden, where they saw another baiting of bulls and of bears." (See NICHOLS' Progresses, Vol. I. p. 40.)

CRITICAL OPINIONS.

"SHAKSPEARE was as profound a historian as a poet; when we compare his Henry the Eighth with the preceding pieces, we see distinctly that the English nation during the long, peaceable, and economical reign of Henry VII., whether from the exhaustion which was the fruit of the civil wars, or from more general European influences, had made a sudden transition from the powerful confusion of the middle age, to the regular tameness of modern times. Henry the Eighth has, therefore, somewhat of a prosaic appearance; for Shakspeare, artist-like, adapted himself always to the quality of his materials. If others of his works, both in elevation of fancy and in energy of pathos and character, tower far above this, we have here on the other hand occasion to admire his nice powers of discrimination and his perfect knowledge of courts and the world. What tact was requisite to represent before the eyes of the queen subjects of such a delicate nature, and in which she was personally so nearly concerned, without doing violence to the truth! He has unmasked the tyrannical king, and to the intelligent observer exhibited him such as he was actually: haughty and obstinate, voluptuous and unfeeling, extravagant in conferring favours, and revengeful under the pretext of justice; and yet the picture is so dexterously handled that a daughter might take it for favourable. The legitimacy of Elizabeth's birth depended on the invalidity of Henry's first marriage, and Shakspeare has placed the proceedings respecting his separation from Catharine of Arragon in a very doubtful light. We see clearly that Henry's scruples of conscience are no other than the beauty of Anne Boleyn. Catharine is, properly speaking, the heroine of the piece; she excites the warmest sympathy by her virtues, her defenceless misery, her mild but firm opposition, and her dignified resignation. After her, the fall of Cardinal Wolsey constitutes the principal part of the business. Henry's whole reign was not adapted for dramatic poetry. It would have merely been a repetition of the same scenes: the repudiation, or the execution of his wives, and the disgrace of his most estimable ministers, which was usually soon followed by death. Of all that distinguished Henry's life, Shakspeare has given us sufficient specimens. But as, properly speaking, there is no division in the history where he breaks off, we must excuse him if he gives us a flattering compliment of the great Elizabeth for a fortunate catastrophe. The piece ends with the general joy at the birth of that princess, and with prophecies of the happiness which she was afterwards to enjoy or to diffuse. It was only by such a turn that the hazardous freedom of thought in the rest of the composition could have passed with impunity; Shakspeare was not certainly himself deceived respecting this theatrical delusion. The true conclusion is the death of Catharine, which under a feeling of this kind, he has placed earlier than was conformable to history."-SCHLEGEL.

CYMBELINE.

PRELIMINARY NOTICE.

"THE Tragedie of Cymbeline" is one of the seventeen plays, the earliest known edition of which is the folio of 1623. When produced, or when first acted, we have, as usual, no means of determining; but Malone is perhaps not far wrong in supposing it was written in 1609, as about that period there is good reason for believing Shakespeare wrote "The Tempest," and "The Winter's Tale:" and the marked similarity in the versification of those plays and that of Cymbeline, indicates that the three were composed at no distant date from each other.

The main incident of the plot-the wager on the chastity of the heroine-appears to have been taken from a story in Boccaccio (Day 2, Nov. 9), of which an abstract will be found in the "Illustrative Comments." This novel was a favourite evidently, for it has been translated and paraphrased many times. One modification of it occurs in the amusing collection of stories called, "Westward for Smelts, or The Water-mans fare of mad merry Western wenches," &c., which Steevens and Malone assert was printed in 1603. If they are correct, this réchauffé of Boccaccio's fable may have contributed to the composition of "Cymbeline," but no edition of it earlier than 1620, and of that only one copy, is now known to exist. The events in this story are laid in England during the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV., and the villain of it, instead of being conveyed to the lady's chamber in a chest (as described in the Italian and French versions), hides himself beneath her bed.

The historical facts and allusions in "Cymbeline" were seemingly derived from Holinshed; but the important and delightful episode that introduces us to Belarius and the stolen princes, we may conclude was Shakespeare's own invention; unless the germ of it were found in some older play upon which the present was founded.

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