CROM. The next is, that fir Thomas More is chofen Lord chancellor in your place. WOL. That's fomewhat fudden: But he's a learned man. May he continue Long in his highness' favour, and do justice For truth's fake, and his confcience; that his bones, When he has run his courfe, and fleeps in bleffings, May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on 'em!+ What more? CROM. That Cranmer is return'd with welcome, Install❜d lord archbishop of Canterbury. WOL. That's news indeed. Laft, that the lady Anne, 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 indefenfible to those who recollect the following epigram of Martial : feram : "Flentibus Heliadum ramis dum vipera ferpit, "Ne tibi regali placeas Cleopatra fepulchro, Vipera fi tumulo nobiliore jacet. The Heliades certainly wept a tomb of tears over the viper. The fame conceit, however, is found in Drummond of Hawthornden's Teares for the Death of Moeliades: "The Muses, Phoebus, Love, have raised of their teares A fimilar conceit occurs in King Richard II. A&t III. sc, iii, HENLEY. The old copy has on him. The error, which probably arose from fimilitude of founds, was corrected by Mr. Steevens. MALONE. Going to chapel; and the voice is now WOL. There was the weight that pull'd me down. The king has gone beyond me, all my glories To be thy lord and mafter: Seek the king; 5 Or gild again the noble troops that waited Upon my fmiles. The number of perfons who composed Cardinal Wolfey's houfehold, according to the printed account, was eight hundred. "When (fays Cavendish, in his Life of Wolfey,) fhall we fee any more fuch fubjects, that fhall keepe fuch a noble houfe? Here is an end of his houfhold. The number of perfons in the cheyne-roll [check-roll] were eight hundred perfons.' But Cavendish's work, though written in the time of Queen Mary, was not published till 1641; and it was then printed moft unfaithfully, fome paffages being interpolated, near half of the MS. being omitted, and the phrafeology being modernifed throughout, to make it more readable at that time; the covert object of the publication probably having been, to render Laud odious, by fhewing how far church-power had been extended by Wolfey, and how dangerous that prelate was, who, in the opinion of many, followed his example.-The perfons who procured this publication, feem to have been little folicitous about the means they employed, if they could but obtain their end; and therefore among other unwarrantable fophiftications, they took care that the number" of troops who waited on Wolfey's fmiles," fhould be fufficiently magnified; and instead of one hundred and eighty, which was the real number of his household, they printed eight hundred. This appears from two MSS. of this work in the Museum; MSS. Harl. No. 428, and MSS. Birch, 4233. In another manufcript copy of Cavendish's Life of Wolfey, in the Publick Library at Cambridge, the number of the Cardinal's household by the addition of a cypher is made 1800. MALONE. Some little memory of me will stir him, (I know his noble nature,) not to let Thy hopeful service perish too: Good Cromwell, Neglect him not; make ufe now," and provide For thine own future fafety. CROM. O my lord, Muft I then leave you? muft I needs forego So good, fo noble, and fo true a master? Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron, With what a forrow Cromwell leaves his lord.The king fhall have my fervice; but my prayers For ever, and for ever, fhall be yours. WOL. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear And,-when I am forgotten, as I fhall be; 6 make use-] i. e. make intereft. So, in Much ado about 66 -I gave him ufe for it." STEEVENS. Nothing: 7 fling away ambition;] Wolfey does not mean to condemn every kind of ambition; for in a preceding line he fays he will inftruct Cromwell how to rife, and in the fubfequent lines he evidently confiders him as a man in office: "then if thou fall't," &c. Ambition here means a criminal and inordinate ambition, that endeavours to obtain honours by dishonest means. MALONE. By that fin fell the angels," how can man then, Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To filence envious tongues. Be juft, and fear not: Let all the ends, thou aim'ft at, be thy country's, Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'ft, O Cromwell, Thou fall'st a bleffed martyr. Serve the king; 6 By that fin fell the angels,] See p. 130, n. 2. STEEVENS. 7 cherish thofe hearts that hate thee;] Though this be good divinity, and an admirable precept for our conduct in private life; it was never calculated or defigned for the magiftrate or publick minifter. Nor could this be the direction of a man experienced in affairs, to his pupil. It would make a good chriftian, but a very ill and very unjuft ftatefman. And we have nothing fo infamous in tradition, as the fuppofed advice given to one of our kings, to cherish his enemies, and be in no pain for his friends. I am of opinion the poet wrote: cherish thofe hearts that wait thee; i. e. thy dependants. For the contrary practice had contributed to Wolfey's ruin. He was not careful enough in making dependants by his bounty, while intent in amaffing wealth to himself. The following line feems to confirm this correction: Corruption wins not more than honefty. i. e. You will never find men won over to your temporary occafions by bribery, fo useful to you as friends made by a just and generous munificence. WARBURTON. I am unwilling wantonly to contradict fo ingenious a remark, but that the reader may not be misled, and believe the emendation propofed to be neceffary, he should remember that this is not a time for Wolfey to fpeak only as a ftatefman, but as a chriftian. Shakspeare would have debafed the character, juft when he was employing his ftrongest efforts to raife it, had he drawn it otherwife. Nothing makes the hour of difgrace more irkfome, than the reflection, that we have been deaf to offers of reconciliation, and perpetuated that enmity which we might have converted into friendship. STEEVENS. And,-Pr'ythee, lead me in: There take an inventory of all I have, To the last penny; 'tis the king's: my robe, I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Crom well, Had I but ferv'd my God with half the zeal9 Prythee, lead me in: There take an inventory of all I have,] This inventory Wolfey actually caused to be taken upon his difgrace, and the particulars may be feen at large in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 546, edit. 1631. Among the Harl. MSS. there is one intitled, "An Inventorie of Cardinal Wolfey's rich houfholde ftuffe. Temp. Hen. VIII. The original book, as it feems, kept by his own officers." See Harl. Catal. No. 599. DOUCE. 9 Had I but ferv'd my God &c.] This fentence was really uttered by Wolfey. JOHNSON. When Samrah, the deputy governor of Baforah, was depofed by Moawiyah the fixth caliph, he is reported to have expressed himself in the fame manner: "If I had ferved God fo well as I have served him, he would never have condemned me to all eternity." A fimilar fentiment alfo occurs in the Earle of Murton's Tragedy, by Churchyard, 1593: "Had I ferv'd God as well in euery fort, My scope had not this feason beene so short, "Nor world haue had the power to doe me ill." STEEVENS. Antonio Perez, the favourite of Philip the Second of Spain, made the fame pathetick complaint: "Mon zele etoit fi grand vers ces benignes puiffances [la cour de Turin,] que fi j'en euffe eu autant pour Dieu, je ne doubte point qu'il ne m'eut deja recompensé de fon paradis." MALONE. This was a strange fentence for Wolfey to utter, who was dif graced for the bafeft treachery to his king in the affair of the divorce: but it shows how naturally men endeavour to palliate their crimes even to themfelves. M. MASON. There is a remarkable affinity between these words and part of the fpeech of Sir James Hamilton, who was fuppofed by King James V. thus to address him in a dream: "Though I was a finner |