Lay kissing in your arms, lord cardinal.

Wol. How much, methinks, I could despise this man, But that I am bound in charity against it!

Nor. Those articles, my lord, are in the king's hand : But, thus much, they are foul ones.

Wol.

So much fairer,

And spotless, shall mine innocence arise,
When the king knows my truth.

Sur.

This cannot save you:

I thank my memory, I yet remember

Some of these articles; and out they shall.

Now, if you can blush, and cry guilty, cardinal,
You'll show a little honesty.

Wol.

Speak on, sir;

I dare your worst objections: if 1 blush,

It is, to see a nobleman want manners.

Sur. I'd rather want those, than my head. Have at you. First, that, without the king's assent, or knowledge,

sion, as also in other offices of the Romish church, is called the sacring, or consecration bell; from the French word, sacrer.

Theobald. The Abbess, in The Merry Devil of Edmonton, 1608, says: you shall ring the sacring bell,

Keep your hours, and toll your knell."

"He

Again, in Reginald Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584: heard a little sacring bell ring to the elevation of a to-morrow

mass."

The now obsolete verb to sacre, is used by P. Holland, in his translation of Pliny's Natural History, Book X, ch. vi. And by Chapman, in his version of Homer's Hymn to Diana:

8

Sacring my song to every deity." Steevens.

when the brown wench &c.] The amorous propensities of Cardinal Wolsey are much dwelt on in the ancient satire already quoted, p. 259, n. 2:

Again:

"By his pryde and faulce treachery,
"Whoardom and baudy leachery,
"He hath been so intollerable."

"The goodes that he thus gaddered
"Wretchedly he hath scattered

"In causes nothynge expedient.
"To make wyndowes walles and dores,

"And to mayntayne baudes and whores

"A grett parte thereof is spent."

And still more grossly are his amours spoken of in many other parts of the same poem. Steevens

You wrought to be a legate; by which power
You maim'd the jurisdiction of all bishops.

Nor. Then, that, in all you writ to Rome, or else
To foreign princes, Ego et Rex meus

Was still inscrib'd; in which you brought the king
To be your servant.

Suf. Then, that, without the knowledge Either of king or council, when you went Ambassador to the emperor, you made bold To carry into Flanders the great seal.

Sur. Item, you sent a large commission
To Gregory de Cassalis, to conclude,

Without the king's will, or the state's allowance,
A league between his highness and Ferrara.

Suf. That, out of mere ambition, you have caus'd
Your holy hat to be stamp'd on the king's coin.9

Sur. Then, that you have sent innumerable substance, (By what means got, I leave to your own conscience,) To furnish Rome, and to prepare the ways You have for dignities; to the mere undoing1 Of all the kingdom. Many more there are; Which, since they are of you, and odious, I will not taint my mouth with.

Cham.

O my lord,

9 Your holy hat to be stamp'd on the king's coin.] In the long string of articles exhibited by the Privy Council against Wolsey, which Sir Edward Coke transcribed from the original, this offence composed one of the charges: "40. Also the said Lord Cardinal of his further pompous and presumptuous minde, hath enterprised to joyn and imprint the Cardinal's hat under your armes in your coyn of groats made at your city of York, which like deed hath not been seen to be done by any subject in your realm before this time." 4 Inst. 94. H. White.

ར།

This was certainly one of the articles exhibited against Walsey, but rather with a view to swell the catalogue, than from any serious cause of accusation; inasmuch as the Archbishops Cranmer, Bainbrigge, and Warham, were indulged with the same privilege. See Snelling's View of the Silver Coin and Coinage of England. Douce.

1- to the mere undoing -] Mere is absolute. So, in The Honest Man's Fortune, by Beaumont and Fletcher:

"I am as happy

“In my friend's good, as if 'twere merely mine.” Steevens. See Vol. II, p. 12, n. 2. Malone.

Press not a falling man too far; 'tis virtue:
His faults lie open to the laws; let them,
Not you, correct him. My heart weeps to see him
So little of his great self.

Sur.

I forgive him.

3

Suf. Lord cardinal, the king's further pleasure is,—
Because all those things, you have done of late
By your power legatine within this kingdom,
Fall into the compass2 of a præmunire,3
That therefore such a writ be su'd against you;
To forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements,
Chattels, and whatsoever, and to be

Out of the king's protection :-This is my charge.
Nor. And so we 'll leave you to your meditations
How to live better. For your stubborn answer,
About the giving back the great seal to us,

The king shall know it, and, no doubt, shall thank you.
So fare you well, my little good lord cardinal.

[Exeunt all but WOL. Wol. So farewel to the little good you bear me.

2 Fall into the compass &c.] The harshness of this line induces me to think that we should either read, with Sir Thomas Hanmer-Fall in the compass, or Fall into compass, omitting the article. Steevens.

3 of a præmunire,] It is almost unnecessary to observe that præmunire is a barbarous word used instead of præmonere. Steevens.

4 Chattels, and whatsoever,] The old copy-castles. I have ventured to substitute chattels here, as the author's genuine word, because the judgment in a writ of pramunire is, that the defendant shall be out of the king's protection; and his lands and tenements, goods and chattels, forfeited to the king; and that his body shall remain in prison at the king's pleasure. This very description of the pramunire is set out by Holinshed, in his Life of King Henry • VIII, p. 909. Theobald

The emendation made by Mr. Theobald, is, I think, fully justified by the passage in Holinshed's Chronicle, on which this is founded; in which it is observable that the word chattels is spelt cattels, which might have been easily confounded with castles: “After this, in the King's Bench his matter for the pramunire being called upon, two attornies which he had authorised by his warrant signed with his own hand, confessed the action, and so had judgment to forfeit all his landes, tenements, goods, and cattels, and to be put out of the king's protection." Chron. Vol. H, p. 909. Malone.

6

Farewel, a long farewel, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man; To-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope,5 to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him:
The third day, comes a frost, a killing frost;
And,-when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening,―nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory;
But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride
At length broke under me; and now has left me,
Weary, and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.
Vain pomp, and glory of this world, I hate ye;
I feel my heart new open'd: O, how wretched
Is that poor man, that hangs on princes' favours!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,"
More pangs and fears than wars or women have;

5 This is the state of man; To-day he puts forth

6

The tender leaves of hope, &c.] So, in our author's 25th Sonnet: "Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread, "But as the marigold in the sun's eye;

"And in themselves their pride lies buried,

"For at a frown they in their glory die." Malone.

nips his root,] As spring-frosts are not injurious to the roots of fruit-trees," Dr. Warburton reads-shoot. Such capricious alterations I am sometimes obliged to mention, merely to introduce the notes of those, who, while they have shewn them to be unnecessary, have illustrated our author. Malone.

Vernal frosts, indeed, do not kill the root, but then to nip the shoots does not kill the tree or make it fall. The metaphor will not, in either reading, correspond exactly with nature. Johnson.

I adhere to the old reading, which is countenanced by the following passage in A. W.'s Commendation of Gascoigne and his

Poesies:

“And frosts so nip the rootes of vertuous-meaning minds.” See Gascoigne's Works, 1587. Steevens.

7

- and their ruin,] Most of the modern editors read-our ruin. Steevens.

Their ruin is, their displeasure, producing the downfall and ruin of him on whom it lights. So before:

"He parted frowning from me, as if ruin

66

Leap'd from his eyes." Malone.

And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.-

8

Enter CROMWELL, amazedly.

Why, how now, Cromwell?

What, amaz'd

Crom. I have no power to speak, sir.

Wol.
At my misfortunes? can thy spirit wonder,
A great man should decline? Nay, an you weep,
I am fallen indeed.

Crom.

Wol.

How does your grace?

Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell.
I know myself now; and I feel within me
A peace above all earthly dignities,

Why, well;

A still and quiet conscience. The king has cur'd me,
I humbly thank his grace; and from these shoulders,
These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken

A load would sink a navy, too much honour:
O, 'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden,

Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven.

Crom. I am glad, your grace has made that right use of it.

Wol. I hope, I have: I am able now, methinks, (Out of a fortitude of soul I feel)

To endure more miseries, and greater far,

Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer."

And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,] So, in Churchyard's Legend of Cardinal Wolsey, MIRROUR FOR MAGISTRATES, 1587: Your fault not half so great as was my pride,

"For which offence fell Lucifer from the skies." Malone. In The Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey, &c. a poem, by Tho. Storer, student of Christ-church, in Oxford, 1599, the Cardinal expresses himself in a manner somewhat similar:

"If once we fall, we fall Colossus-like,

"We fall at once, like pillars of the sunne," &c. Steevens.

I am able now, methinks,

(Out of a fortitude of soul I feel)

To endure more miseries, and greater far,

Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.] So, in King Henry VI, Part II:

"More can I bear, than you dare execute."

Again, in Othello:

"Thou hast not half the power to do me harm,

"As I have to be hurt." Malone.