BRAN. I am sorry To see you ta'en from liberty, to look on BUCK. It will help me nothing, To plead mine innocence; for that die is on me, Which makes my whitest part black. The will of heaven Be done in this and all things!-I obey.- king BRAN. Nay, he must bear you company:―The [To ABERGAVENNY. Is pleas'd, you shall to the Tower, till you know How he determines further, As the duke said ABER. The will of heaven be done, and the king's pleasure By me obey'd. BRAN. Here is a warrant from The king, to attach lord Montacute; and the bodies 5 I am sorry To see you ta'en from liberty, to look on The business present:] I am sorry that I am obliged to be present and an eye-witness of your loss of liberty. JOHNSON. 6 — lord Montacute;] This was Henry Pole, grandson to George Duke of Clarence, and eldest brother to Cardinal Pole. He had married the Lord Abergavenny's daughter. He was restored to favour at this juncture, but was afterwards executed for another treason in this reign. REED. 7 John de la Court,] The name of this monk of the Chartreux was John de la Car, alias de la Court. See Holinshed, p. 863. STEEVENS. One Gilbert Peck, his chancellor,] The old copies have it-his counsellor; but I, from the authorities of Hall and Holinshed, changed it to chancellor. And our poet himself, in the beginning of the second Act, vouches for this correction: BUCK. So, so; These are the limbs of the plot: No more, I hope. BUCK. BRAN. He. BUCK. My surveyor is false; the o'er-great car dinal 2 Hath show'd him gold: my life is spann'd already:1 "At which, appear'd against him his surveyor, I believe [in the former instance] the author wrote-And Gilbert &c. MALONE. 9 Nicholas Hopkins?] The old сору has-Michael Hopkins. Mr. Theobald made the emendation, conformably to the Chronicle: "Nicholas Hopkins, a monk of an house of the Chartreux order, beside Bristow, called Henton." In the MS. Nich. only was probably set down, and mistaken for Mich. MALONE. 1 my life is spann'd already:] To span is to gripe, or inclose in the hand; to span is also to measure by the palm and fingers. The meaning, therefore, may either be, that hold is taken of my life, my life is in the gripe of my enemies; or, that my time is measured, the length of my life is now determined. JOHNSON. Man's life, in scripture, is said to be but a span long. Probably, therefore, it means, when 'tis spann'd 'tis ended. REED. 2 I am the shadow of poor Buckingham;] So, in the old play of King Leir, 1605:1 "And think me but the shadow of myself." 3 I am the shadow of poor Buckingham; Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on, STEEVENS. By dark'ning my clear sun.] These lines have passed all the editors. Does the reader understand them? By me they SCENE II. The Council-Chamber. Cornets. Enter King HENRY, Cardinal WOLSEY, the Lords of the Council, Sir THOMAS LOVELL, Officers, and Attendants. The King enters leaning on the Cardinal's Shoulder, K. HEN. My life itself, and the best heart of it, Thanks you for this great care: I stood i' the level are inexplicable, and must be left, I fear, to some happier sagacity. If the usage of our author's time could allow figure to be taken, as now, for dignity or importance, we might read: Whose figure even this instant cloud puts out. But I cannot please myself with any conjecture. Another explanation may be given, somewhat harsh, but the best that occurs to me: I am the shadow of poor Buckingham, Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on, whose port and dignity is assumed by the Cardinal, that overclouds and oppresses me, and who gains my place By dark'ning my clear sun. JOHNSON. Perhaps Shakspeare has expressed the same idea more clearly in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Antony and Cleopatra, and King John: "O, how this spring of love resembleth "Th' uncertain glory of an April day, "Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, 66 And, by and by, a cloud takes all away." Antony, remarking on the various appearances assumed by the flying vapours, adds: 66 now thy captain is "Even such a body: here I am Antony, "But cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.” Or, yet more appositely, in King John: 66 being but the shadow of your son "Becomes a sun, and makes your son a shadow.” Of a full-charg'd confederacy,5 and give thanks Το you that chok'd it.-Let be call'd before us Such another thought occurs in The famous History of Thomas Stukely, 1605: "He is the substance of my shadowed love." There is likewise a passage similar to the conclusion of this, in Rollo, or the Bloody Brother, of Beaumont and Fletcher: 66 - is drawn so high, that, like an ominous comet, "He darkens all your light." We might, however, read-pouts on; i. e. looks gloomily upon. So, in Coriolanus, Act V. sc. i: "We pout upon the morning, are unapt Again, in Romeo and Juliet, Act III. sc. iii: "Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love." Wolsey could only reach Buckingham through the medium of the King's power. The Duke therefore compares the Cardinal to a cloud, which intercepts the rays of the sun, and throws a gloom over the object beneath it. "I am (says he) but the shadow of poor Buckingham, on whose figure this impending cloud looks gloomy, having got between me and the sunshine of royal favour." Our poet has introduced a somewhat similar idea in Much Ado about Nothing: 66 -the pleached bower, "Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun, "Forbid the sun to enter;-like favourites To pout is at this time a phrase descriptive only of infantine sullenness, but might anciently have had a more consequential meaning. I should wish, however, instead of By dark'ning my clear sun, to read Be-dark'ning my clear sun. So, in The Tempest : 66 I have be-dimm'd "The noontide sun." STEEVENS. The following passage in Greene's Dorastus and Fawnia, 1588, (a book which Shakspeare certainly had read,) adds support to Dr. Johnson's conjecture: "Fortune, envious of such happy successe,-turned her wheele, and darkened their bright That gentleman of Buckingham's: in person And point by point the treasons of his master sunne of prosperitie with the mistie cloudes of mishap and misery." Mr. M. Mason has observed that Dr. Johnson did not do justice to his own emendation, referring the words whose figure to Buckingham, when, in fact, they relate to shadow. Sir W. Blackstone had already explained the passage in this manner. 66 MALONE. By adopting Dr. Johnson's first conjecture, "puts out," for puts on, a tolerable sense may be given to these obscure lines. "I am but the shadow of poor Buckingham: and even the figure or outline of this shadow begins now to fade away, being extinguished by this impending cloud, which darkens (or interposes between me and) my clear sun; that is, the favour of my sovereign." BLACKSTONE. 4 and the best heart of it,] Heart is not here taken for the great organ of circulation and life, but, in a common, and popular sense, for the most valuable or precious part. Our author, in Hamlet, mentions the heart of heart. Exhausted and effete ground is said by the farmer to be out of heart. The hard and inner part of the oak is called heart of oak. 5 gun shot. stood i' the level JOHNSON. Of a full-charg'd confederacy,] To stand in the level of a is to stand in a line with its mouth, so as to be hit by the JOHNSON. So, in our author's Lover's Complaint: 66 not a heart which in his level came "Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim." Again, in our author's 117th Sonnet: "Bring me within the level of your frown, STEEVENS. See also Vol. IX. p. 271, n. and p. 294, n. 8. MALONE. |