I come no more to make you laugh; things now,

That bear a weighty and a serious brow,
Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,
Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow,
We now present. Those that can pity, here
May, if they think it well, let fall a tear;
The subject will deserve it. Such as give
Their money out of hope they may believe,
May here find truth too. Those that come to see
Only a show or two, and so agree

The play may pass, if they be still and willing,
I'll undertake may see away their shilling
Richly in two short hours. Only they
That come to hear a merry, bawdy play,
A noise of targets; or to see a fellow
In a long motley coat, guarded with yellow,

Will be deceiv'd: for, gentle hearers, know,
To rank our chosen truth with such a show
As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting
Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring,
(To make that only true we now intend,)
Will leave us never an understanding friend.
Therefore, for goodness' sake, and, as you are
known

The first and happiest hearers of the town,
Be sad, as we would make you: Think, ye see
The very persons of our noble story,
As they were living; think, you see them great,
And follow'd with the general throng and sweat
Of thousand friends; then, in a moment, see
How soon this mightiness meets misery!
And if you can be merry then, I'll say
A man may weep upon his wedding-day.

Made Britain, India: every man that stood
Show'd like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were
As cherubins, all gilt: the madams too,
Not us'd to toil, did almost sweat to bear
The pride upon them, that their very labour
Was to them as a painting: Now this mask
Was cry'd incomparable; and the ensuing night
Made it a fool, and beggar. The two kings,
Equal in lustre, were now best, now worst,
As presence did present them; him in eye
Still him in praise: and, being present both,
'Twas said they saw but one; and no discerner
Durst wag his tongue in censure. When these

Censure comparison.

b It is usual, contrary to the original, to give to Norfolk the sentence beginning "all was royal," and then make Buckingham ask the question, "who did guide?" &c. Theobald made the change, and Warburton says it was improperly given to Buckingham, "for he wanted information, having kept his chamber during the solemnity." But what information does he communicate? After the eloquent description by Norfolk of the various shows of the pageant, he makes a general observation that “ order" must have presided over these complicated arrangements-" gave each thing view." He then asks," who did guide ?"-who made the body and the limbs work together? Norfolk then answers "as you guess;"-(which words have been transferred to Buckingham by the revisers of the text) - according to your guess, one did guide:-" one, certes," &c.

e Element-constituent quality of mind. Thus in Twelfth Night (Act II., Sc. Iv.) Malvolio says, "Go, hang yourselves all you are idle shallow things: I am not of your element.”

There's in him stuff that puts him to these ends:
For, being not propp'd by ancestry, whose grace
Chalks successors their way; nor call'd upon
For high feats done to the crown; neither allied
To eminent assistants; but, spider-like,
Out of his self-drawing web,-O! give us note!—
The force of his own merit makes his way
A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys
A place next to the king.

Aber.
I cannot tell
What heaven hath given him, let some graver

spider-like,

Out of his self-drawing web, he gives us note,
The force of his own merit makes his way;
A gift that heaven gives for him," &c.

"O! give us note," the original reading, is one of Shakspere's happy parentheses to break a long sentence, and meaning only, mark what I say. The whole speech is intended to render the ironical close emphatic. Wolsey is without ancestry, without the credit of great service, without eminent assistants; but, spider-like, deriving everything from himself, the force of his own self-sustained merit makes his way -his course-his good fortune-a gift from heaven, which buys, &c. If we were to receive the passage in the sense of the revisers of the text, we ought to read "his own merit makes its way." To make way," in Shakspere, is to go away, as in the Taming of the Shrew:

"While I make way from hence to save my life." To make way, in the colloquial sense of to get on in the world, is, we think, a forced and unauthorised meaning of the words before us. That Wolsey should give note that he made his way only by his own merit would have been utterly at variance with the stately pomp and haughtiness of his ambition.

The construction of this passage is difficult; the meaning is in Holinshed: "The peers of the realm, receiving letters to prepare themselves to attend the king in this journey, and no apparent necessary cause expressed, why or wherefore, seemed to grudge that such a costly journey should be taken in hand, without consent of the whole board of the council." In Wolsey's letter the "board of council" was "out"-omitted: the letter alone "must fetch him in [whom] he papers"-whom he sets down in the paper. Ben Jonson in his English Grammar' gives examples of a similar want of the relative," adding, "in Greek and Latin this want were barbarous." Amongst other instances he has the passage of the 118th Psalm-" the stone the builders refused"-a parallel case with the sentence before

us.

Shall lessen this big look.

[Exeunt WOLSEY, and Train. Buck. This butcher's cur is venom-mouth'd,

and I

Have not the power to muzzle him; therefore,

best

Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar's book Out-worths a noble's blood.

Nor.

What, are you chaf'd? Ask God for temperance; that's the appliance only

Which your disease requires.

Buck. I read in his looks Matter against me; and his eye revil'd Me, as his abject object: at this instant He bores me with some trick: He's gone to the king;

I'll follow, and out-stare him.

Nor. Stay, my lord, And let your reason with your choler question What 't is you go about: To climb steep hills Requires slow pace at first: Anger is like A full-hot horse; who being allow'd his way

Bores-wounds thrusts. So in the Winter's Tale: "Now the ship boring the moon with her mainmast."