The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder: Piece-out our imperfections with your thoughts; Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Into an hour-glass for the which supply, : Admit me chorus to this History ;5 Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray, Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play. [Exit. ACT I. SCENE I.-London. An Ante-chamber in the King's Palace. Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY and the Bishop of ELY. Cant. My lord, I'll tell you: That self1 bill is urged But that the scambling2 and unquiet time 5 That is, "admit me as chorus to this History." A chorus, in one sense of the term, is an interpreter; one who explains to the audience what might else be dark or unmeaning to them.— Supply, I take it, is here used in the sense of supplement or completion. So that "for the which supply" is equivalent to for the completing of which. 1 Self for self-same: a frequent usage. 2 The more common form of this word is scrambling.— Question, in the next line, is discussion or consideration. Did push it out of further question. Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now? For all the temporal lands, which men devout Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil, A thousand pounds by th' year:4 thus runs the bill. Cant. Ely. But what prevention? 'Twould drink the cup and all. Cant. The King is full of grace and fair regard, Ely. The courses of his youth promised it not. But that his wildness, mortified in him, Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment, And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him, 'T envelop and contain celestial spirits. Never was such a sudden scholar made; 3 Lazars here means the same as in Paradise Lost, xi. 479: “A lazar house it seem'd, wherein were laid numbers of all diseased." 4 This is taken almost verbatim from Holinshed. Never came reformation in a flood, With such a heady current, scouring faults; So soon did lose his seat, and all at once, As in this King. Ely. We 're blessed in the change. Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity, And, all-admiring, with an inward wish You would desire the King were made a prelate ; The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, Must be the mistress to his theoric:7 5 That is, a wilfulness with many heads, and which, like the hydra, as fast as the heads are cut off, puts forth new ones. So that "hydra-headed wilfulness" is but a strong expression for freakishness or waywardness; the character of one who, drifting before his whims, is ever on some new tack, or is 'every thing by turns, and nothing long." 6 The air is called a "charter'd libertine," probably because it has by Nature a charter of exemption from restraint, or a prescriptive right to blow when and where it will, and cares no more for a king than for a beggar. 7 He must have drawn his theory, digested his order and method of thought, from the art and practice of life, instead of shaping the latter by the rules and measures of the former: which is strange, since he has never been seen in the way either of learning the things in question by experience, or of digesting the fruits of experience into theory. Practic and theoric, or practique and theorique, were the old spelling of practice and theory. Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it, His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow; Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, And so the Prince obscured his contemplation Cant. It must be so; for miracles are ceased; Ely. But, my good lord, How now for mitigation of this bill Urged by the Commons? Doth his Majesty 8 Companies for companions. So in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, i. 1: "Turn away our eyes, to seek new friends and stranger companies." 9 Popularity meant familiarity with the common people, as well as popular favour or applause. " 10 In Prince Henry's last speech, Act i. 2, 1 King Henry IV., he is represented as deliberately proposing this course to himself, for reasons therein stated. So of Julius Cæsar, the greatest name in history," as Merivale calls him, it is said that in his earlier years he concealed his tremendous energy and power of application under such an exterior of thoughtless dissipation, that he was set down as a mere young trifler not worth minding. 11 Crescive is the same as crescent, growing, or increasing. So in Hamlet, i. 3: "Nature, crescent, does not grow alone in thews and bulk. His for its, as usual. 12 The Poet not unfrequently thus uses how in the sense of by which. Incline to it, or no? Cant. He seems indifferent; Or, rather, swaying more upon our part And in regard of causes now in hand, Ely. How did this offer seem received, my lord? Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms, Ely. What was th' impediment that broke this off? 18 Exhibiters is movers, proposers, or prosecutors. So, in The Merry Wives, ii. 1, Mrs. Page says, "I'll exhibit a Bill in the Parliament for the putting-down of fat men." 14 The passages of his titles are the lines of succession by which his claims descend. Unhidden is open, clear. - JOHNSON. 15 Isabella, queen of Edward the Second, and mother of Edward the Third, was the daughter of Philip the Fair, of France. She was reputed the most beautiful woman in Europe, and was by many thought the wickedest. The male succession from her father expired in the person of her brother, Charles the Fair. So that, but for the exclusion of females, the French crown would have properly descended to her son. |