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a verbum juris, a law term. The criminal, when he refuses a juryman, says, I challenge him. I think there is a slight error which destroys the connection, and would read,

Induc'd by potent circumstances, that

You are mine enemy, I make my challenge.
-You shall not be my judge.

573. I utterly abhor, yea, from my soul
Refuse you for my judge-

JOHNSON.

-] These are

not mere words of passion, but technical terms in the cannon law-Detestor and Recuso. The former in the language of the canonists, signifies no more than I protest against. BLACKSTONE.

589. —gainsay—] i. e. deny. So, in Lord Surrey's translation of the fourth book of the Æneid:

"I hold thee not, nor yet gainsay thy words.”

STEEVENS.

602. You sign your place and calling,] I think, to sign, must here be to show, to denote. By your outward meekness and humility, you show that you are of an holy order, but, &c. JOHNSON.

606.

-now are mounted,

Where powers are your retainers: and your words,

Domesticks to you, serve your will,—

-] You have now got power at your beck, following in your retinue and words therefore are degraded to the servile state of performing any office which you shall give them. In humbler and more common terms; Having now got power, you do not regard your word. JOHNSON.

I believe

I believe we should read,

"Where powers are your retainers, and your

wards,

"Domesticks to you," &c.

The queen rises naturally in her description. She paints the powers of government depending upon Wolsey under three images; as his retainers, his wards, his domestick servants. TYRWHITT.

So, in Storer's Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal, a poem, 1599:

"I must have notice where their wards must

dwell;

"I car'd not for the gentry, for I had

"Young nobles of the land," &c.

636. could speak thee out)] If thy several qua

lities had tongues to speak thy praise. 644. although not there

At once, and fully satisfied)—

STEEVENS.

JOHNSON.

-] The sense

is this. I must be loosed, though when so loosed, I shall not be satisfied fully and at once; that is, I shall not be immediately satisfied. JOHNSON.

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I speak my good lord cardinal to this point,] The king, having first addressed to Wolsey, breaks off; and declares upon his honour to the whole court, that he speaks the cardinal's sentiments upon the point in question; and clears him from any attempt, or wish,

to stir that business.

THEOBALD.

669. Scruple, and prick,-] Prick of conscience

was the term in confession,

JOHNSON.

The

The expression is from Holinshed, where the king says, "The special cause that moved me unto this matter was a certaine scrupulositie that pricked my conscience," &c. See Holinshed, p. 907. STEEVENS. 679. -This respite shook

The bosom of my conscience,] Though this reading be sense, yet, I verily believe, the poet

wrote:

The bottom of my conscience.

Shakspere, in all his historical plays, was a most diligent observer of Holinshed's Chronicle. Now Holinshed, in the speech which he has given to king Henry upon this subject, makes him deliver himself thus: "Which words, once conceived within the secret bottom of my conscience, ingendered such a scrupulous doubt, that my conscience was incontinently accom. bred, vexed, and disquieted." Vide Life of Henry VIII. P. 907. THEOBALD.

697.

hulling in

The wild sea

] The phrase belongs

to navigation. A ship is said to hull, when she is dismasted, and only her hull, or hulk, is left at the direction and mercy of the waves.

So, in the Alarum for London, 1602:

"And they lye hulling up and down the stream."

STEEVENS.

718. I then mov'd you,] I have rescued the text from Holinshed." I moved it in confession to you, my lord of Lincoln, then ghostly father.

And for

asmuch

asmuch as then you yourself were in some doubt, you moved me to ask the counsel of all these my lords. Whereupon I moved you, my lord of Canterbury, first to have your licence, as much as you were metropolitan, to put this matter in question; and so I did of all you, my lords," Holinshed's Life of Henry VIII.

p. 908.

730.

-The primest creature

That's paragon'd o' th' world.

So, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona:

THEOBALD.

"No: but she is an earthly paragon."

Again, in another of our author's plays : 66 -an angel! or, if not,

"An earthly paragon.”

To paragon, however, is a verb used by Shakspere, both in Antony and Cleopatra and Othello: "If thou with Cæsar paragon again

"My man of men."

"a maid

"That paragons description and wild fame.”

STEEVENS.

737. They rise to depart.] Here the modern editors add: The king speaks to Cranmer. This marginal direction is not found in the old folio, and was wrongly introduced by some subsequent editor. Cranmer was now absent from court on an embassy, as appears from the last scene of this act, where Cromwell informs Wolsey, that he is return'd and install'd archbishop of Canterbury:

My

My learn'd and well-beloved servant, Cranmer,
Pr'ythee, return!—

is no more than an apostrophe to the absent bishop of
that name.

RIDLEY.

ACT III.

WAIT in the presence.] i. e. in the pre

Line 17. sence-chamber.

STEEVENS.

24. They should be good men; their affairs are righteous:] Affairs means the business of their calling.

JOHNSON.

25. All hoods make not monks.] Cucullus non facit monachum. STEEVENS.

40. Envy and base opinion set against 'em,] I would be glad that my conduct were in some publick trial confronted with mine enemies, that envy and corrupt judgment might try their utmost power against me.

JOHNSON. 42. Seek me out, -] I believe that a word has

--

dropt out here, and that we should read

-if your business seek me, speak out, and that way I am wise in ; 2. e. in the way that I can understand. TYRWHITT. The metre shews here is a syllable dropt. I would read:

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