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B. Jonson, in his Execration upon Vulcan, says, they were two poor chambers. [See the stage-direction in this play, a little before the king's entrance. "Drum and trumpet, chambers discharged."] The continuator of Stowe's Chronicle, relating the same accident, p. 1003, says expressly, that it happened at the play of Henry the VIIIth.

In a MS. letter of Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, dated London, this last of June 1613, the same fact is thus related: "No longer since than yesterday, while Bourbage his companie were acting at the Globe the play of Henry VIII. and there shooting of certayne chambers in way of triumph, the fire catch'd," &c. MS. Harl. 7002. TYRWHITT.

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The very persons of our noble story,] Why the rhyme should have been interrupted here, when it was so easily to be supplied, I cannot conceive. It can only be accounted for from the negligence of the press, or the transcribers; and therefore I have made no scruple to replace it thus:

-Think before ye.

THEOBALD.

This is specious; but the laxity of the versification in this Prologue, and in the following Epilogue, makes it not necessary.

JOHNSON.

ACT

Line 4.

ACT I.

A Fresh admirer] An admirer untired;

an admirer still feeling the impression, as if it were hourly renewed.

20.

JOHNSON.

'Till this time, pomp was single; but now marry'd To one above itself. -] That is, pomp was increased on this occasion to more than twice as much as it

had ever been before.

21.

Each following day

JOHNSON.

Became the next day's master, &c.] Dies diem docet. Every day learned something from the preceding, till the concluding day collected all the splendor of all the former shews. JOHNSON. 24. All clinquant,-] All glittering, all shining. Clarendon uses this word in his description of the Spanish Juego de Toros. JOHNSON. It is likewise used in a Memorable Masque, &c. performed before king James, at Whitehall, in 1613, at the marriage of the Palsgrave and princess Elizabeth. -his buskins clinquant as his other attire."

35.

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STEEVENS.

-him in eye,

-] So, Dryden:

Still him in praise:

-Two chiefs

"So match'd as each seem'd worthiest when alone."

JOHNSON. 38. Durst wag his tongue in censure.] Censure for

Bij

deter

determination, of which had the noblest appearance. WARBURTON.

43. That Bevis was believ'd.] The old romantick legend of Bevis of Southampton. This Bevis (or Beauvois) a Saxon, was for his prowess created by William the Conqueror earl of Southampton of whom Camden in his Britannia.

THEOBALD.

46. -the tract of every thing, &c.] The course of these triumphs and pleasures, however well related, must lose, in the description, part of that spirit and energy which were expressed in the real action. JOHNSON.

48. All was royal, &c.] This speech was given, in all the editions, to Buckingham; but improperly. For he wanted information, having kept his chamber during the solemnity. I have therefore given it to Norfolk. WARBURTON.

I would point thus : -all was royal

To the disposing of it;

i. e. even to the disposing of it.

50.

-the office did

MUSGRAVE.

Distinctly his full function.] The commission for regulating this festivity was well executed, and gave exactly to every particular person and action the proper place. JOHNSON. 55. element] No initiation, no previous practices. Elements are the first principles of things, or rudiments of knowledge. The word is here applied, not without a catachresis, to a person.

JOHNSON.

62. fierce vanities? -] Fierce is here, I think, used like the French fier for proud, unless we suppose an allusion to the mimical ferocity of the combatants in the tilt. JOHNSON.

It is certainly used as the French word fier. So, in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, the puritan says, the hobby horse “is a fierce and rank idol." STEEVENS.

63. That such a keech- -] A keech is a solid lump or mass. A cake of wax or tallow formed in a mould is called yet in some places, a keech.

JOHNSON.

There may, perhaps, be a singular propriety in this term of contempt. Wolsey was the son of a butcher, and in the second part of King Henry IV. a butcher's wife is called-Goody Keech. STEEVENS.

74. A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys

A place next to the king.] What he is unable to give himself, heaven gives or deposits for him, and that gift, or deposit, buys a place, &c.

86.

90.

-the file] That is, the list.

STEEVENS.

JOHNSON.

-council out,] Without advising with, or

consulting the council; not suffering them to have

any concern in the business.

91. Must fetch in him he papers.]

REMARKS.

He papers, a verb; his own letter, by his own single authority, and without the concurrence of the council, must fetch in him whom he papers down. I don't understand it, unless this be the meaning.

POPE.

Wolsey published a list of the several persons whom he had appointed to attend on the king at this inter

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view. See Hall's Chronicle, Rymer's Fadera, tom, 13,

&c.

STEEVENS.

97. Have broke their backs with laying manors on them For this great journey.— -] In the ancient Interlude of Nature, bl. let. no date, but apparently printed in the reign of King Henry VIII. there seems to have been a similar stroke aimed at this expensive expedition :

"Pryde. I am unhappy, I see it well,

"For th' expence of myne apparell

"Towardys this vyage

"What in horses and other array,

"Hath compelled me for to lay
"All my land to mortgage."

STEEVENS.

We meet with a similar expression in Marlowe's

King Edward II. 1598 :

"While soldiers mutiny for want of pay,
"He wears a lord's revenue on his back."

MALONE.

So also Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy: "Tis an ordinary thing to put a thousand oakes, or an hundred oxen, into a sute of apparell, to weare a whole manor on his back." Edit. 1634, P. 482. WHALLEY. See also Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, edit. 1780, Vol. v. p. 26. Vol. xii. p. 395. REED.

98.

But

-What did this vanity,

-] What effect had this pompous shew, but the production of a wretched conclusion.

JOHNSON.

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