To Asher-house, my lord of Winchester's,2

Till you hear further from his highness.

Stay,

WOL. Where's your commiffion, lords? words cannot carry Authority fo weighty.'

Who dare cross them?

SUF. Bearing the king's will from his mouth exprefsly? WOL. Till I find more than will, or words, to do

it,

(I mean, your malice,) know, officious lords, I dare, and muft deny it. Now I feel

9 To Alher-boufe,] Thus the old copy. name of Eber; as appears from Holinshed: took their horfes and rode ftrait to Afber." P. 909. WARNER.

2

Aber was the ancient and everie man Holinfhed, Vol. II.

my lord of Winchester's,] Shakspeare forgot that Wolfey was himfelf bishop of Winchefter, unless he meant to fay, you muft confine yourself to that houfe which you poffefs as bishop of Winchester. Afher, near Hampton-Court, was one of the houses belonging to that bishoprick. MALONE.

Fox, bifhop of Winchefter, died Sept. 14, 1528, and Wolfey held this fee in commendam. Efher therefore was his own house. REED.

3 -fo weighty.] The editor of the third folio changed weighty to mighty, and all the fubfequent editors adopted his capricious alteration. MALONE.

I believe the change pointed out, was rather accidental than capricious; as, in the proof sheets of this republication, the words -weighty and mighty have more than once been given instead of each other. STEEVENS.

4 Till I find more than will, or words, to do it,

(I mean your malice,) know, &c.] Wolfey had faid:

"

66

words cannot carry

Authority fo weighty."

To which they reply:

"Who dare crofs them ?" &c.

Wolfey, answering them, continues his own fpeech, Till I find more than will or words (I mean more than your malicious will and words) to do it; that is, to carry authority fo mighty; I will deny to return what the king has given me. JOHNSON,

Of what coarse metal ye are moulded,-envy.
How eagerly ye follow my difgraces,
As if it fed ye? and how fleek and wanton
Ye appear in every thing may bring my ruin!
Follow your envious courfes, men of malice;
You have christian warrant for them, and, no doubt,
In time will find their fit rewards. That feal,
You afk with fuch a violence, the king,
(Mine, and your master,) with his own hand gave me:
Bade me enjoy it, with the place and honours,
During my life; and, to confirm his goodness,
Ty'd it by letters patents: Now, who'll take it?
SUR. The king, that gave it.

WOL.

It must be himself then.

SUR. Thou art a proud traitor, priest.

WOL.

Proud lord, thou lieft;

Within these forty hours' Surrey durft better
Have burnt that tongue, than said fo.

SUR.
Thy ambition,
Thou scarlet fin, robb'd this bewailing land
Of noble Buckingham, my father-in-law:

5 Within thefe forty hours-] Why forty hours? But a few minutes have paffed fince Wolfey's difgrace.-I fufpect that Shakfpeare wrote within these four hours, and that the person who revifed and tampered with this play, not knowing that hours was ufed by our poet as a diffyllable, made this injudicious alteration. MALONE.

I adhere to the old reading. Forty (I know not why) feems anciently to have been the familiar number on many occafions, where no very exact reckoning was neceffary. In a former fcene, the Old Lady offers to lay Anne Bullen a wager of "forty pence;" Slender, in The Merry Wives of Windfor, fays" I had rather than forty fhillings-;" and in The Taming of the Shrew," the humour of forty fancies" is the ornament of Grumio's hat: Thus alfo, in Coriolanus:

on fair ground

"I could beat forty of them." STEEVENS,

The heads of all thy brother cardinals,

(With thee, and all thy best parts bound together,) Weigh'd not a hair of his. Plague of your policy! You fent me deputy for Ireland;

Far from his fuccour, from the king, from all
That might have mercy on the fault thou gav'ft him;
Whilft your great goodness, out of holy pity,
Abfolv'd him with an axe.

WOL.
This, and all elfe
This talking lord can lay upon my credit,
I answer, is moft falfe. The duke by law
Found his deferts: how innocent I was
From any private malice in his end,

His noble jury and foul caufe can witness.
If I lov'd many words, lord, I should tell you,
You have as little honesty as honour;

That I, in the way of loyalty and truth"
Toward the king, my ever royal master,

Dare mate a founder man than Surrey can be,
And all that love his follies.

SUR.

By my foul,

Your long coat, prieft, protects you; thou should'st

feel

My fword i'the life-blood of thee elfe.-My lords,
Can ye endure to hear this arrogance?

And from this fellow? If we live thus tamely,
To be thus jaded' by a piece of scarlet,

6 That I, in the way &c.] Old copy-That in the way.

Mr. Theobald reads:

That I in the away &c.

STEEVENS.

and this unneceffary emendation has been adopted by all the subfequent editors. MALONE.

As this paffage is to me obfcure, if not unintelligible, without Mr. Theobald's correction, I have not difcarded it. STEEVENS.

To be thus jaded-] To be abufed and ill treated, like a

Farewell nobility; let his grace go forward,
And dare us with his cap, like larks.

WOL.

Is poifon to thy ftomach.

SUR.

All goodness

Yes, that goodness

Of gleaning all the land's wealth into one,
Into your own hands, cardinal, by extortion;
The goodness of your intercepted packets,

You writ to the pope, against the king: your good-
nefs,

Since you provoke me, fhall be most notorious.-
My lord of Norfolk,—as you are truly noble,
As you refpect the common good, the state
Of our defpis'd nobility, our iffues,

Who, if he live, will scarce be gentlemen,-
Produce the grand sum of his fins, the articles
Collected from his life:-I'll startle you

Worfe than the facring bell, when the brown wench
Lay kiffing in your arms, lord cardinal.

worthless horse: or perhaps to be ridden by a priest ;—to have him mounted above us. MALONE.

The fame verb (whatever its precife meaning may be) occurs in Antony and Cleopatra, A&t III. fc.i:

"The ne'er-yet-beaten horfe of Parthia

"We have jaded out o'the field." STEEVENS.

8 And dare us with his cap, like larks.] It is well known that the hat of a cardinal is fcarlet; and the method of daring larks was by fmall mirrors faftened on fcarlet cloth, which engaged the attention of thefe birds while the fowler drew his net over them.

The fame thought occurs in Skelton's Why come ye not to Court? i. e. a fatire on Wolfey:

"The red hat with his lure,

Bringeth al thinges under cure." STEEVENS.

9 Who,] Old copy-Whom. Corrected in the fecond folio.

MALONE.

2 Worfe than the facring bell,] The little bell, which is rung to give notice of the Hoft approaching when it is carried in pro

H

WOL. How much, methinks, I could despise this

man,

But that I am bound in charity against it!

NOR. Those articles, my lord, are in the king's

hand:

But, thus much, they are foul ones.

WOL.
And spotlefs, fhall mine innocence arise,
When the king knows my truth.

SUR.

So much fairer,

This cannot fave you:

I thank my memory, I yet remember

Some of these articles; and out they fhall.

Now, if you can blush, and cry guilty, cardinal, You'll fhow a little honesty.

WOL.

Speak on, fir;

I dare your worst objections: if I blush,

It is, to fee a nobleman want manners.

SUR. I'd rather want those, than my head. Have

at you.

First, that, without the king's affent, or know

ledge,

You wrought to be a legate; by which power
You maim'd the jurifdiction of all bishops.

NOR. Then, that, in all you writ to Rome, or else

ceffion, as alfo in other offices of the Romish church, is called the facring, or confecration bell; from the French word, facrer.

THEOBALD. The Abbefs, in The Merry Devil of Edmonton, 1608, fays: you fhall ring the facring bell,

"Keep your hours, and toll your knell."

Again, in Reginald Scott's Difcovery of Witchcraft, 1584: "He heard a little facring bell ring to the elevation of a tomorrow mafs."

The now obfolete verb to facre, is ufed by P. Holland, in his tranflation of Pliny's Natural Hiftory, Book X. ch. vi.