Nor.

'Twixt Guynes and Arde :*
I was then present, saw them salute on horseback;
Beheld them, when they lighted, how they clung
In their embracement, as they grew together;5
Which had they,
What four thron’d ones could have weigh'd
Such a compounded one?
Buck.

All the whole time
I was my chamber's prisoner.
NOR.

Then
you

lost
The view of earthly glory: Men might say,
Till this time, pomp was single; but now married
To one above itself. Each following day

sometimes difficult to determine which is meant ; sun, or son. However, the subsequent part of the line, and the recurrence of the same expression afterwards, are in favour of the reading of the original copy. Malone.

Pope has borrowed this phrase in his Imitation of Horace's Epistle to Augustus, v. 22: “ Those suns of glory please not till they set.'

STEEVENS. Guynes and Arde :] Guynes then belonged to the English, and Arde to the French; they are towns in Picardy, and the valley of Ardren lay between them. Arde is Ardres, but both Hall and Holinshed write it as Shakspeare does.

REED. as they grew together;] So, in All's well that ends well: “ I grow to you, and our parting is as a tortured body." Again, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream : “ So we grew together." STEEVENS.

-as they grew together;] That is, as if they grew toge. ther. We have the same image in our author's Venus and Adonis :

a sweet embrace;
“Incorporate then they seem; face

grows to face.”

MALONE. • Till this time, pomp was single; but now married

To one above itself.] The thought is odd and whimsical ; and obscure enough to need an explanation. Till this time (says

Became the next day's master, till the last
Made former wonders it's:' To-day, the French,
All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods,
Shone down the English ; and, to-morrow, they
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,
the speaker) pomp led a single life, as not finding a husband
able to support her according to her dignity, but she has now
got one in Henry VIII. who could support her, even above her
condition, in finery. WARBURTON.

Dr. Warburton has here discovered more beauty than the author intended, who only meant to say in a noisy periphrase, that pomp

was encreased on this occasion to more than twice as much as it had ever been before. Pomp is no more married to the English than to the French King, for to neither is any preference given by the speaker. Pomp is only married to pomp, but the new pomp is greater than the old. Johnson.

Before this time all pompous shows were exhibited by one prince only. On this occasion the Kings of England and France vied with each other. To this circumstance Norfolk alludes.

M. MASON. -Each following day 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 shows.

JOHNSON. • All clinquant,] All glittering, all shining. Clarendon uses this word in his description of the Spanish Juego de Toros.

Johnson. 1. 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 clinguant as his other attire."

STEEVENS.

7

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 suns
(For so they phrase them,) by their heralds chal-

leng'd
The noble spirits to arms, they did perform
Beyond thought's compass; that former fabulous

story,
Being now seen possible enough, got credit,
That Bevis was believ'd.?
Buck.

O, you go

far.
Nor. As I belong to worship, and affect
In honour honesty, the tract of every things
Would by a good discourser lose some life,
Which action's self was tongue to. All was royal;*

him in eye,

1

2

Still him in praise:] So, Dryden :

“ Two chiefs
“ So match'd, as each seem'd worthiest when alone."

JOHNSON,
Durst

wag his tongue in censure.] Censure for determination, of which had the noblest

appearance.

WARBURTON. See Vol. IV. p. 190, n. 4. MALONE.

· That Bevis was believ'd.] The old romantick legend of Bevis of Southampton. This Bevis, (or Beavois,) a Saxon, was for his prowess created by William the Conqueror Earl of Southampton: of whom Camden in his Britanniā. THEOBALD.

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.

-AU 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. The regulation had already been made by Mr. Theobald.

MALONE.

3

4

To the disposing of it nought rebell’d,
Order gave each thing view; the office did
Distinctly his full function.5
BUCK.

Who did guide,
I mean, who set the body and the limbs
Of this great sport together, as you guess ?

Nor. One, certes, that promises no element?
In such a business.
BUCK.

I

pray you, who, my lord ? NOR. All this was order'd by the good discretion Of the right reverend cardinal of York. Buck. The devil speed him! no man's pie is

free'd From his ambitious finger. What had he To do in these fierce vanities?' I wonder,

5

6

the office did 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.

-certes,] An obsolete adverb, signifying-certainly, in truth. So, in The Tempest :

“ For, certes, these are people of the island.” It occurs again in Othello, Act I. sc. i.

It is remarkable, that, in the present instance, the adverb certes must be sounded as a monosyllable. It is well understood that old Ben had no skill in the pronunciation of the French language; and the scene before us appears to have had some touches from his pen. By genuine Shakspeare certes is constantly employed as a dissyllable. STEEVENS.

i 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.

no man's pie is free'd From his ambitious finger.] To have a finger in the pie, is a proverbial phrase. See Ray, 244. REED.

fierce vanities?] Fierce is here, I think, used like

8

9

That such a keech' can with his very bulk
Take

up

the rays o’the beneficial sun,
And keep it from the earth.
Nor.

Surely, sir,
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, he gives 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.*
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.
Again, in The Rape of Lucrece:

“ Thy violent vanities can never last.”
In Timon of Athens, we have
“O the fierce wretchedness that glory brings !"

MALONE. 1 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.

: Out of his self-drawing web,] Thus it stands in the first edition. The latter editors, by injudicious correction, have printed :

Out of his self-drawn web. Johnson. She gives us note,] Old copy-0 gives us &c. Corrected by Mr. Steevens. MALONE. * A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys

A place next to the king-] It is evident a word or two.in the sentence is misplaced, and that we should read:

1