KING HENRY VIII.

ACT I. SCENE 1.

'Buck. I am the shadow of poor Buckingham;
Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on
By darkening my clear sun."

This passage appears thus in all editions, although it is palpably nonsense, and that it is so has been confessed by all, and although the obvious typographical error has been pointed out by Johnson, Blackstone, and Monck Mason. Read,

"I am the shadow of poor Buckingham,

Whose figure even this instant cloud puts out,

By darkening my clear sun."

That is, 'even the form of whose shadow is obliterated by a cloud passing over the sun of my prosperity.'

She had ne'er known pomp, though it be temporal;
Yet if that quarrel fortune, do divorce
It from the bearer," &c.

The change of "quarrel" to cruel in Mr. Collier's folio seems plainly to be required, and to be for the better.

Mr. Collier's folio reads, with reason, in my judgment,

Grace the conjunction!"

"Now may all joy

My correspondent in Maine clings to the old reading, for these reasons:

"It is to be noticed that the exclamation of Surrey was called forth, not so especially by the marriage itself as by the circumstances attending it. He saw, in that marriage, which was opposed by Cardinal Wolsey, a means by which the Cardinal would lose his 'witchcraft over the King,' and by which, in consequence of the King's withdrawal from under that witchcraft, he himself might be revenged upon the Cardinal; hence his joyful expression,- Now all my joy grace the conjunction,'which was the expression written by Shakespeare, I have no doubt.'

This is ingenious, and has some plausibility; but is rather too subtle and recondite a meaning for the passage, which is plainly, I think, but a mere expression of good wishes. Mr. Singer and Blackwood's Magazine both approve of this emendation in the famous folio.

The second line has hitherto been amended to read thus:

"And of an earthly cold! Mark you her eyes!"

But Mr. Collier's folio, in reading,

"And of an earthly coldness: Mark her eyes!"

deviates less both from the letter and the meaning of the original.

Many and diverse have been the projects for the correction of this passage. But what objection is there to reading thus ?

"But we all are men;

In our natures frail and culpable.

Of our flesh, few are angels."

That is, 'according to the flesh, few of us are angels:' 'frail

and culpable, in our natures' needs no explanation.

Baseness has no share with thinness in hiding offences. Mr. Dyce is plainly right in suggesting,

"They are too thin and bare to hide offences."

“K. Hen. [to Cranmer.] Good man sit down. Now let me see the proudest,

He that dares most, but wag his finger at thee:

By all that's holy, he had better starve,

Than once but think his place becomes thee not."

Why "his place?" The King puts Cranmer in the highest seat at the council table, which was Cranmer's own, and from which the others hoped to oust him. The error has been pointed out by Rowe and Mr. Dyce. Read,

"he had better starve

Than once but think this place becomes thee not.”

SCENE 3.

The Porter's man says, in the original,

"Let me ne'er hope to see a Chine againe,

And that I would not for a cow, God save her!"

For this Mr. Collier's MS. corrector proposes the following very ingenious and altogether unexceptionable correction, which must, without a doubt, be received into the text:

"Let me ne'er hope to see a queen again,

And that I would not for a crown, God save her!"

In whose comparison all whites are ink,

Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure
The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman."

All the commentators have difficulty in explaining the last member of this sentence; and I do not wonder at it. Johnson's rendering of "spirit of sense" into 'exquisite sensibility of touch,' does not help the matter much. What do we gain by reading, "to whose soft seizure the cygnet's down is harsh, and exquisite sensibility of touch hard as the palm of ploughman ?" We understand 'exquisite sensibility of touch'; but the sentence as a whole is at least as obscure as it was before. There has evidently been a compositor's transposition; and we should read,

"to whose soft seizure

And spirit of sense the cygnet's down is harsh,
Hard as the palm of ploughman,"

This arrangement, with the explanation afforded by another passage in Act III. Scene 3, of this very play, makes the meaning of the present passage clear.