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Enter a third Gentleman.

God save you, sir! Where have you been broiling?

3 Gent. Among the crowd i'the abbey; where a

finger

Could not be wedg'd in more; I am stifled

With the mere rankness of their joy.

2 Gent.

You saw

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Good sir, speak it to us.

3 Gent. As well as I am able. The rich stream Of lords, and ladies, having brought the queen To a prepar'd place in the choir, fell off

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A distance from her; while her grace sat down
To rest a while, some half an hour, or so,
In a rich chair of state, opposing freely
The beauty of her person to the people.
Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest woman
That ever lay by man: which when the people
Had the full view of, such a noise arose
As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest,
As loud, and to as many tunes: hats, cloaks
(Doublets, I think) flew up; and had their faces
Been loose, this day they had been lost. Such joy
I never saw before. Great bellied women,

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ingentem foribus domus alta superbis Mane salutantum totis vomit ædibus undam.'

Virg. Georg. ii. 461.

Statius Theb. v. 223.

foribus cum immissa superbis

Unda fremit vulgi.'

Thus in Timon of Athens :

this confluence, this great flood of visitors.'

That had not half a week to go, like rams

In the old time of war, would shake the press,
And make them reel before them. No man living
Could say, This is my wife, there; all were woven
So strangely in one piece.

2 Gent.

But what follow'd?

3 Gent. At length her grace rose, and with mo

dest paces

Came to the altar; where she kneel'd, and, saintlike,
Cast her fair eyes to heaven, and pray'd devoutly.
Then rose again, and bow'd her to the people:
When by the archbishop of Canterbury
She had all the royal makings of a queen;
As holy oil, Edward Confessor's crown,

The rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems
Laid nobly on her: which perform'd, the choir,
With all the choicest musick of the kingdom,
Together sung Te Deum. So she parted,
And with the same full state pac'd back again
To York Place, where the feast is held.

1 Gent. Sir, you Must no more call it York Place, that is past: For, since the cardinal fell, that title's lost; 'Tis now the king's, and call'd-Whitehall.

3 Gent.

I know it;

But 'tis so lately altered, that the old name
Is fresh about me.

2 Gent.

What two reverend bishops Were those that went on each side of the queen? 3 Gent. Stokesly and Gardiner; the one, of Winchester

(Newly preferr'd from the king's secretary), The other, London.

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2 Gent.

He of Winchester

Is held no great good lover of the archbishop's,
The virtuous Cranmer.

3 Gent.

All the land knows that:

However, yet there's no great breach; when it comes, Cranmer will find a friend will not shrink from him. 2 Gent. Who may that be, I pray you?

3 Gent.

Thomas Cromwell; A man in much esteem with the king, and truly A worthy friend. The king

Has made him master o'the jewel-house,

And one, already, of the privy council. 2 Gent. He will deserve more.

3 Gent. Yes, without all doubt. Come, gentlemen, ye shall go my way, which Is to the court, and there ye shall be my guests; Something I can command. As I walk thither, I'll tell ye more.

Both.

You may command us, sir.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II1. Kimbolton.

Enter KATHARINE, Dowager, sick; led between

GRIFFITH and PATIENCE.

Grif. How does your grace?

O, Griffith, sick to death:

Kath. My legs, like loaden branches, bow to the earth, Willing to leave their burden: Reach a chair;-So, now, methinks, I feel a little ease. Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, as thou led'st me,

1 This scene is above any other part of Shakspeare's tragedies, and perhaps above any scene of any other poet, tender and pathetick, without gods, or furies, or poisons, or precipices, without the help of romantick circumstances, without improbable sallies of poetical lamentation, and without any throes of tumultuous misery.-JOHNSON.

That the great child of honour, cardinal Wolsey, Was dead?

Grif. Yes, madam; but, I think, your grace, Out of the pain you suffer'd, gave no ear to't.

Kath. Pr'ythee, good Griffith, tell me how he died : If well, he stepp'd before me, happily 2,

For my example.
Grif.

Well, the voice goes, madam: For after the stout Earl Northumberland

Arrested him at York, and brought him forward
(As a man sorely tainted) to his answer,
He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill,
He could not sit his mule3.

Alas! poor man!

Kath.
Grif. Atlast, with easy roads,he came to Leicester,
Lodg'd in the Abbey; where the reverend abbot,
With all his convent, honourably receiv'd him ;
To whom he gave these words,-O father abbot,
An old man, broken with the storms of state,
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;
Give him a little earth for charity!

So went to bed: where eagerly his sickness
Pursu'd him still; and, three nights after this,
About the hour of eight (which he himself

2 Happily is sometimes used by Shakspeare for haply, peradventure; as in The Taming of the Shrew, Act iv. Sc. 4:old Gremio is heark'ning still,

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And happily we might be interrupted.'

But it here more probably means opportunely.

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3 Cardinals generally rode on mules, as a mark perhaps of humility. Cavendish says that Wolsey rode like a cardinal sumptuously upon his mule, trapped altogether in crimson velvet and gilt stirrups.' And Roy, in the Satire already quoted,

says:

'Doth he then use on mules to ride?

Ye, and that with so shameful pride
That to tell it is not possible.'

4 Roads, or rodes, here, is the same as courses, stages, or journeys. From whence also was formed out-rodes, in-rodes, &c.

Foretold, should be his last), full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,
He gave his honours to the world again,

His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace..

Kath. So may he rest; his faults lie gently on him! Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak him, And yet with charity,—He was a man

Of an unbounded stomach 5, ever ranking
Himself with princes; one, that by suggestion
Ty'd all the kingdom: simony was fair play;
His own opinion was his law: I'the presence
He would say untruths; and be ever double,
Both in his words and meaning: He was never,
But where he meant to ruin, pitiful:

His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
But his performance, as he is now, nothing.
Of his own body he was ill?, and gave
The clergy ill example.

5 i. e. of unbounded pride or haughtiness. Thus HolinshedThis cardinal was of a great stomach, for he computed himself equal with princes, and by crafty suggestions got into his hands innumerable treasure: he forced little on simony, and was not pitifull, and stood affectionate in his own opinion: in open presence he would lie and seie untruth, and was double both in speech and meaning: he would promise much and perform little : he was vicious of his bodie, and gave the clergie evil example.' Ed. 1587, p. 922.

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one that by suggestion Ty'd all the kingdom

Suggestion here, I think, means wicked prompting. It is used in this sense in The Tempest. I have no doubt that we should read tyth'd instead of ty'd, as Dr. Farmer proposed, and as the passage quoted from Holinshed warrants. The word tythes was not exclusively used to signify the emoluments of the clergy. Thus in Beaumont and Fletcher's Queen of Corinth :

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Why, sir, the kingdom's his; and no man now

Can come to Corinth, or from Corinth go,

Without his licence; he puts up the tithes
Of every office through Achaia."

7 To be ill, evil, or naught of body, was to be addicted to women to be lewd in life and manners.

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