WOLSEY'S CHARACTER.1
The dark side.
HE was a man
Of an unbounded stomach,2 ever ranking
Himself with princes; one that by suggestion 3
Tied all the kingdom: simony was fair play;
His own opinion was his law: i' th' 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.
The bright side.
THIS Cardinal,
Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly
Was fashioned to much honour from his cradle.
He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;
Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading;
Lofty and sour to them that loved him not,
But, to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.
And though he were unsatisfied in getting,
(Which was a sin,) yet in bestowing, madam,
He was most princely: ever witness for him
Those twins of learning that he raised in you,
Ipswich and Oxford! one of which fell with him,
Unwilling to out-live the good that did it;
The other, though unfinished, yet so famous,
(1) "Henry VIII.," Act iv., scene 2. Queen Katharine describes the evil, and Griffith, her gentleman-usher, the good, of Wolsey's character.
(2) Stomach-in the old sense-arrogance, haughtiness.
(3) By suggestion, &c.-By secret influence ruled all the kingdom. Some take tied to mean tithed.
(4) Simony-the buying or selling of church preferment; so ealled from Simon Magus. See Acts viii. 20.
(5) I' th' presence-from the Latin in præsentia, at the present time-to suit his immediate purpose; or perhaps it means, in the king's presence.
(6) Ipswich and Oxford-Wolsey founded a college, which had a very brief existence, in his native town of Ipswich, as well as the noble college of Cardinal's, now called Christ Church, Oxford.
(7) That did it-that made or founded it.
So excellent in art, and still so rising,
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.
His overthrow heaped happiness upon him;
For then, and not till then, he felt himself,1
And found the blessedness of being, little;
And, to add greater honours to his age
Than man could give him, he died fearing God.
BEES.2
So work the honey bees;
Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king,3 and officers of sorts;
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, arméd in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home,
To the tent-royal of their emperor ;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone.
To be, or not to be, that is the question :-
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
(1) He felt himself-i. e. he felt himself little, and found the blessedness of being so. (2) "Henry V.," Act i., scene 2.
(3) King-king seems here used in the general sense of sovereign-the reference is of course to the queen bee.
(4) Make boot upon-despoil, feed on.
(5) "Hamlet," Act iii., scene 1.
(6) Sea of troubles-Pope proposed to alter this into "a siege of troubles,” upon which Mr. Knight, in his pictorial edition, remarks, "Surely the metaphor of the sea, to denote an overwhelming flood of troubles, is highly beautiful." This is unquestionable. The difficulty however lies in the expression "to take arms against a sea," which, strictly speaking, presents an incongruous image. If we consider the words "a sea" as unemphatic, and merely used for "a host" or great number, the whole will be harmonised.
And, by opposing, end them? To die-to sleep-
No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to!-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die-to sleep-
To sleep!-perchance to dream!-ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,2
Must give us pause:-there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dèspised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus3 make
With a bare bodkin P4 Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,-
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns-puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard,7 their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
(1) No more-i.e. to die is no more than to sleep; this was Hamlet's first notion, which he afterwards corrects.
(2) Coil-rope wound into a ring, hence, perhaps, from the noise made in coiling a rope-stir, murmur, tumult. "To shuffle off this mortal coil" is to get free from the entanglements and perplexities of life, or, in a secondary sense, from its busy stir.
(3) Quietus-a law term-final discharge, complete acquittance.
(4) Bodkin-a small sword.
(5) Fardels-from the French fardeau, a parcel-burdens.
(6) Grunt-lament loudly. This, and not groan, is the true reading.
(7) With this regard-i. e. from this view of the object-in consequence of the check which conscience gives.
DOVER CLIFFS.1
How fearful
And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!
The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half-way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire-dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head :
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark,
Diminished to her cock;3 her cock, a buoy,
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high:-I'll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.
ANTONY'S FUNERAL ORATION OVER CESAR'S BODY.
FRIENDS, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears!
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Cæsar! Noble Brutus
Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious;
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.
(1) "King Lear," Act iv., scene 6.
These lines are generally considered as an actual description, but a reference to the connection in which they occur will show that, though suggested by the scenery of the Dover Cliffs, they only represent an imaginary picture. This consideration may serve to account for the discrepancy which is usually felt between the actual scene and this description.
(2) Samphire-a plant used for pickling.
(3) Cock-a small man-of-war's boat.
(4) And the deficient, &c.-i. e. and I, my sight failing me, topple down headlong. (5) "Julius Cæsar," Act iii., scene 3.
This speech is a masterpiece of oratory, exhibiting in one view nearly all the resources of the art. The ingenuity with which Antony "wields at will" the fickle populace of Rome in the midst of their greatest excitement, dextrously concealing his purpose until they were prepared themselves voluntarily to aid it, can hardly be too much admired, while his success by such means confirms uth of the dogma, that "Reason and Rhetoric have nothing in common."
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest-
For Brutus is an honourable man,
So are they all, all honourable men—
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill;
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see, that, on the Lupercal,1
I thrice presented him a kingly crown;
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once-not without cause-
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgment thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!-Bear with me ;-
My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
But yesterday, the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world: now lies he there,
And none so poor2 to do him reverence.
O masters! if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage.
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honourable men:
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you,
Than I will wrong such honourable men.
(1) Lupercal-a spot at the foot of Mount Aventine, at Rome, where the Lupercalia (games commemorative of the founder of Rome) were annually celebrated. Perhaps "on the Lupercal" refers only to the day, and not to the place.
(2) None so poor-i. e. "the meanest man is now too high to do reverence to Cæsar."-Dr. Johnson.
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