"This cardinal was of a great stomach, for he compted himself equal with princes, and by craftie suggestion got into his hands innumerable treasure: he forced little on simonie, 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 performe little: he was vicious of his bodie, and gaue the clergie evil example." Edit. 1587, p. 922.

Perhaps, after this quotation, you may not think that Sir Thomas Hanmer, who reads Tyth'd-instead of- Ty'd all the kingdom, deserves quite so much of Dr. Warburton's severity. Indisputably the passage, like every other in the speech, is intended to express the meaning of the parallel one in the chronicle: it cannot therefore be credited, that any man, when the original was produced, should still choose to defend a cant acceptation; and inform us, perhaps, seriously, that in gaming language, from I know not what practice, to tye is to equal! A sense of the word, as far as I have yet found, unknown to our old writers; and, if known, would not surely have been used in this place by our author.

But let us turn from conjecture to Shakespeare's authorities. Hall, from whom the above description is copied by Holinshed, is very explicit in the demands of the Cardinal: who having insolently told the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, "For sothe I thinke, that halfe your substaunce were to litle," assures them by way of comfort at the end of his harangue, that upon an average the tythe should be sufficient; Sers, speake not to breake that

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thyng that is concluded, for some snal not paie the tenth parte, and some more."-And again; "Thei saied, the Cardinall by visitacions, makyng of abbottes, probates of testamentes, graunting of faculties, licences, and other pollyngs in his courtes legantines, had made his threasore egall with the kinges." Edit. 1548, p. 138, and 143.

Skelton, in his Why come ye not to Court, gives us, after his rambling manner, a curious character of Wolsey:

By and by

He will drynke us so dry
And sucke us so nye

That men shall scantly

Haue penny or halpennye
God saue hys noble grace
And graunt him a pláce
Endlesse to dwel

With the deuill of hel

For and he were there

We need neuer feare

Of the feendes blacke

For I undertake

He wold so brag and crake
That he wold than make

The deuils to quake

To shudder and to shake

Lyke a fier drake

And with a cole rake

Bruse them on a brake

And binde them to a stake

And set hel on fyre

At his own desire

He is such a grym syre!

Edit. 1568.

Mr. Upton and some other critics have thought it very scholar-like in Hamlet to swear the Centinels on a sword.

but this is for ever met with. For instance, in the Passus Primus of Pierce Plowman:

Dauid in his daies dubbed knightes,

And did hem swere on her sword to serue truth euer.

And in Hieronymo, the common butt of our author, and the wits of the time, says Lorenzo to Pedringano,

Swear on this cross, that what thou sayst is true

But if I prove thee perjured and unjust,

This very sword, whereon thou took'st thine oath,
Shall be the worker of thy tragedy!

We have therefore no occasion to go with Mr. Garrick as far as the French of Brantôme to illustrate this ceremony: a gentleman, who will be always allowed the first commentator on Shakespeare, when he does not carry us beyond himself.

Mr. Upton, however, in the next place, produces a passage from Henry VI. whence he argues it to be very plain, that our author had not only read Cicero's Offices, but even more critically than many of the editors:

This villain here,

Being captain of a pinnace, threatens more
Than Bargulus, the strong Illyrian pirate.

So the wight, he observes with great exultation, is named by Cicero in the editions of Shakespeare's time, "Bargulus Illyrius latro;" though the modern editors have chosen to call him Bardylis:-" and thus I found it in two MSS."And thus he might have found it in two translations, before Shakespeare was born. Robert Whytinton, 1533, calls him, " Bargulus a pirate upon the see of Illiry;"

and Nicholas Grimald, about twenty years afterward, Bargulus the Illyrian robber."

But it had been easy to have checked Mr. Upton's exultation, by observing, that Bargulus does not appear in the quarto.-Which also is the case with some fragments of Latin verses, in the different parts of this doubtful performance.

It is scarcely worth mentioning, that two or three more Latin passages, which are met with in our author, are immediately transcribed from the story or chronicle before him. Thus, in Henry V. whose right to the kingdom of France is copiously demonstrated by the Archbishop.

Archbishop Chichelie, says Holinshed, "did much in ueie against the surmised and false fained law Salike, which the Frenchmen alledge euer against the kings of England in barre of their just title to the crowne of France. The very words of that supposed law are these, In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant, that is to saie, Into the Salike land let not women succeed; which the French glossers expound to be the realm of France, and

that this law was made by king Pharamond: whereas yet their owne authors affirme, that the land Salike is in Germanie, betweene the rivers of Elbe and Sala," &c. p. 545.

It hath lately been repeated from Mr. Guthrie's Essay upon English Tragedy, that the portrait of Macbeth's wife is copied from Buchanan, "whose spirit, as well as words, is translated into the play of Shakespeare: and it had signified nothing to have pored only on Holinshed for facts." "Animus etiam, per se ferox, prope quotidianis conviciis uxoris (quæ omnium consiliorum ei erat conscia) stimulabatur.”—This is the whole, that Buchanan says of the lady'; and truly I see no more spirit in the Scotch, than in the English chronicler. "The wordes of the three weird sisters also greatly encouraged him, [to the murder of Duncan] but specially his wife lay sore upon him to attempt the thing, as she that was very ambitious, brenning in unquenchable desire to beare the name of a queene. Edit. 1577, p. 244.

This part of Holinshed is an abridgment of Johne Bellenden's translation of the noble clerk, Hector Boece, imprinted at Edinburgh, in fol. 1541. I will give the passage as it is found there. "His wyfe impacient of lang tary (as all wemen are) specially quhare they ar desirus of ony purpos, gaif hym gret artation to pursew the thrid weird, that sche micht be ane quene, calland hym oft tymis febyl cowart and nocht desyrus of honouris, sen he durst not assailze the thing with manheid and curage, quhilk is offerit to hym be beniuolence of fortoun. Howbeit sindry otheris hes assailziet sic thinges afore with