"Pray God he do! He'll never know himself, else."--Act II. 2.
"I were malicious, else."--Act IV. 2.
{34} The peculiarly idiomatic expression "I take it" is of frequent
occurrence in Fletcher, as witness the following:--
"This is no lining for a trench, I take it."--_Rule a Wife_, III.
"And you have land i' th' Indies, as I take it."--_Ibid._ IV.
"A fault without forgiveness, as I take it."--_Pilgrim_, IV. 1.
"In noble emulation (so I take it)."--_Ibid._ IV. 2.
In one scene of _Henry VIII._, Act I. 3., the expression occurs twice: "One
would take it;" "There, I take it."
Of a peculiar manner of introducing a negative condition, one instance from
Fletcher, and one from _Henry VIII._ in reference to the same substantive,
though used in different senses, will suffice:
"All noble battles,
Maintain'd in thirst of honour, not of blood."--_Bonduca_, V. 1.
"And those about her
From her shall read the perfect ways of honour,
And by those claim their greatness, not by blood."--_Henry VIII._, V. 4.
Of a kind of parenthetical asseveration, a single instance, also, from each
will suffice:
"My innocent life (I dare maintain it, Sir)."--_Wife for a Month, IV. 1._
"A woman (I dare say, without vain glory)
Never yet branded with suspicion."--_Henry VIII., III. 1._
"A great patience," in _Henry VIII._, may be paralleled by "a brave
patience," in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_: and the expression "aim at,"
_occurring at the close of the verse_ (as, by the bye, almost all
Fletcher's peculiarities do) as seen in Act III. 1.,
"Madam, you wander from the good we aim at,"
is so frequently to be met with in Fletcher, that, having noted four
instances in the _Pilgrim_, three in the _Custom of the Country_, and four
in the _Elder Brother_, I thought I had found more than enough.
Now, Sir, on reading _Henry VIII._, and meeting with each of these
instances, I felt that I remembered "the trick of that voice;" and, without
having at present by me any means for reference, I feel confident that of
the commonest examples not so many can be found among all the rest of the
reputed plays of Shakspeare, as in _Henry VIII._ alone, or rather in those
parts of _Henry VIII._ which I reject as Shakspeare's; while of the more
remarkable, I think I might challenge the production of a single instance.
My original intention in the present paper was merely to call attention to
a few such expressions as the foregoing; but I cannot resist the impulse to
quote one or two parallels of a different character:--
_Henry VIII._:
"The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her!"--Act IV. 2.
Fletcher:
"The dew of sleep fall gently on you, sweet one!"--_Elder Brother_, IV.
3.
"Blessings from heaven in thousand showers fall on ye!"--_Rollo_, II. 3.
"And all the plagues they can inflict, I wish it,
Fall thick upon me!"--_Knight of Malta_, III. 2.
_Henry VIII._:
"To-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms."--Act III. 2.
Fletcher:
"My long-since-blasted hopes shoot out in blossoms."--_Rollo_, II. 3.
These instances, of course, prove nothing; yet they are worth the noting.
If, however, I were called upon to produce two passages from the whole of
Fletcher's writings most strikingly characteristic of his style, and not
more in expression than in thought, I should fix upon the third scene of
the first act of _Henry VIII._, and the soliloquy of Wolsey, Beginning--
"Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness!"
In conclusion, allow me to remark, that I am quite content to have been
anticipated by MR. SPEDDING in this discovery (if discovery you and your
readers will allow it to be), for the satisfaction I am thereby assured of
in the concurrence of so acute a critic as himself, and of a poet so true
as the poet-laureate.