* * * * *
"AM, HAVE, AND WILL BE:" HENRY VIII., ACT III. SC. 2.
(Vol. vii., p.5.)
Independently of the obvious probability that Shakspeare, in these three
words, intended to embody the present, the past, and the future, there is
another reason why we can by no means part with _have_, or suffer it to be
changed into any other word; and that is, because it is open to one of
those parallel analogies which I have so often upheld as sure guides to the
true reading. Only a few lines before, in a previous speech of Wolsey's, he
makes use of a precisely similar elliptical coupling together of the verbs
_have_ and _be_:
"My loyalty,
Which ever _has_, and ever _shall be_, growing."
Here we have, in "has and shall be," the identical combination which, in
the case of "have and will be," has given rise to so much doubt; so that we
have only to understand the one phrase as we do the other, and make the
slight addition of the personal pronoun I (not before, but after _am_), to
render Wolsey's exclamation not only intelligible, but full of emphasis and
meaning.
But in the first place the King's speech to Wolsey might be more
intelligibly pointed if the words "your bond of duty" were made a
parenthetical explanation of _that_. The "bond of duty" is the mere
matter-of-course duty to be expected from every subject; but the King says
that, over and above _that_, Wolsey ought, "as 'twere in loves particular,"
to be _more_! Thereupon Wolsey exclaims--
"I do profess
That for your highness' good I ever labour'd
More than mine own."
Here he pauses, and then immediately continues his protestation in the fine
passage, the meaning of which has been so much disputed; suddenly reverting
to what the King had just said he _ought_ to be, he exclaims:
"_That_, am I, have, and will be,
Though all the world should crack their duty to you,
and throw it from their soul," &c.
Still less can it be permitted to change "crack their duty" into "lack
their duty." Setting aside all consideration of the comparative force of
the two words, and the circumstance that _crack_ is frequently used by
Shakspeare in the sense of _sever by violence_--the adoption of _lack_
would be to attribute to Shakspeare an absolute blunder, for how could "all
the world" _throw from their soul_ that which they _lacked_?
With reference to another alteration ("capable" into "palpable," in _As You
Like It_, Act III. Sc. 5.), notwithstanding that it seems so obvious, and
has been declared so self-evident, "_as to be lauded needs but to be
seen_," I, for one, enter my protest against it, being of opinion that the
conservation of _capable_ is absolutely essential to the context.
_Capable_ may be, and has been, defended upon various grounds; but there is
one consideration which, with me, is all-sufficient, viz., it is necessary
for the explanation and defence of the accompanying word "_cicatrice_."
_Capable_ is _concave_, and has reference to the _lipped_ shape of the
impression, and _cicatrice_ is a _lipped_ scar; therefore one word supports
and explains the other. And it is not a little singular that _cicatrice_
should, in its turn, have been condemned as an improper expression by the
very critic (Dr. Johnson) who, without perceiving this very cogent reason
for so doing, nevertheless explains "capable impressure" as _a hollow
mark_.