not here--
They are, as all my other comforts, far hence,
In mine own country, lords.

_Henry VIII._ _act_ iii. _sc._ 1

[108] Dr. Johnson is of opinion, that this scene "is above any other
part of Shakspeare's tragedies, and perhaps above any scene of any other
poet, tender and pathetic; without gods, or furies, or poisons, or
precipices; without the help of romantic circumstances; without
improbable sallies of poetical lamentation, and without any throes of
tumultuous misery."

I have already observed, that in judging of Shakspeare's characters as
of persons we meet in real life, we are swayed unconsciously by our own
habits and feelings, and our preference governed, more or less, by our
individual prejudices or sympathies. Thus, Dr. Johnson, who has not a
word to bestow on Imogen, and who has treated poor Juliet as if she had
been in truth "the very beadle to an amorous sigh," does full justice to
the character of Katherine, because the logical turn of his mind, his
vigorous intellect, and his austere integrity, enabled him to appreciate
its peculiar beauties: and, accordingly, we find that he gives it, not
only unqualified, but almost exclusive admiration: he goes so far as to
assert, that in this play the genius of Shakspeare comes in and goes out
with Katherine.

[109] It will be remembered, that in early youth Anna Bullen was
betrothed to Lord Henry Percy, who was passionately in love with her.
Wolsey, to serve the king's purposes, broke off this match, and forced
Percy into an unwilling marriage with Lady Mary Talbot. "The stout Earl
of Northumberland," who arrested Wolsey at York, was this very Percy; he
was chosen for his mission by the interference of Anna Bullen--a piece
of vengeance truly feminine in its mixture of sentiment and
spitefulness; and every way characteristic of the individual woman.

[110] The king is said to have wept on reading this letter, and her body
being interred at Peterbro', in the monastery, for honor of her memory
it was preserved at the dissolution, and erected into a bishop's
see.--_Herbert's Life of Henry VIII._

[111] Written, (as the commentators suppose,) not by Shakspeare, but by
Ben Jonson.

[112] Mrs. Siddons left among her papers an analysis of the character of
Lady Macbeth, which I have never seen: but I have heard her say, that
after playing the part for thirty years, she never read it without
discovering in it something new. She had an ide