My legs, like loaden branches, bow to th' earth,
Willing to leave their burden. Reach a chair :-
So; now, methinks, I feel a little ease.

Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, as thou led'st me,
That the great child of honor, Cardinal Wolsey,
Was dead?

Grif. Yes, madam; but I thought your Grace,
Out of the pain you suffer'd, gave no ear to't.

Cath. Pr'ythee, good Griffith, tell me how he died: If well, he stepp'd before me, happily [haply], For my example.

Grif.

Well, the voice [report] goes, madam :

For, after the stout Earl Northumberland

Arrested him at York, and brought him forward,
He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill

He could not sit his mule.

Cath.

Alas, poor man!

Grif. At last, with easy roads, he came to Leices

ter,
Lodged in the abbey; where the reverend Abbot,
With all his convent, honorably received him;
To whom he gave these words, O father Abbot,
An old man, broken with the storms of State,
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;

Give him a little earth for charity!

Cath. So may he rest; his faults lie gently on
him!

Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak him,
And yet with charity. He was a man

Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
Himself with princes; one that by suggestion
Tithed all the kingdom: simony was fair play;
His own opinion was his law: i' the 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 :

Grif.

Noble madam,

Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues We write in water. [The young reader may properly be told that the poet Keats framed from this passage his own epitaph: "Here lies one whose name is writ in water," and that some one has fitly commented: "Yes, the water of eternal life."] May it please your Highness

To hear me speak his good now?

Cath.

I were malicious else.

Grif.

Yes, good Griffith;

This Cardinal,

Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly
Was fashion'd to much honor from his cradle.
He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;
Lofty and sour to them that loved him not;

But, to those men that sought him, sweet as Sum

mer.

His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him;

For then, and not till then, he felt [knew] himself,

And found the blessedness of being little :

And, to add greater honors to his age

Than man could give him, he died fearing God.
Cath. After my death I wish no other herald,
No other speaker of my living actions,

To keep mine honor from corruption,

But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.

Whom I most hated living, thou hast made me,
With thy religious truth and modesty,

Now in his ashes honor: peace be with him!—