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—­