(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: