Commend me to one Hubert, with your king; Sal. We do believe thee, and beshrew my soul, Of this most fair occasion, by the which Leaving our rankness and irregular course, Even to our ocean, to our great king John.- Right in thine eye.-Away, my friends! New flight, [Exeunt, leading off MELUN. King John we 7 Awakes my conscience to confess all this.] In the old " find these lines, which form part of a speech by Melun of the same tenor as that in Shakespeare :- "This I aver, if Lewis win the day, &c. Two causes, lords, make me display this drift: The greatest for the freedom of my soul, That longs to leave this mansion free from guilt; The other on a natural instinct, For that my grandsire was an Englishman.” In the old "King John" there is previously a long scene in which Lewis takes the oath referred to by the dying Melun: "There's not an English traitor of them all, John once dispatch'd, and I fair England's king, But I will crop it for their guilt's desert," &c. Shakespeare has shown great judgment in the total omission of scenes which only served to lengthen out the old play, or to which, as in this instance, reference merely was necessary. SCENE V. The Same. The French Camp. Enter LEWIS and his Train. Lew. The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set, But stay'd, and made the western welkin blush, When English measur'd backward their own ground3, Enter a Messenger. Mess. Where is my prince, the Dauphin? Lew. Here. What news? Mess. The count Melun is slain: the English lords, By his persuasion, are again fallen off; And your supply, which you have wish'd so long, Lew. Ah, foul shrewd news!-Beshrew thy very heart! I did not think to be so sad to-night, As this hath made me.-Who was he, that said, 8 When English MEASUR'D backward their own ground,] The old copies have measure: the necessary alteration was made by Pope. 9 And wound our TATTERING colours clearly up,] Here we have an instance, not uncommon in Shakespeare and his contemporaries, of the use of the active for the passive participle, "tattering" for tattered. The words "tattering" and "tattered" were almost invariably spelt in our old writers tottering and tottered, and it would be easy to accumulate instances from Marlowe, Dekker, Heywood, Munday, Chapman, &c. Steevens altered "tattering" in the text to tatter'd, against all the authorities. Lew. Well; keep good quarter, and good care to night: The day shall not be up so soon as I, To try the fair adventure of to-morrow. [Exeunt. SCENE VI. An open Place in the Neighbourhood of Swinstead Abbey. Enter the Bastard and HUBERT, severally. Hub. Who's there? speak, ho! speak quickly, or I shoot. Bast. A friend.-What art thou? Hub. Bast. Whither dost thou go? Of the part of England. Hub. What's that to thee? Why may not I demand Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine? Bast. Hubert, I think. Hub. Thou hast a perfect thought: I will, upon all hazards, well believe Thou art my friend, that know'st my tongue so well. Who art thou? Bast. Who thou wilt: and, if thou please, Thou may'st befriend me so much, as to think I come one way of the Plantagenets. Hub. Unkind remembrance! thou, and endless night', Have done me shame :-brave soldier, pardon me, That any accent breaking from thy tongue Should 'scape the true acquaintance of mine ear. Bast. Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad? 1- thou, and ENDLESS night,] So printed in all the old copies: the alteration to eyeless, made by Theobald, is quite unnecessary, and perverts the sense of the poet. Hubert is referring to the length of the night, and "endless" could not well have been a misprint for eyeless. Hub. Why, here walk I, in the black brow of night, To find you out. Bast. Brief, then; and what's the news? Hub. O my sweet sir, news fitting to the night, Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible. Bast. Show me the very wound of this ill news: Hub. The king, I fear, is poison'd by a monk': Than if you had at leisure known of this. Bast. How did he take it? who did taste to him? Hub. A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain, Whose bowels suddenly burst out: the king Yet speaks, and, peradventure, may recover. Bast. Whom didst thou leave to tend his majesty? Hub. Why, know you not? the lords are all come back, And brought prince Henry in their company; At whose request the king hath pardon'd them, Bast. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven, [Exeunt. 2 The king, I fear, is poison'd by a monk :] "Not one of the historians," says Malone, "who wrote within sixty years after the death of King John, mentions this very improbable story. The tale is, that a monk, to revenge himself on the king for a saying at which he took offence, poisoned a cup of ale, and having brought it to his majesty, drank some of it himself, to induce the king to taste it, and soon afterwards expired. Thomas Wykes is the first who relates it in his Chronicle, as a report. According to the best accounts, John died at Newark, of a fever." The incident answered the purpose of Bishop Bale too well for him not to employ it in his "Kynge Johan." SCENE VII. The Orchard of Swinstead-Abbey. Enter Prince HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT. P. Hen. It is too late: the life of all his blood Is touch'd corruptibly; and his pure brain (Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house) Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, Foretel the ending of mortality. Enter PEMBROKE. Pem. His highness yet doth speak; and holds belief, That being brought into the open air, It would allay the burning quality Of that fell poison which assaileth him. P. Hen. Let him be brought into the orchard here.— Doth he still rage? [Exit BIGOT. Pem. Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, Confound themselves. Tis strange that death should sing. I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, 3 Leaves them, INVISIBLE;] i. e. invisibly, the adjective for the adverb: "Death, after he has preyed upon the outward parts, invisibly leaves them." This interpretation by Malone renders the alteration, made by some editors, of "invisible" to insensible or invincible, quite unnecessary. VOL. IV. H |