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When the English measured backward their own

ground,

In faint retire. O, bravely came we off, When with a volley of our needless shot, After such bloody toil, we bid good night; And wound our tattered colours clearly up, Last in the field, and almost lords of it!

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 fall'n off:
And your supply, which you have wished so long,
Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin sands.
Lew. Ah, foul shrewd news!-Beshrew thy
very heart!

I did not think to be so sad to-night
As this hath made me.-V
-Who was he that said
King John did fly an hour or two before
The stumbling night did part our weary powers?
Mess. Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.
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, meeting. Hub. Who's there? Speak, ho! speak quickly, or I shoot.

Bast. A friend.-What art thou?
Hub. Of the part of England.
Bast. Whither dost thou go?

Hub. What's that to thee? Why may I not

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: an if thou please, Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think I come one way of the Plantagenets.

Hub. Unkind remembrance! thou and eyeless 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?

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. Shew me the very wound of this ill news: I am no woman; I'll not swoon at it.

Hub. The King, I fear, is poisoned by a monk. I left him almost speechless, and broke out To acquaint you with this evil; that you might The better arm you to the sudden time 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 resolvéd villain, Whose bowels suddenly burst out. The King Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover.

Bast. Who 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 pardoned them, And they are all about his majesty.

Bast. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven,

And tempt us not to bear above our power!-
I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night,
Passing these flats, are taken by the tide;
These Lincoln washes have devoured them:
Myself, well-mounted, hardly have escaped.
Away, before conduct me to the King:
I doubt he will be dead or ere I come. [Exeunt.

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The tackle of my heart is cracked and burned,
And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail
Are turnéd to one thread, one little hair :
My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
And then all this thou seest is but a clod,
And module of confounded royalty.

Bast. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward;
Where Heaven he knows how we shall answer him:
For, in a night, the best part of my power,
As I upon advantage did remove,
Were in the washes, all unwarily,
Devoured by the unexpected flood.

[The KING dies. Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead

an ear.

My liege, my lord!-But now a king; now thus! P. Hen. Even so must I run on, and even so stop.

What surety of the world, what hope, what stay, When this was now a king, and now is clay!

Bast. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind To do the office for thee of revenge; And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven, As it on earth hath been thy servant still.Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,

Where be your powers? Shew now your mended

faiths;

And instantly return with me again,
To push destruction and perpetual shame
Out of the weak door of our fainting land.
Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought:
The Dauphin rages at our very heels.

Sal. It seems you know not then so much as we:
The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,
Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin,
And brings from him such offers of our peace

As we with honour and respect may take;
With purpose presently to leave this war.

Bast. He will the rather do it when he sees Ourselves well sinewéd to our defence.

Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already : For many carriages he hath despatched To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel To the disposing of the cardinal: With whom yourself, myself, and other lords, If you think meet, this afternoon will post To cónsummate this business happily.

Bast. Let it be so.-And you, my noble prince, With other princes that may best be spared, Shall wait upon your father's funeral.

P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interred:

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NOTES.

"Your faithful subject I, a gentleman,
Born in Northamptonshire; and eldest son,
As I suppose, to Robert Falconbridge."

Act I., Scene 1. Shakspere's "KING JOHN" was founded on an older play, of which further mention will be found subsequently. A rough sketch of the character of Falconbridge appears in that production. Hollinshed says that King Richard had a natural son, named Philip, who killed the Viscount de Limoges to revenge the death of his father.

"Because he hath a half-face, like my father, With that half-face would he have all my land. A half-faced groat five hundred pounds a-year!" Act I., Scene 1. The allusion here is to the silver groats of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., which had on them a half-face or profile, as is the custom on all our coin in the present day. Previously to the time spoken of, the groats of our kings, and, indeed, all their silver coinage, had a full face crowned.

"Or the reputed son of Cœur-de-lion;

Lord of thy presence, and no land beside?"

Act. I., Scene 1.

The phrase "lord of thy presence," means, master of that dignity and grandeur of appearance that may sufficiently distinguish thee from the vulgar, without the help of fortune. Lord of his presence" apparently signifies great in his own person; and is used in this sense by King John in one of the following scenes.-JOHNSON.

"My face so thin,

That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose,

Lest men should say, ' Look where three farthings goes!'" Act I, Scene 1. Queen Elizabeth coined three-penny, three-halfpenny, and three-farthing pieces; they all had her head on one side of the coin, and a rose on the reverse. Being of silver, the "three-farthing rose was of course extremely thin, and hence the allusion. It appears to have been the fashion, also, for men to wear roses, either real or artificial, in a lock near the ear.

"GUR. Good leave, good Philip.
BAST. 'Philip-sparrow!"

Act I., Scene 1. The sparrow was called Philip from its note, which was supposed to have some resemblance to that word.

"Knight, knight, good mother,-Basilisco-like."

Act I., Scene 1.

The allusion here is to a ridiculous old drama, called "SOLYMAN AND PERSEDA." One of the characters is Basilisco, a bragging coward, who, however, insists upon his rank, and desires a buffoon servant to call him " Knight, good fellow, knight."

"He that perforce robs lions of their hearts,

May easily win a woman's."-Act I., Scene 1. There is an old metrical romance of "RICHARD COUR DE-LION," wherein this celebrated monarch is related to

have acquired his distinguishing appellation by having plucked out a lion's heart, to whose fury he was exposed by the Duke of Austria, for having slain his son with a blow of the fist. The story is also related by several of the ancient chroniclers.

"Before Angiers well met, brave Austria."-Act II., Scene 1.

Leopold, Duke of Austria, by whom Richard had been thrown into prison in 1193, died in 1195 (previous to the siege here recorded), in consequence of a fall from his horse. The older play led Shakspere into this anachronism. Leopold's original hostility to Richard is said to have been derived from some affront put upon him by Coeur-de-lion at the siege of Acre.

"My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think
His father never was so true begot:

It cannot be an if thou wert his mother."
Act II., Scene 1.

Constance alludes to Elinor's infidelity to her husband, Louis VII., of France, on account of which she was divorced, and afterwards married Henry II., of England, father of Richard and John.

"That daughter there of Spain, the lady Blanch,
Is near to England."-Act II., Scene 2.

The lady Blanch was daughter of Alphonso, King of Castile, who was married to a sister of King John.

"To me, and to the state of my great grief,
Let kings assemble."-Act III., Scene 1.

In "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING," the father of Hero, depressed by her disgrace, declares himself so subdued by grief, that a thread might lead him. How is it that grief in Leonato and Lady Constance produces effects directly opposite, and yet both agreeable to nature?-Sorrow softens the mind while it is yet warmed by hope, but hardens it when it is congealed by despair. Distress, while there remains any prospect of relief, is weak and flexible: but when no succour remains, is fearless and stubborn: angry alike at those that injure, and those that do not help: careless to please where nothing can be gained, and fearless to offend when there is nothing further to be dreaded.-Such was this writer's knowledge of the passions.-JOHNSON.

"O Lymoges! O Austria! thou dost shome
That bloody spoil."-Act III., Scene 1.

The poet has here fallen into a mistake of persons, by following the older play, in which Austria is called "Lymoges, the Austrich duke." The castle of Chaluz, before which Richard fell (1199), belonged to Vidomar, Viscount of Lymoges, or Limoges; and this circumstance led, no doubt, to the original error.

"My mother is assailed in our tent,
And ta'en I fear."-Act III., Scene 2.

The queen-mother, whom King John had made Regent in Anjou, was in possession of the town of Mirabeau, in that province. On the approach of the French army with Arthur, she sent letters to King John to come to her relief,

which he immediately did. As he advanced to the town, he encountered the army that lay before it, routed them, and took Arthur prisoner. The queen, in the meanwhile, remaining perfectly secure in the castle of Mirabeau.

Such is supposed to be the most authentic statement; but, according to some accounts, Arthur took Queen Elinor prisoner, who was afterwards rescued by her son.

"Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back,
When gold and silver becks me to come on."
Act III., Scene 3.

By the old ecclesiastical law, it was decreed that sentence of excommunication was to be "explained in order in English, with bells tolling and candles lighted, that it may cause the greater dread: for laymen have greater regard to this solemnity, than to the effect of such sentences."

"Then, in despite of brooded watchful day, I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts." Act III., Scene 3. "Brooded," I apprehend, is here used, with our author's usual licence, for "brooding; "-that is, "day, who is as vigilant, as ready with open eye to mark what is done in his presence, as an animal at brood." Mr. Pope, instead of "brooded," substituted "broad-eyed;" a more poetical epithet, perhaps, but certainly an unnecessary emendation. All animals while "brooded" (with a brood of young under their protection), are remarkably vigilant.-MALONE.

"Northampton. A Room in the Castle."-Act IV., Scene 1.

There is no circumstance, either in the older play or in Shakspere's, to denote the particular castle in which Arthur is supposed to be confined. That of Northampton has been adopted, because in the first act, King John seems to have been in that town.

According to the French historians, Arthur was first imprisoned at Falaise, in Normandy, and afterwards at Rouen, where he was secretly put to death by John's own hand.

"Yet I remember, when I was in France,
Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,
Only for wantonness."-Act IV., Scene 1.

This affectation of sadness is ridiculed by various writers of Shakspere's day. Lyly, in his "MIDAS," says, "Melancholy is the crest of courtiers, and now every base companion says he is melancholy."

"And here's a prophet that I brought with me From forth the streets of Pomfret." Act IV., Scene 2. This man was a hermit in great repute with the common people. Notwithstanding the event is said to have fallen out as he prophesied, the poor fellow was inhumanly dragged at horses' tails through the streets of Wareham, and together with his son, who appears to have been even more innocent than his father, hanged afterwards upon a gibbet. Holinshed, in anno 1213.-Speed says, that Peter the hermit was suborned by the pope's legate, the French king, and the barons.

"Hadst thou but shook thy head, or made a pause, When I spake darkly what I purposéd.”

Act IV., Scene 2.

There are many touches of nature in this conference of John with Hubert. A man engaged in wickedness would keep the profit to himself, and transfer the guilt to his accomplice. These reproaches vented against Hubert are not the words of art or policy, but the eruptions of a mind swelling with consciousness of a crime, and desirous of discharging its misery on another.

This account of the timidity of guilt is drawn, ab ipsis recessibus mentis, from the intimate knowledge of mankind: particularly that line in which John says, that "to have bid him tell his tale in express words" would have "struck him dumb." Nothing is more certain than that bad men use all the arts of fallacy upon themselves, palliate their actions to their own minds by gentle terms, and hide themselves from their own detection in ambiguities and subterfuges.JOHNSON.

"Within this bosom never entered yet

The dreadful motion of a murderous thought." Act IV., Scene 2. Nothing can be falser than what Hubert here says in his own vindication: for we find, from a preceding scene, that the "motion of a murderous thought" had entered into him, and that very deeply: and it was with difficulty that the tears, the entreaties, and the innocence of Arthur, had diverted and suppressed it.-WARBURTON.

The critic here is correct as to the fact; but the poet was dramatically justified in representing Hubert, since he had not acted on his "murderous thought," as anxious to claim the merit of having never entertained it. This is one of Shakspere's exquisite touches of reality.-J. O.

"The King, I fear, is poisoned by a monk."

Act V., Scene 6.

Not one of the historians, who wrote within sixty years of the event, mentions this 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 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 mentions it in his chronicle, as a report. According to the best accounts, John died at Newark, of a fever.-MALONE.

Holinshed states, that the monk's motive was to defeat the revenge of John, who had said (from hatred of the people on account of their revolt) that he would cause "all kind of grain to be at a far higher price, ere many days should pass."

"For, in a night, the best part of my power,
As I upon advantage did remove,
Were in the washes all unwarily,
Devoured by the unexpected flood."

Act V., Scene 7. This disaster really happened to King John, and is supposed to have been the immediate cause of the fever that took him off. As he passed from Lynn into Lincolnshire, he lost by an inundation all his treasure, carriage, baggage, and regalia.

"KING JOHN

was first published in the original folio, and is founded on an older play, in two parts (1591), called "THE TROUBLESOME RAIGNE OF JOHN, KING OF ENGLAND."

The present historic drama is pronounced by Johnson to be "not written with the utmost power of Shakspere." The truth is, the poet had no "utmost power." He has told us in this very play,

"When workmen strive to do better than well, They do confound their skill in covetousness." There were no throes, there was nothing spasmodic, in the genius of Shakspere. He never "confounded his skill." Take any two of his plays written in his maturer years, and if a well-judged preference is to be given to either, it will be found to arise from the subject, not its execution. In his historical plays, as we have said (Introductory Remarks), he was controlled and was content to be so. He might have made King John a more striking character, with less art and labour; but he spared neither, when he was to paint him as he lived.

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