In Act III. the dramatic action exhibits to us the "holy legate of the pope" breaking the peace between John and Philip, demanding of John

"Why thou against the church, our holy mother,
So wilfully dost spurn; and, force per force,
Keep Stephen Langton, chosen archbishop
Of Canterbury, from that holy see?"

The great quarrel between John and the pope, with reference to the election of Stephen Langton, did not take place till 1207, about six years after Arthur was taken prisoner at Mirebeau. Pandulph was not sent into France "to practise with the French king" against John, till 1211; and the invasion of England by the Dauphin (which is suggested by Pandulph as likely to be supported by the indignation of the English on the death of Arthur), did not take place till 1216, the year of John's death. The poet has leapt over all those barriers of time which would have impeded the direct march of his own poetical history. Coleridge has well explained the principle of this:"The history of our ancient kings,-the events of their reigns I mean,-are like stars in the sky;whatever the real interspaces may be, and however great, they seem close to each other. The starsthe events-strike us and remain in our eye, little modified by the difference of dates. An historic drama is, therefore, a collection of events borrowed from history, but connected together in respect of cause and time, poetically and by dramatic fiction." Again: "The events themselves are immaterial, otherwise than as the clothing and manifestation of the spirit that is working within. In this mode, the unity resulting from succession is destroyed, but is supplied by a unity of a higher order, which connects the events by reference to the workers,

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*

"There was in this season (1213, An. Reg. 15) an hermit whose name was Peter, dwelling about York, a man in great reputation with the common people, because that either inspired with some spirit of prophecy, as the people believed, or else having some notable skill in art magic, he was accustomed to tell what should follow after. This Peter, about the first of January last past, had told the king, that at the feast of the Ascension it should come to pass, that he should be cast out of his kingdom. And he offered himself to suffer death for it, if his words should not prove true. Hereupon being committed to prison within the castel of Corfe, when the day by him prefixed came, without any other notable damage unto King John, he was, by the king's commandment, drawn from the said castle unto the town of Warham, and there hanged together with his son. * Some thought that he had much wrong to die, because the matter fell out, even as he had prophesied; for the day before Ascension-day King John had resigned the superiority of his kingdom (as they took the matter) unto the pope, and had done to him homage, so that he was no absolute king indeed, as authors affirm. One cause, and that not the least which moved King John the sooner to agree with the * Literary Remains, vol. ii. p. 160, 1.

*

Take again [Giving JOHN the crown. From this my hand, as holding of the pope, Your sovereign greatness and authority.

K. John. Now keep your holy word: go meet the French;

a

And from his holiness use all your power
To stop their marches, 'fore we are inflam'd.
Our discontented counties do revolt;
Our people quarrel with obedience;
Swearing allegiance, and the love of soul,
To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.
This inundation of mistemper'd humour
Rests by you only to be qualified.

Then pause not; for the present time's so sick,
That present medicine must be minister'd,
Or overthrow incurable ensues.

Pand. It was my breath that blew this tem

pest up, Upon your stubborn usage of the pope : But, since you are a gentle convertite,b

a Counties- nobles. The reader will remember the County Paris, in Romeo and Juliet; and County Guy, in Sir Walter Scott's ballad.

b Convertite-convert;-reclaimed to the authority of "holy church."

My tongue shall hush again this storm of war, And make fair weather in your blustering land.

On this Ascension-day, remember well,
Upon your oath of service to the pope,
Go I to make the French lay down their arms.
[Exit.

K. John. Is this Ascension-day? Did not the
prophet
Say, that before Ascension-day at noon,
My crown I should give off? Even so I

have:

I did suppose it should be on constraint; But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary.

Enter the Bastard.

Bast. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out

But Dover castle: London hath receiv'd,
Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers:
Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone
To offer service to your enemy;

And wild amazement hurries up and down
The little number of your doubtful friends.
K. John. Would not my lords return to me
again,

After they heard young Arthur was alive?
Bast. They found him dead, and cast into the
streets;

An empty casket, where the jewel of life
By some damn'd hand was robb'd and ta'en

away.

K. John. That villain Hubert told me he did live.

Bast. So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.

But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?
Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
Let not the world see fear, and sad distrust,
Govern the motion of a kingly eye:

Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviours from the great,
Grow great by your example, and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.
Away; and glister like the god of war,
When he intendeth to become the field:
Shew boldness and aspiring confidence.
What, shall they seek the lion in his den,
And fright him there? and make him tremble
there?

O, let it not be said!-Forage, and run

To meet displeasure further from the doors;
And grapple with him, ere he come so nigh.
K. John. The legate of the pope hath been
with me,

And I have made a happy peace with him;
And he hath promis'd to dismiss the powers
Led by the Dauphin.

Bust.
O inglorious league!
Shall we, upon the footing of our land,
Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,
Insinuation, parley, and base truce,

To arms invasive? shall a beardless boy,
A cocker'd silken wanton, brave our fields,
And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,
Mocking the air with colours idly spread,
And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms:
Perchance, the cardinal cannot make your
peace;

Or if he do, let it at least be said,
They saw we had a purpose of defence.

K. John. Have thou the ordering of this present time.

Bast. Away then, with good courage; yet I know,

Our party may well meet a prouder foe.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.—A Plain, near St. Edmund's-Bury. Enter in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and Soldiers.

Lew. My lord Melun, let this be copied out, And keep it safe for our remembrance : Return the precedent to these lords again;

That, having our fair order written down, Both they, and we, perusing o'er these notes, May know wherefore we took the sacrament, And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.

Sal. Upon our sides it never shall be broken.
And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear
A voluntary zeal, and unurg'd faith,
To your proceedings; yet, believe me, prince,
I am not glad that such a sore of time
Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt,
And heal the inveterate canker of one wound,
By making many. O, it grieves my soul,
That I must draw this metal from my side
To be a widow-maker; O, and there,
Where honourable rescue, and defence,
Cries out upon the name of Salisbury:
But such is the infection of the time,
That, for the health and physic of our right,
We cannot deal but with the very hand
Of stern injustice and confused wrong.-
And is 't not pity, O my grieved friends,
That we, the sons and children of this isle,
Were born to see so sad an hour as this:
Wherein we step after a stranger, march
Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up

Her enemies' ranks, (I must withdraw and weep
Upon the spot of this enforced cause,)
To grace the gentry of a land remote,
And follow unacquainted colours here?
What, here?-O nation, that thou could'st re-

move!

That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about,
Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself,
And grapple theeb unto a pagan shore;
Where these two christian armies might combine
The blood of malice in a vein of league,
And not to-spend it so unneighbourly!

с

Lew. A noble temper dost thou shew in this;
And great affections, wrestling in thy bosom,
Do make an earthquake of nobility.
O, what a noble combat hast thou fought,
Between compulsion, and a brave respect!
Let me wipe off this honourable dew,
That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks:
My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,
Being an ordinary inundation;

But this effusion of such manly drops,
This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul,

After a stranger. We give the punctuation of the original. Modern editions read

"Wherein we step after a stranger march
Upon her gentle bosom,'

making stranger an adjective.

b Grapple thee. The original reads "cripple thee."

c To-spend. To, in the original, stands as the sign of the infinitive. Steevens thinks it a prefix, in combination with spend; as in the Merry Wives of Windsor,

"And fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight."

Startles mine eyes, and makes me more amaz'd
Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven
Figur'd quite o'er with burning meteors.
Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,
And with a great heart heave away this storm:
Commend these waters to those baby eyes,
That never saw the giant world enrag'd;
Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,
Full warm of blood, of mirth, of gossiping:
Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as
deep

Into the purse of rich prosperity,

As Lewis himself:-so, nobles, shall you all, That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.

Enter PANDULPH, attended.

And even there, methinks, an angel spake :
Look, where the holy legate comes apace,
To give us warrant from the hand of heaven;
And on our actions set the name of right,
With holy breath.

Pand.
Hail, noble prince of France!
The next is this,-king John hath reconcil'd
Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in,
That so stood out against the holy church,
The great metropolis and see of Rome:
Therefore thy threat'ning colours now wind up,
And tame the savage spirit of wild war;
That, like a lion foster'd up at hand,
It may lie gently at the foot of peace,
And be no further harmful than in show.

Lew. Your grace shall pardon me, I will not back;

I am too high-born to be propertied,
To be a secondary at control,

Or useful serving-man, and instrument,
To any sovereign state throughout the world.
Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars
Between this chastis'd kingdom and myself,
And brought in matter that should feed this fire;
And now 't is far too huge to be blown out
With that same weak wind which enkindled it.
You taught me how to know the face of right,
Acquainted me with interest to this land,
Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart;
And come you now to tell me, John hath made
His peace with Rome? What is that peace to
me?

I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,
After young Arthur, claim this land for mine;
And, now it is half-conquer'd, must I back
Because that John hath made his peace with

Rome?

Am I Rome's slave? What penny hath Rome borne,

What men provided, what munition sent,
To underprop this action? is 't not I
That undergo this charge? who else but I,
And such as to my claim are liable,

Sweat in this business, and maintain this war?
Have I not heard these islanders shout out,
Vive le roy! as I have bank'd their towns ?a
Have I not here the best cards for the game,'
To win this easy match play'd for a crown?
And shall I now give o'er the yielded set?
No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.
Pand. You look but on the outside of this
work.

Lew. Outside or inside, I will not return
Till my attempt so much be glorified
As to my ample hope was promised
Before I drew this gallant head of war,
And cull'd these fiery spirits from the world,
To outlook conquest, and to win renown
Even in the jaws of danger and of death.-

[Trumpet sounds. What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us ?

Enter the BASTARD, attended.

Bast. According to the fair play of the world,
Let me have audience. I am sent to speak:
My holy lord of Milan, from the king

I come, to learn how you have dealt with him;
And, as you answer, I do know the scope
And warrant limited unto my tongue.

Pand. The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite,
And will not temporize with my entreaties;
He flatly says, he'll not lay down his arms.

Bast. By all the blood that ever fury breath'd, The youth says well:-Now hear our English king;

For thus his royalty doth speak in me.
He is prepar'd; and reason too he should:
This apish and unmannerly approach,
This harness'd masque, and unadvised revel,
This unhair'd sauciness, and boyish troops,
The king doth smile at; and is well prepar’d
To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms,
From out the circle of his territories.

That hand, which had the strength, even at your

door,

To cudgel you, and make you take the hatch;
To dive, like buckets, in concealed wells;
To crouch in litter of your stable planks;

a Bank'd their towns-Probably sail'd along their banks. A passage in the old King John appears to have suggested this"from the hollow holes of Thanesis Echo apace replied Vive le Roi."

b Unhair'd-unbearded. The original reads unheard.