XIII. KING JOHN. IN what I have said upon the tragedy of "Lear," the mastermovement of that composition was designated as being a "practical example of the calamities resulting from unbridled, unguided self-will; that 'will,' independent of and irresponsible to justice and rationality, is the pivot upon which turn all the disasters that befall its leading characters." It is no unusual circumstance with Shakespeare to take some master-passion, as for a text to those dramatic sermons of his, many of them being (without the ostentatious denotement) really dramas of some individual passion; and having so taken the text, or thesis of his discourse, he will work out his case in detail, and relieve, and heighten, and strengthen his argument by the grandest and most superb contrasts. The prevailing characteristic both of the plot and of the chief personages in the play of "King John" is that of "craft." The poet, it is true, has taken-as he found it in the monkish record-the historical character of the king; but he has, with his own supreme genius, worked it out from the first scene to the last with undeviating consistency, and a revolting determination of purpose. He has shown him to us, seizing with unscrupulous hand the birthright and throne belonging to another, and that other his own orphan nephew. He has shown him to us preparing to pour forth the blood, and peril the lives of his subjects in support of this bad, unjust cause, in a war with France, when it disputes his usurping claim. He has shown him to us revolving in his selfish expediency how extortion and oppression at home shall supply the expenses thus incurred abroad. "Our abbeys and priories shall pay this expedition's charge," he mutters to himself, on the departure of the ambassadors. We next see him paltering and sophisticating with the truth in the matter of Robert Falconbridge's heritage, preparing to wrest the estate from the legitimate son, and to bestow it on the illegitimate one-contrary to the will of the bequeather-on a plea false in spirit, though plausible in letter. His next appearance is on the shores of France, making wheedling speeches to his nephew, Arthur, specious ones to the citizens of Angiers, patching up hollow compacts with the French king, followed by sudden breach of faith, and reckless plunge into the carnage of the battle-field. Then comes his dark purpose against his young kinsman distilled into Hubert's ear: and then his return to his own f kingdom, where we find him employed in warily seeking to ingratiate himself with his nobles, in striving to avert their but too-well-founded suspicions of his blood-guiltiness, and in sneakingly proffering them all sorts of rotten promises and lying declarations. Next, we behold him shrinking with craven, selfish forebodings from the consequences of his own craft and cruelty, watching with coward eye the increasing disaffection at home and approaching danger from abroad, and studying how, by new guile, he may ward off the inevitable issue of old untruths and misdeeds. The picture of his base and dastard soul trembling in all the alarm of awakened, conscious guilt, with its dreaded results, is a revelation terrible in its bare and naked deformity. We turn, as from a hideous reptilething, from the spectacle of this despicable royal murderer, liar, and villain, alone with his own conscience and its fears; and we find him next trying, with loathsomest subterfuge, to fasten upon the factor of his monster-crime its responsibility and retribution. The shuffling sophistry and meanness of reproach with which he turns upon Hubert in this scene, throwing upon him the whole blame of a deed which he himself originally conceived, and had instigated Hubert to perpetrate, is the very flagrance and crassitude of baseness. It is scoundrelism-not dreading to be scoundrel, but to be proved scoundrel, and to meet scoundrel's due. The scene is the 2nd of the 4th Act, and commences with this remarkable sentence 66 Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears? And he goes on, in fine scoundrel-keeping, "Hadst not thou been by, A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd, Mad'st it no conscience to destroy a prince." This surely is the "ultima thule" of base wickedness. And yet, in this "lowest deep," there is still a "lower deep" in the character and conduct of this pitiful king; most of all does he appear vile and ignoble in the act of truckling and stooping to priestly tyranny. Here he not only degrades himself, but his whole people in his own person. By servilely seeking to fawn and cringe into the good graces of the Vatican, he compromises the honour of his throne and nation; and in lifting the golden symbol of sovereignty from his own head, he shamefully places the crown of England beneath the foot of Rome, to be spurned or forborne by Papal toe. But, to sum the conduct of this hateful king, he is hideous in his crimes, hideous in his hypocrisy, and hideous even in his remorse, because that arises from fear, and not from repentance of his foul deeds. A bold bad man, like Richard III., rises into an object of absolute admiration, compared with the crawling, abject wickedness of such a being as John. Throughout the play every step that John makes is a step of guile-his every action is a manœuvre. His very first speech betrays his wary and cat-like circumspection. He watches the counsel of others before he enters into a resolution-" Silence, good mother; hear the embassy"—and almost the last speech he makes, cunningly and sneakingly involves the interests of those whom he is addressing. "I do not ask you much, I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait The same principle of "craft" also distinguishes the conduct of his mother, Elinor, who puts the leading question to the illegitimate Falconbridge in his dispute with his brother Robert upon the question of heritage She says— "Whether hadst thou rather be a Falconbridge, Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-Lion, Lord of thy presence, [that is, taking priority of rank,] and no land beside ?" Betraying by this artful suggestion that she herself has at once recognised the value of so brave an adherent to the cause of her son John, and thus linking him to it by fostering his own ambitious designs. Again, in the 1st scene of the 2d Act, in the contest with Constance upon the question of her son Arthur's inheritance to the crown, by reason of his being issue of John's elder brother, Geffrey,-Constance, indignant at Elinor's slander, that her son is base-born, retorts "By my soul, I think His father never was so true begot : It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother." With the sly spite of a low-minded and crafty woman, Elinor says to the boy Arthur, "There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father," meaning by this comment to throw the brand of discord between mother and child. And shortly after, with the true art of a politician, she insinuates that she can "produce a will that bars the title of her son," Arthur. And again, in the same crafty spirit of manoeuvring, she astutely points out to her son, John, the advantages to be reaped from the union between the Dauphin, Lewis, and his own niece, Blanche of Castile. Her reason for urging this measure is a master-piece of diplomacy. She says "Son, list to this conjunction, make this match, Give with our niece a dowry large enough; For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie Thy now unsur'd assurance to the crown, That yond' green boy shall have no sun to ripe It will be recollected that the French king had recognised "I see a yielding in the looks of France, Mark how they whisper; urge them while their souls Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath |