And wild amazement hurries up and down 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 away3. 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; 5 An empty casket, where the jewel of life By some damn'd hand was robb'd and ta'en away.] The prettiest passage in the old "King John" relates to the death of Arthur, of whom, when his body is found by the peers, it is said, 66 -Lo! lords, the wither'd flower, Who in his life shin'd like the morning's blush, Cast out a-door." These lines occur when the body of Arthur is first found. And he hath promis'd to dismiss the powers Bast. O, inglorious league! Shall we, upon the footing of our land, To arms invasive? shall a beardless boy, Mocking the air with colours idly spread, 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. Sal. Upon our sides it never shall be broken. A voluntary zeal, and an unurg'd faith, Her enemies' ranks, (I must withdraw, and weep To grace the gentry of a land remote, And follow unacquainted colours here? What, here?-O nation, that thou could'st remove! Where these two Christian armies might combine • A voluntary zeal, and AN unurg'd faith,] Malone and the modern editors silently omit "an," probably under the notion that they had a right to correct Shakespeare's metre. 71 - who CLIPFETH thee about,] i. e. who embraceth thee. To clip, from the Saxon clippan, is of perpetual occurrence in our old writers. 8 Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself,] By a strange error this line, in Malone's Shakespeare by Boswell, is transferred from this, its proper place, to twenty-six lines earlier, where it stands without the slightest connexion. In the next line, " And grapple thee," &c., which is unquestionably the true reading, is printed "And cripple thee" in the old copies. The correction was not introduced until the time of Pope. Seven lines lower, "thou," necessary both to the sense and metre, was not inserted until the fourth folio. The blood of malice in a vein of league, Lew. A noble temper dost thou show in this; O! what a noble combat hast thou fought, But this effusion of such manly drops, This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul, And with a great heart heave away this storm : Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep As Lewis himself:-so, nobles, shall you all, Enter PANDULPH, attended. And even there, methinks, an angel spake : 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, It may lie gently at the foot of peace, 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. 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, 9 - as I have BANK'D their towns ?] It is doubtful in what sense we are to take “bank'd ;" whether Lewis means to say that he has thrown up embankments before the towns, or whether he uses "bank'd" in reference to the towns |