Commend me to one Hubert, with your king;
The love of him,-and this respect besides,
For that my grandsire was an Englishman,—
Awakes my conscience to confess all this'.
In lieu whereof, I pray you, bear me hence
From forth the noise and rumour of the field;
Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts
In peace, and part this body and my soul
With contemplation and devout desires.

Sal. We do believe thee, and beshrew my soul,
But I do love the favour and the form

Of this most fair occasion, by the which
We will untread the steps of damned flight;
And, like a bated and retired flood,

Leaving our rankness and irregular course,
Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd,
And calmly run on in obedience,

Even to our ocean, to our great king John.-
My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence,
For I do see the cruel pangs of death

Right in thine eye.-Away, my friends! New flight,
And happy newness, that intends old right.

[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,
Shall on his shoulders bear his head one day,

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,
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 tattering colours clearly up3,
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 fallen off;

And your supply, which you have wish'd 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.-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.

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:
I am no woman; I'll not swoon at it.

Hub. The king, I fear, is poison'd 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 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,
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 escap❜d.
Away, before: conduct me to the king;
I doubt, he will be dead or ere I come.

[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.
He is more patient
Than when you left him: even now he sung.
P. Hen. O, vanity of sickness! fierce extremes
In their continuance will not feel themselves.
Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,
Leaves them, invisible3; and his siege is now
Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds
With many legions of strange fantasies,

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,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,

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