When I fpake darkly what I purposed;
Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face;
Or bid me tell my tale in exprefs words;
Deep fhame had ftruck me dumb, made me break off,
And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me -
But thou didst understand me by my figns,

And didft in figns again parley with fin;
Yea, without ftop, didft let thy heart confent,
And, confequently, thy rude hand to act
The deed, which both our tongues held vile to name.-
Out of my fight, and never fee me more!
My nobles leave me and my state is brav'd,
Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign powers:
Nay, in the body of this fleshly land,.

This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,
Hoftility and civil tumult reigns

Between my confcience, and my coufin's death.
Hub. Arm you against your other enemies,
I'll make a peace between your foul and you.
Young Arthur is alive: This hand of mine
Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,
Not painted with the crimfon fpots of blood.
Within this bofom never enter'd yet

The dreadful motion of a murd'rous thought,

And

than that bad men ufe 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 fubterfuges. JOHNSON.

The dreadful motion of a murd'rous thought,] Nothing can be falfer than what Hubert here fays in his own vindication; yet it was the poet's purpose that he should fpeak truth; for we find, from a preceding fcene, the motion of a murd'rous thought had entered into him, and that very deeply and it was with difficulty that the tears, the intreaties, and the innocence of Arthur had diverted and fuppreffed it. Nor is the expreffion, in this reading, at all exact, it not being the neceffary quality of a murd'rous thought to be dreadful, affrighting, or terrible: for it being commonly excited by the flattering views of intereft, pleasure, or revenge, the mind is often too much taken up with thofe ideas to at

tend,

And you have flander'd nature in my form;
Which, howfoever rude exteriorly,

Is yet the cover of a fairer mind

Than to be butcher of an innocent child.

K. John. Doth Arthur live? O, hafte thee to the
peers,

Throw this report on their incenfed rage,
And make them tame to their obedience!
Forgive the comment that my paffion made
Upon thy feature; for my rage was blind,
And foul imaginary eyes of blood

Presented thee more hideous than thou art.
Oh, anfwer not; but to my clofet bring
The angry lords, with all expedient hafte :
I conjure thee but flowly; run more fast.

[Exeunt.

tend, steadily, to the confequences. We muft conclude therefore that Shakespeare wrote:

a murderer's thought.

And this makes Hubert speak truth, as the poet intended he should. He had not committed the murder, and confequently the motion of a murderer's thought had never entered his bofom. And in this reading, the epithet dreadful is admirably juit, and in nature. For after the perpetration of the fact, the appetites, that hurried their owner to it, lofe their force; and nothing fucceeds to take poffeffion of the mind, but a dreadful confcioufness, that torments the murderer without refpite or intermiffion. WARBURTON.

I do not fee any thing in this change worth the vehemence with which it is recommended. Read the line either way, the fenfe is nearly the fame, nor does Hubert tell truth in either reading when be charges John with flandering his form. He that could once intend to burn out the eyes of a captive prince, had a mind not too fair for the rudeft form. JOHNSON.

The fpurious play is divided into two parts, the first of which concludes with the king's dispatch of Hubert on this meffage; the fecond begins with "Enter Arthur, &c." as in the following feene. STEEVENS,

Arth. The wall is high; and yet will I leap down:Good ground, be pitiful, and hurt me not! There's few, or none, do know me; if they did, This fhip-boy's femblance hath difguis'd me quite. I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it.

If I

get down, and do not break my limbs, I'll find a thousand shifts to get away: As good to die, and go, as die, and stay.

[Leaps down. Oh me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones :Heaven take my foul, and England keep my bones!

Enter Pembroke, Salisbury, and Bigot.

[Dies.

Sal. Lords, I will meet him at faint Edmund's-bury; It is our fafety, and we must embrace This gentle offer of the perilous time.

Pemb. Who brought that letter from the cardinal? Sal. The count Melun, a noble lord of France; 'Whose private with me, of the Dauphin's love, Is much more general than thefe lines import.

Bigot. To-morrow morning let us meet him then. Sal. Or, rather, then fet forward: for 'twill be Two long days' journey, lords, or e'er we meet 2. Enter

Whofe private &c.] i. e. whofe private account of the Dauphin's affection to our caufe, is much more ample than the letters. POPE.

2

—or e'er we meet.] This phrafe, fo frequent in our old writers, is not well understood. Or is here the fame as ere, i. e. before, and fhould be written (as it is ftill pronounced in Shropfhire) ore. There the common people ufe it often. Thus, they

fay,

Enter Faulconbridge.

Faulc. Once more to-day well met, diftemper'd
lords!

The king, by me, requefts your prefence ftraight.
Sal. The king hath difpoffefs'd himself of us;
We will not line his thin beftained cloak
With our pure honours, nor attend the foot
That leaves the print of blood where-e'er it walks :
Return, and tell him fo; we know the worst.

Faulc. What e'er you think, good words, I think,
were beft.

Sal. Our griefs, and not our manners, reafon now 3. Faulc. But there is little reafon in your grief; Therefore, 'twere reafon, you had manners now.

say, Ore to-morrow, for ere or before to-morrow. The addition of ever, or e'er, is merely augmentative.

That or has the full fenfe of before; and that e'er when joined with it is merely augmentative, is proved from innumerable paffages in our ancient writers, wherein or occurs fimply without e'er, and must bear that fignification. Thus, in the old tragedy of Mafter Arden of Feverfham, 1599, quarto, (attributed by fome, though falfely, to Shakespeare) the wife fays:

"He shall be murdered or the guests come in." Sig. H. B. III. PERCY. So, in All for Money, an old Morality, 1574:

"I could fit in the cold a good while I fwear, "Or I would be weary fuch fuitors to hear." Again, in Every Man, another Morality, no date: "As, or we departe, thou shalt know."

Again, in the interlude of the Difobedient Child, black letter, no date :

"To fend for victuals or I came away."

That or fhould be written ore, I am by no means convinced. The vulgar pronounciation of a particular county, ought not to be received as a general guide. Ere is nearer the Saxon primitive, æɲ. STEEVENS.

3

reafon now.] To reafon, in Shakespeare, is not so often to argue, as to talk. JOHNSON.

So, in Coriolanus:

66

reafon with the fellow,
"Before you punith him." STEEVENS,

H 3

Pemb

Pemb. Sir, fir, impatience hath its privilege,
Faulc. 'Tis true; to hurt his mafter, no man else,
Sal. This is the prifon: What is he lies here?

[Seeing Arthur, Pemb. O death, made proud with pure and princely

beauty!

The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.

Sal. Murder, as hating what himself hath done, Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.

Bigot. Or, when he doom'd this beauty to the grave, Found it too precious-princely for a grave,

Sal. Sir Richard, what think you? Have you beheld,

Or have you read, or heard? or could you think?
Or do you almost think, although you see,

That you do fee? could thought, without this object,
Form fuch another? This is the very top,
The height, the creft, or creft unto the creft,
Of murder's arms: this is the bloodieft fhame,
The wildeft favag'ry, the vileft ftroke,
That ever wall-ey'd wrath, or ftaring rage,
Prefented to the tears of foft remorse.

Pemb. All murders paft do ftand excus'd in this; And this, fo fole, and fo unmatchable,

Shall give a holiness, a purity,

To the yet-unbegotten fins of time;

And prove a deadly bloodfhed but a jeft,
Exampled by this heinous fpectacle.

Faulc. It is a damned and a bloody work;
The graceless action of a heavy hand,
If that it be the work of any hand.

Sal. If that it be the work of any hand?-
We had a kind of light, what would enfue:
It is the fhameful work of Hubert's hand;
The practice, and the purpofe, of the king:-
From whofe obedience I forbid my foul,
Kneeling before this ruin of fweet life,
And breathing to this breathless excellence

The