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KING JOHN.

ACT I. SCENE 1.

"K. John. For ere thou canst report I will be there, The thunder of my cannon shall be heard."

The anachronism in this and many other passages of Shakespeare has furnished ground of cavil to cavillers. But it, and others like it, are justifiable, as Mr. Knight says, on the principle of using terms and making reference to things familiar to the audience. Shakespeare never, I think, introduces anachronism in the actions of his personages.

ACT II. SCENE 1.

"Const. Stay for an answer to your embassy,
Lest unadvis'd you stain your swords with blood:
My lord Chatillon may from England bring
That right in peace, which here we urge in war;
And then we shall repent each drop of blood,
That hot rash haste so indirectly shed."

Mr. Collier's folio changes the last line to,

"That rash, hot haste so indiscreetly shed."

There can be no doubt of the propriety of the correction.

""lest

The Constable begs them to "stay for an answer," unadvised" they stain their swords with blood; and in addition to this, the use of 'so' indicates that indiscreetly and not "indirectly" was the word.

“That rash, hot haste so indirectly shed,"

is not sense. been made.

The typographical error might easily have

SCENE 2.

"Bast. And this same bias, this commodity,
This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,
Clapp'd on the outward eye of fickle France,
Hath drawn him from his own determined aid.”

The last line is changed in Mr. Collier's folio to,

"Hath drawn him from his own determined aim.”

a correction proposed by Monck Mason, and "the necessity for which," Mr. Collier says, "is not very evident." If a tithe of the changes in that volume were as imperatively demanded as this is, Mr. Collier's discovery would have done ten times the service that it has done. How could commodity" draw France from "his own determined aid?" What was "his own determined aid?" The aid which he had determined to give to Arthur? That is not the way in which Shakespeare uses the English language. But, besides this, the previous line demands the change. Commodity,

"Clapp'd on the outward eye of fickle France,"

drew him from his aim. The outward eye is that which is used in taking aim; and without that word this part of the sentence has no meaning.

ACT III. SCENE 1.

"Const. O Lewis, stand fast! the devil tempts thee here,

In likeness of a new untrimmed bride."

We have here as fine a specimen of Warburton's peculiar fitness to comprehend and improve the text of Shakespeare as can be found throughout the Variorum. He remarks upon "untrimmed bride,"-"untrimmed' signifies unsteady. The term is taken from navigation." Well done, Warburton! you deserved a mitre for that the Abbot of Un-reason's. Think of the coxswain of a wedding-that is, the groomsman, calling out, 'trim the bride, my lads! keep her steady!' This note was too much for even Johnson's solemnity; and with ponderous pleasantry, he remarks: "A commentator should be grave, and therefore I can read these notes with a proper severity of attention; but the idea of trimming a lady to keep her steady, would be too risible for any power of face."

"K. John. But as we under heaven are supreme head, So, under him, that great supremacy,

Where we do reign, we will alone uphold," &c.

Evidently "heaven" in the first line should be God, as is shown by the pronoun in the second. The correction is made in Mr. Collier's folio. The original word was evidently changed to "heaven," on account of the statute of

James I. before alluded to, while the corresponding change in the pronoun was neglected, as it was in a similar case, which I have pointed out in Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 4. Mr. Collier's folio gives heaven for "him" in the second line; but needlessly and, indeed, injuriously, as it destroys the parallel between the king's tenure of power and his exercise of it. This is another marked evidence of the conjectural nature of the corrections in that folio. The corrector having made the necessary change of "heaven" to God, either from the sight of an actor's copy of his part, from memory, or from conjecture, went on to improve the text by guess-work, and struck from it the very word which gave force to the passage.

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As the last line has been frittered away by the editors into,

"Sound one unto the drowsy race of night,"

it seems plausible to read with Mr. Collier's folio, "ear of night," for "race of night." But all the changes are alike uncalled for. Let any one who has listened to a church clock striking twelve at midnight, and seeming as if it would never complete its solemn task, say whether,

"Sound on into the drowsy race of night,"

does not bring up the memory of his sensations more vividly than,

or,

"Sound one into the drowsy ear of night,"

"Sound one unto the drowsy race of night.”

The line as it stands in the original is one of the most suggestive in all Shakespeare's works.

SCENE 4.

"K. Phil. So, by a roaring tempest on the flood,

A whole armado of convicted sail

Is scatter'd," &c.

For the obviously mistaken "convicted," Mr. Dyce proposed convected. He came within one letter of that which is doubtless the right word,-convented, which is found on the margins of Mr. Collier's folio.

ACT IV. SCENE 1.

"Arthur. There is no malice in this burning coal."

This should evidently be

"There is no malice burning in this coal.”

Arthur has just spoken of the fire as having gone out, -as being "dead with grief;" the transposition gives us the words and the thoughts of the author, and in such a form as is consistent with what has gone before.

[I find that Dr. Grey made this suggestion, which Monck Mason called hypercriticism, because Hubert says, he "can revive" the coal, and which Boswell well defended, on

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