Doth, by the idle comments that it makes,
Foretell the ending of mortality.

Enter PEMBROKE.
Pemb. 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. Pemb. He is more patient Than when you left him ; even now he sung.

P. Hen. Ovanity of sickness! fierce extremes,
In their continuances, will not feel themselves.
Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,
Leaves them invisible; and his fiege is now
Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds

With 5 In their continuance,] I suspect our author wrote-In iby continu.

In his Sonnets the two words are frequently confounded. If the text be right, continuance means continuity. Bacon uses the word in that sense. MALONE. 6 Death, having prey'd upon the outward paris,

Leaves them invisible; and bis fiege is now

Against tbe mind,] Invifille is here used adverbially. Death, hav. ing glutted himself with the ravage of the almost wasted body, and knowing that the disease with which he has affailed it is mortal, before its diffolution, proceeds, from mere latiety, to attack the mind, leaving the body invisibly; that is, in such a secret manner that the eye cannot precisely mark his progress, or see when his attack on the vital powers has ended, and that on the mind begins; or in other words, at what particular moment reason ceases to perform its function, and the under. ftanding, in consequence of a correding and mortal malody, begins to be disturbed

Henry is here only pursuing the same train of thought which we find in his first speech in the pretent scene.

Our author has in many other passages in his plays used adjectives adverbially. So, in All's well 1 bat erds well : “ Was it not meant damnatle in us,” &c. Again, in K. Henry IV. Pl: “— ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient." See Vol. III. p. 441, n. 2; and Vol. V. p. 234, 0. 3, where many other instances of the same kind are cited. Mr. Rowe reads-ber liege, an errour derived from the corsuption

of

ance.

With many legions of (trange fantasies;
Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,
Confound themselves. 'Tis strange, that death Mould

fing.-
I am the cygnets to this pale faint fwan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death;
And, from the organ-pipe of frailty, fings
His foul and body to their lasting reft.

Sal. Be of good comfort, prince; for you are bora
To set a form upon that indigest
Which he hath left so fhapelets and so rude

of the second folio. I suspe&, that this strange mistake was Mr. Gray's authority for making Deab a female; in which, I believe, he has nci. ther been preceded or followed by any poet :

" 'The painful family of Death,

“ More hideous than their queen." The old copy, in the passage before us, readsAgainft the wind; an evijent errour of the press, which was corrected by Mr. Pope, and which I lould scarcely have mentioned, but that it justifies an emendation made in Measure for Measure, (p.45, n. 3.) where by a fimilar mistake the word fawes appears in the old copy inttead of flakes.

MALONE. 7 With many legions of Arange fantasies;

Whicb, in obeir throng and press to tbar laft bold,
Confound themselves.] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece ;

“ Much like a press of people at a door,

“ Tbrong his inventions, which shall go before." Again, in King Henry VIII:

which forc'd such way,
" That many maz'd confiderings did abrong,

« And press in, with this caution." MALONE.

in ebeir throng and press to tkat lajit bold,) In their tumult and hurry of resorting to the last teñable part. JOHNS 8 lam ibe cygnet-] Old Copy-Symet. Corrected by Mr. Pope.

MALONE. 9 To set a form upon that indigeft

Wbicb be barb left so papeless and so rude.] A description of the Chaos almost in the very words of Ovid: Quem dixere Chaos; rudis indigestaque moles. Met. I.

WHALLEY " Which Chaos hight, a huge rude heap,-: “ No lunne as yet with lightsome beames the papeless world did view.” Golding's Translation, 1587. MALONE.

Enter

XSON.

Re-enter Bicot, and Attendants, who bring in King JOHN

in a chair.
K. John. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room ;
It would not out at windows, nor at doors.
There is so hot a fammer in

my bosom,
That all my bowels crumble ap to duft:
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen
Upon a parchment; and against this fire
Do I shrink up.

P. Hen. How fares your majesty ?

K. John. Poison'd, -ill fare" ;-dead, forsook, caft off": And none of

you

will bid the winter come”, To thrust his icy fingers in my maw 3;

i Poisor'd;-ill fare ;] The word fare is here used as a diffyllable. So fire, bour, &c.

MALONE. 2 This scene has been imitated by Beaumont and Fletcher in Tbe Wife for a Montb, Ad IV. STEEVENS.

Ś To obruft bis icy fingers in my maw ; &c.] Decker, in the Gul's Hornbook, 1609, has the same thought:"- - the morning waxing cold, brust bis frosty fingers into thy bosome.”

Again, in a pamphlet entitled The great Frost, Cold Doings in Lon. dor, 1608: “ The cold hand of winter is thrust into our bofoms."

STILVENS.
The corresponding passage in the old play runs thus :

“ Philip, some drink. O, for the frozen Alps
« To tumble on, and cool this inwarú heat,

“ That rageth as a furnace seven-fold hot.”
There is so strong a resemblance, not only in the thought, but in the
expression, between the pallage before us and the following lines in two
of Marlowe's plays, that we may fairly suppose them to have been in
our author's thoughts :

« O, I am dall, and the cold hand of seep
“ llarb obrust bis icy fingers in my breaft,

“ And made a froft within me." Luf's Dominion.
Again :

« 0, poor Zabina, O my queen, my queen,
« Fetch me fome water for my burning breast,

" To cool and comfort me with longer date." Tamburlaine, 1591. Luf's Dominion, like many of the plays of that time, remained usin published for a great number of years, and was first printed in 1657, by Francis Kirkman, a bookseller. It must however have been written before 1593, in which year Marlowe died, MALONE.

Nur

Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course
Through my burn'dbosom ; nor intreat the north
To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips,
And comfort me with cold: I do not ask you much,
I beg cold comfort ; and you are so strait,
And so ingrateful, you deny me that.

P. Hen. O, that there were some virtue in my tears, That might relieve you!

K. John. The falt in them is hot.
Within me is a hell; and there the poison
Is, as a fiend, confin’d to tyrannize
On unreprievable condemned blood.

Enter the BASTARD.
Baft. O, I am scalded with my violent motion,
And spleen of speed to see your majesty.

K. John. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye :
The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd;
And all the shrouds *, wherewith my life should fail,
Are turned to one thread, one little hair:
My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
And then all this thou see'ft, is but a clod,
And module of confounded royaltys.

Baft. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward;
Where, heaven he knows, how we shall answer him:
For, in a night, the best part of my power,

4 And all the throuds,] Shakspeare here uses the word forords in its true sense. The forouds are the great ropes, which come from each side of the mast. In modern poetry the word frequently fignifies the fails of a ship. MALONE.

5 And module of confounded royalty.) Module and model, it has been already observed, were in our author's time only different modes of spelling the same word. Model signified not an archetype after which something was to be formed, but the thing formed after an archetype; and hence it is used by Shakspeare and his contemporaries for a reprifentation. So, in the London Prodigal, 1605 :

“ Dear copy of my husband ! O let me kiss thee ! [kiffing a pi&urto

" How like him is this models" See Vol. III. p.443, Q. 6. MALONE.

As I upon advantage did remove,
Were in the washes, all unwarily,
Devoured by the unexpected food“. [The king diese

Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.
My liege ! my lord !-But now a king.--now thus.

P. Hen. Even so muft I run on, and even so stop.
What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
When this was now a king, and now is clay!

Baft. Art thou gone fo? I do but ftay behind,
To do the office for thee of revenge ;
And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven,
As it on earth hath been thy servant still.
Now, now, you stars, that move in your right spheres,
Where be your powers ? Shew now your mended faiths ;
And instantly return with me again,
To push deftruction, and perpetual shame,
Out of the weak door of our fainting land:
Straight let us feek, or straight we thall be fought;
The Dauphin rages at our very heels.

Sal. It seems, you know not then so much as we:
The cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,
Who half an hour fince came from the Dauphin ;
And brings from him such offers of our peace
As we with honour and refpect may take,
With purpofc presently to leave this war.

Baft. He will the rather do it, when he fees
Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.

Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already ;
For many carriages he hath dispatch'd
To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel
To the disposing of the cardinal :
With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,
If you think meet, this afternoon will post
To cónsummate this business happily.

Baft. Let it be fo :-And you, my noble prince,
With other princes that may beit be spar'd,

* Were in the washes, all unwarily, &c.] This untoward accident
really happened to king John himself. As he pafied from Lynn to
Lincolnshire, he loft by an innundation all his treasure, carriages, bag-
8age, and regalia. MALONI,
Vol. IV,
Рp

Shall