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Arthur.

Then do thy charge, and charged be thy soule
With wrongfull persecution done this day.
You rowling eyes, whose superficies yet
I do behold with eies that nature lent:

Send foorth the terror of your moovers frowne,
To wreake my wrong upon the murtherers
That rob me of your faire reflecting view:
Let hell to them (as earth they wish to me)
Be darke and direfull guerdon for their guilt,
And let the black tormenters of deepe Tartary
Upbraide them with this damned enterprise,
Inflicting change of tortures on their soules.
Delay not Hubert, my orisons are ended,
Begin I pray thee, reave me of my sight:
But to performe a tragedie indeede,
Conclude the period with a mortall stab.
Constance farewell, tormenter come away,
Make my dispatch the tyrants feasting day.
Hubert.

I faint, I feare, my conscience bids desist:
Faint did I say? feare was it that I named :
My king commaunds, that warrant sets me free:
But God forbids, and he commaundeth kings,
That great commaunder countercheckes my charge,
He stayes my hand, he maketh soft my heart.
Goe cursed tooles, your office is exempt,
Cheere thee yong lord, thou shalt not loose an eie,
Though I should purchase it with losse of life.
Ile to the king, and say his will is done,

And of the lauyor tell him thou art dead,
Goe in with me, for Hubert was not borne

To blinde those lampes that nature pollisht so.

Arthur.

Hubert, if ever Arthur be in state, Looke for amends of this received gift, I took my eiesight by thy curtesie,

Thou lentst them me, I will not be ingrate.

But now procrastination may offend

The issue that thy kindnesse undertakes:
Depart we, Hubert, to prevent the worst.

(2) SCENE II.

And here's a prophet, that I brought with me
From forth the streets of Pomfret.]

[Exeunt."

"There was in this season an heremit, whose name was
Peter, dwelling about Yorke, a man in great reputation
with the common people, bicause that either inspired with
some spirit of prophesie as the people beleeved, or else
having some notable skill in art magike, he was accustomed
And for so much as
to tell what should follow after.
oftentimes his saiengs prooved true, great credit was given
"This Peter about the
to him as a verie prophet," &c.
firste of January last past, had tolde the king, that at the
feast of the Ascension it should come to passe, that he
should be cast out of his kingdome; and (whether, to the

intent that his words should be better beleeved, or whether upon too much trust of his owne cunning) he offered himselfe to suffer death for it, if his prophesie prooved not true. Hereupon being committed to prison within the castell of Corf, when the day by him prefixed came without any other notable damage unto King John, he was by the kings commandement drawne from the said castell into the towne of Warham, and there hanged, togither with his sonne.

"The people much blamed King John for this extreame dealing, bicause that the heremit was supposed to be a man of great vertue, and his sonne nothing guiltie of the offence committed by his father (if any were) against the king. Moreover some thought that he had much wrong to die, bicause the matter fell out even as he had prophesied ; for the day before the Ascension day, King John had resigned the superioritie of his kingdome (as they tooke the matter) unto the pope."-HOLINSHED, under the year 1213. (3) SCENE III.-Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!] Shakespeare, in his incidents, adheres closely to the old play :

"Enter young Arthur on the walls.

Now help good hap to farther mine entent,
Crosse not my youth with any more extremes :
I venter life to gaine my libertie,

And if I die, world's troubles have an end.
Feare gins disswade the strength of my resolve,
My holde will faile, and then alas I fall,
And if I fall, no question death is next:
Better desist, and live in prison still.
Prison said I? Nay, rather death than so:
Comfort and courage come again to me,

Ile venter sure: tis but a leape for life."

How the ill-fated Arthur really lost his life we have no authentic evidence. Holinshed only says,-"Touching the maner in verie deed of the end of this Arthur, writers make sundrie reports. Neverthelesse certeine it is, that in the yeare next insuing, he was remooved from Falais unto the castell or tower of Rouen, out of the which there was not any that would confesse that ever he saw him go alive. Some have written that as he assaied to have escaped out of prison, and prooving to clime over the wals of the castell, he fell into the river of Saine, and so was drowned. Other write, that through verie greefe and languor he pined awaie and died of natural sicknesse. But some affirme, that King John secretelie caused him to be murthered and made awaie, so as it is not throughly agreed upon, in what sort he finished his daies: but verelie King John was had in great suspicion, whether worthilie or not, the Lord knoweth."-Chronicles, under the year

1202.

(1) SCENE II.

the gallant monarch is in arms, And, like an eagle o'er his aiery, towers

ACT V.

To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.] The only explanation of this passage usually given is that "aiery signifies a nest;" but, regarded as the purely technical phraseology of Falconry, the lines will be found susceptible of much more meaning than this interpretation attributes to them. By the ordinary punctuation of the second line,

"And like an eagle o'er his aiery towers,"—

it would seem, too, as if the words were supposed to refer to the elevation of the nest, and were equivalent only to "airy towers;" while it is clear that Shakespeare uses tower here as he does in another part of the present play,

"Ha, majesty! how high thy glory towers,"

in the sense of a hawking-technical, descriptive of the soaring of a falcon or an eagle, towering spirally in the manner natural to birds of prey. In this ascent, when his flight has brought him directly over the object of his aim, the falcon makes a rapid and destructive plunge, or, technically speaking, souce, upon it. There is in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song XX., a description of a falcon flight at a brook for water fowl, which illustrates this passage vividly, both as to the circular flight, and the sanguinary pouncing of the hawk:

"When making for the brook the Falconer doth spy

One river, plash, or mere, where store of fowl doth lie,-
Whence forced over-land, by skilful Falconer's trade,
A fair convenient flight may easily be made;
He whistleth off his hawks, whose nimble pinions straight
Do work themselves by turns into a stately height.

*

*

Act II. Sc. 2,

Still as the fearful fowl attempt to 'scape away,
With many a stooping brave, them in again they lay:

But when the Falconers take their hawking-poles in hand,
And crossing of the brook, do put it over land:

The Hawk gives it a Souce, that makes it to rebound
Well near the height of man, sometimes, above the ground
Oft takes a leg or wing, oft takes away the head,

And oft from neck to tail the back in two doth shred."

With respect to the verb towers, as expressive of the flight of an eagle, a falcon, &c., it would appear then to have formerly denoted, not merely a soaring to a great height, but to fly spirally. When the latter only is implied, it should be spelt tour, which Cotgrave, 1660, explains as "a turn, round, circle, compasse, wheeling, revolution."

After the preceding extract from Drayton, a short note only will be required to illustrate the original sense of the word Souce. Beaumont and Fletcher employ it as hawking-phrase in "The Chances," Act IV. Sc. 1,

"Her conscience and her fears creeping upon her,
Dead as a fowle at souce she 'll sink."

a

Spenser uses it to describe the heavy and irresistible blows of the hammer in the House of Care:

"In which his worke he had six servants prest,
About the and vile standing evermore

With huge great hammers, that did never rest
From heaping stroukes that thereon soused sore."

Faery Queene, B. IV. Ch. V. St. XXX. To souce is also still well known in the domestic meaning of plunging, and throwing provisions into salt and water, from the Latin Salsum; which sense agrees with the precipitate plunge of a bird of prey on a water-fowl. The German Sausen, however, may rather be considered as the real etymon of the word. It signifies to rush with whistling sound like the blustering of the wind: which is remarkably expressive of the whirr made by the wings of a falcon when swooping on his quarry.

(2) SCENE IV.-With contemplation and devout desires.] This circumstance is historical:-"About the same time, or rather in the yeare last past as some hold, it fortuned that the vicount of Melune, a French man, fell sicke at London, and perceiving that death was at hand, he called unto him certeine of the English Barons, which remained in the citie, upon safegard thereof, and to them made this protestation: I lament (saith he) your destruction and desolation at hand, bicause ye are ignorant of the perils hanging over your heads. For this understand, that Lewes, and with him 16 earles and barons of France, have secretlie sworne (if it shall fortune him to conquere this realme of England and to be crowned king) that he will kill, banish and confine all those of the English nobilitie (which now doe serve under him, and persecute their owne king) as traitours and rebels, and furthermore will dispossesse all their linage of such inheritances as they now hold in England. And bicause (saith he) you shall not have doubt hereof, I which lie here at the point of death, doo now affirm unto you, and take it on the perill of my soule that I am one of those sixteen that have sworne to performe this thing: wherefore I advise you to provide for your owne safeties, and your realmes which you now destroie, and keepe this thing secret which I have uttered unto you. After this speech was uttered he streightwaies died."-HOLINSHED, under the year 1216.

In the old play, the dying nobleman declares his motives for this confession to be,

"The greatest for the freedome of my soule,
That longs to leave this mansion free from guilt:
The other on a naturall instinct,

For that my grandsire was an Englishman."

In Shakespeare he is impolled by another circumstance :-
"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."

(3) SCENE VII.-The King dies.] The chroniclers, who wrote within sixty years after his death, make no mention of John having died by poison. Shakespeare found the incident in "The Troublesome Raigne," &c., and it is interesting to contrast his treatment of the king's dying scene with that of the older workman:

John.

Philip, some drinke, oh for the frozen Alpes,
To tumble on and coole this inward heate,
That rageth as the fornace seven-fold hote.
To burne the holy tree in Babylon,
Power after power forsake their proper power,
Onely the heart impugnes with faint resist
The fierce invade of him that conquers kings,
Helpe God, O paine! die John, O plague
Inflicted on thee for thy grievous sinnes.
Philip, a chaire, and by and by a grave,
My legges disdaine the carriage of a king.
Bastard.

A good my liege, with patience conquer griefe,
And beare this paine with kingly fortitude.
John.

Methinkes I see a catalogue of sinne,
Wrote by a fiend in marble characters,
The least enough to loose my part in heaven.
Methinkes the divell whispers in mine eares,
And tells me, tis in vaine to hope for grace,
I must be damn'd for Arthur's sodaine death,
I see I see a thousand thousand men
Come to accuse me for my wrong on earth,
And there is none so mercifull a God
That will forgive the number of my sinnes.
How have I liv'd, but by another's losse?
What have I lov'd, but wracke of others weale?
Where have I done a deede deserving well?
How, what, when, and where, have I bestow'd a day,
That tended not to some notorious ill?
My life repleate with rage and tyrannie,
Craues little pittie for so strange a death.
Or, who will say that John deceasde too soone?
Who will not say, he rather liv'd too long?
Dishonour did attaint me in my life,
And shame attendeth John unto his death.
Why did I scape the fury of the French,
And dide not by the temper of their swords?
Shamelesse my life, and shamefully it ends,
Scorned by my foes, disdained of my friends.
Bastard.

Forgive the world and all your earthly foes,
And call on Christ, who is your latest friend.
John.

My tongue doth falter; Philip, I tell thee man,
Since John did yeeld unto the priest of Rome,
Nor he nor his have prospered on the earth:
Curst are his blessings, and his curse is blisse.
But in the spirit I crie unto my God,

As did the kingly prophet David cry,

(Whose hands, as mine, with murder were attaint)
I am not he shall build the Lord a house,

Or roote these locusts from the face of earth:
But if my dying heart deceive me not,
From out these loynes shall spring a kingly branch
Whose armes shall reach unto the gates of Rome,
And with his feete treades downe the strumpets pride,
That sits upon the chaire of Babylon.

Philip, my heart strings breake, the poysons flame
Hath overcome in me weake natures power,,
And in the faith of Jesu John doth die."

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(5) SCENE VII.—

Nought shall make us rue,

If England to itself do rest but true.] This conclusion is borrowed from the old play :"Let England live but true within it selfe,

And all the world can never wrong her state.
Lewes, thou shalt be bravely shipt to Fraunce,
For never Frenchman got of English ground
The twentith part that thou hast conquered.
Dolphin, thy hand: to Worster we will march:
Lords all, lay hands to beare your soveraigne
With obsequies of honour to his grave:
If England peeres and people joyne in one,
Nor pope, nor France, nor Spaine can do them wrong."

CRITICAL OPINIONS ON KING JOHN

"IF 'King John,' as a whole, be not entitled to class among the very first-rate compositions of our author, it can yet exhibit some scenes of superlative beauty and effect, and two characters supported with unfailing energy and consistency.

"The bastard Faulconbridge, though not, perhaps, a very amiable personage, being somewhat too interested and worldly-minded in his conduct to excite much of our esteem, has, notwithstanding, so large a portion of the very spirit of Plantagenet in him; so much heroism, gaiety, and fire, in his constitution; and, in spite of his avowed accommodation to the times,—

'For he is but a bastard to the time,

That doth not smack of observation,' &c.

such an open and undaunted turn of mind, that we cannot refuse him our admiration; nor, on account of his fidelity to John, however ill-deserved, our occasional sympathy and attachment. The alacrity and intrepidity of his daring spirit are nobly supported to the very last; where we find him exerting every nerve to rouse and animate the conscience-stricken soul of the tyrant.

"In the person of Lady Constance Maternal Grief, the most interesting passion of the play, is developed in all its strength; the picture penetrates to the inmost heart; and seared must those feelings be, which can withstand so powerful an appeal; for all the emotions of the fondest affection and the wildest despair, all the rapid transitions of anguish, and approximating frenzy, are wrought up into the scene with a truth of conception which rivals that of nature herself.

"The innocent and beauteous Arthur, rendered doubly attractive by the sweetness of his disposition and the severity of his fate, is thus described by his doting mother :

'But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy!
Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great;
Of Nature's gifts thou may'st with lilies boast,
And with the half-blown rose.'

When he is captured, therefore, and imprisoned by John, and consequently sealed for destruction, who but Shakspeare could have done justice to the agonizing sorrows of the parent? Her invocation to Death, and her address to Pandulph, paint maternal despair with a force which no imagination can augment, and of which the tenderness and pathos have never been exceeded.

Independent of the scenes which unfold the striking characters of Constance and Faulconbridge there are two others in the play which may vie with anything that Shakspeare has produced; namely the scene between John and Hubert, and that between Hubert and Arthur. The former, where the usurper obscurely intimates to Hubert his bloody wishes, is conducted in a manner so masterly that we behold the dark and turbulent soul of John lying naked before us in all its deformity, and shrinking with fear even from the enunciation of its own vile purposes. It is one of the scenes,' as Mr. Steevens has well observed, 'to which may be promised a lasting commendation. Art could add little to its perfection; and time itself can take nothing from its beauties.'

"The scene with Hubert and the executioners, where the hapless Arthur supplicates for mercy, almost lacerates the heart itself; and is only rendered supportable by the tender and alleviating impression which the sweet innocence and artless eloquence of the poor child fix with indelible influence on the mind. Well may it be said, in the language of our poet, that he who can behold this scene without the gushing tribute of a tear

'Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ;

Let no such man be trusted.'

"As for the character of John, which, from its meanness and imbecility, seems not well calculated for dramatic representation, Shakspeare has contrived, towards the close of the drama, to excite in his behalf some degree of interest and commiseration; especially in the dying scene, where the fallen monarch, in answer to the inquiry of his son as to the state of his feelings, mournfully exclaims,—

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"The dramas derived from the English history, ten in number, form one of the most valuable of Shakspeare's works, and partly the fruit of his maturest age. I say advisedly one of his works, for the poet evidently intended them to form one great whole. It is, as it were, an historical heroic poem in the dramatic form, of which the separate plays constitute the rhapsodies. The principal features of the events are exhibited with such fidelity; their causes, and even their secret springs, are placed in such a clear light, that we may attain from them a knowledge of history in all its truth, while the living picture makes an impression on the imagination which can never be effaced.

"In King John the political and warlike events are dressed out with solemn pomp, for the very reason that they possess but little of true grandeur. The falsehood and selfishness of the monarch speak in the style of a manifesto. Conventional dignity is most indispensable where personal dignity is wanting. The bastard Faulconbridge is the witty interpreter of this language; he ridicules the secret springs of politics without disapproving of them; for he owns that he is endeavouring to make his fortune by similar means, and wishes rather to belong to the deceivers than the deceived, for in his view of the world there is no other choice. His litigation with his brother respecting the succession of his pretended father, by which he effects his acknowledgment at court as natural son of the most chivalrous king of England, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, forms a very entertaining and original prelude in the play itself. When, amidst so many disguises of real sentiments, and so much insincerity of expression, the poet shows us human nature without a veil, and allows us to take deep views of the inmost recesses of the mind, the impression produced is only the more deep and powerful. The short scene in which John urges Hubert to put out of the way Arthur, his young rival for the possession of the throne, is superlatively masterly; the cautious criminal hardly ventures to say to himself what he wishes the other to do. The young and amiable prince becomes a sacrifice of unprincipled ambition; his fate excites the warmest sympathy. When Hubert, about to put out his eyes with the hot iron, is softened by his prayers, our compassion would be almost overwhelming, were it not sweetened by the winning innocence of Arthur's childish speeches. Constance's maternal despair on her son's imprisonment is also of the highest beauty; and even the last moments of John,—an unjust and feeble prince, whom we can neither respect nor admire,-are yet so portrayed as to extinguish our displeasure with him, and fill us with serious considerations on the arbitrary deeds and the inevitable fate of mortals.”— SCHLEGEL

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