PEMB. Then I, (as one that am the tongue of thefe, To found the purposes of all their hearts,) 5 To found the purposes-] To declare, to publish the defires of all thofe. JOHNSON. If, what in reft you have, in right you hold, Why then your fears, (which, as they fay, attend i. e. if what you poffefs by an act of seizure or violence, &c. The imminent decay of wrested pomp." Wreft is a fubftantive used by Spenfer, and by our author in Troilus and Creffida. STEEVENS. The emendation propofed by Mr. Steevens is its own voucher. If then and should change places, and a mark of interrogation be placed after exercife, the full fenfe of the paffage will be restored. HENLEY. Mr. Steevens's reading of wreft is better than his explanation. If adopted, the meaning muft be-If what you poffefs, or have in your hand, or grafp. RITSON. It is evident that the words should and then, have changed their places. M. MASON. The conftruction is-If you have a good title to what you now quietly poffefs, why then fhould your fears move you, &c. MALONE. Perhaps this question is elliptically expreffed, and means— Why then is it that your fears should move you," &c. The rich advantage of good exercife?" Το K. JOHN. Let it be fo; I do commit his youth Enter HUBERT. your direction.-Hubert, what news with you? PEMB. This is the man should do the bloody deed; He fhow'd his warrant to a friend of mine: The image of a wicked heinous fault Lives in his eye; that close afpéct of his What we fo fear'd he had a charge to do. SAL. The colour of the king doth come and go, Between his purpose and his confcience, 7 -good exercife?] In the middle ages the whole education of princes and noble youths confifted in martial exercises, &c. Thefe could not be eafily had in a prifon, where mental improvements might have been afforded as well as any where else; but this fort of education never entered into the thoughts of our active, warlike, but illiterate nobility. PERCY. 8 Between his purpose and his confcience,] Between his confciousnefs of guilt, and his defign to conceal it by fair profeffions. JOHNSON. The purpose of the King, which Salisbury alludes to, is that of putting Arthur to death, which he confiders as not yet accomplished, and therefore fuppofes that there might ftill be a conflict in the King's mind, "Between his purpose and his confcience." Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles fet: 9 The foul corruption of a fweet child's death. K. JOHN. We cannot hold mortality's strong hand : --- Good lords, although my will to give is living, SAL. Indeed, we fear'd, his fickness was past cure. was, Before the child himself felt he was fick: So when Salisbury fees the dead body of Arthur, he says, "It is the fhameful work of Hubert's hand; "The practife and the purpose of the king." M. MASON. Rather, between the criminal act that he planned and commanded to be executed, and the reproaches of his confcience confequent on the execution of it. So, in Coriolanus: "It is a purpos'd thing, and grows by plot." We have nearly the fame expreffions afterwards: "Nay, in the body of this fleshly land, [in John's own perfon] Hoftility, and civil tumult, reigns "Between my confcience and my coufin's death." MALONE. 9 Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles fet:] But heralds are not planted, I prefume, in the midft betwixt two lines of battle; though they, and trumpets, are often fent over from party to party, to propofe terms, demand a parley, &c. I have therefore ventured to read, fent. THEOBALD. Set is not fixed, but only placed; heralds must be fet between battles, in order to be fent between them. JOHNSON. 2 And, when it breaks,] This is but an indelicate metaphor, taken from an impofthumated tumour. JOHNSON. Think you, I bear the fhears of destiny? thee, And find the inheritance of this poor child, with That blood, which ow'd the breadth of all this ifle, Three foot of it doth hold; Bad world the while! This must not be thus borne: this will break out To all our forrows, and ere long, I doubt. [Exeunt Lords. K. JOHN. They burn in indignation; I repent; There is no fure foundation fet on blood; No certain life achiev'd by others' death. Enter a Meffenger. A fearful eye thou haft; Where is that blood, So foul a fky clears not without a storm: Pour down thy weather:-How goes all in France? MESS. From France to England.'-Never fuch a power For any foreign preparation, Was levied in the body of a land! ; The copy of your speed is learn'd by them 3 From France to England.] The king asks how all goes in France, the meffenger catches the word goes, and anfwers, that whatever is in France goes now into England. JOHNSON. K. JOHN. O, where hath our intelligence been Is stopp'd with duft; the first of April, died Three days before: but this from rumour's tongue K. JOHN. Withhold thy fpeed, dreadful occafion! O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd 40, where hath our intelligence been drunk? Where hath it flept?] So, in Macbeth: 66 Was the hope drunk "Wherein you dreft yourfelf? hath it flept fince?" STEEVENS. 5 How wildly then walks my eftate in France!] So, in one of the Pafton Letters, Vol. III. p. 99: "The country of Norfolk and Suffolk ftand right wildly." STEEVENS. i. e. How ill my affairs go in France!-The verb, to walk, is ufed with great licenfe by old writers. It often means to go; to move. So, in the Continuation of Harding's Chronicle, 1543: "Evil words walke far." Again, in Fenner's Compter's Commonwealth, 1618: "The keeper, admiring he could not hear his prifoner's tongue walk all this while," &c. MALONE. |