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Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles fet: "
His paffion is fo ripe, it needs must break.
PEMB. And, when it breaks, I fear, will iffue
thence

2

The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.

K. JOHN. We cannot hold mortality's ftrong

hand:

Good lords, although my will to give is living,
The fuit which you demand is gone and dead:
He tells us, Arthur is deceas'd to-night.

SAL. Indeed, we fear'd, his sickness was past cure.
PEMB. Indeed, we heard how near his death he
was,

Before the child himfelf felt he was fick:
This must be answer'd, either here, or hence.
K. JOHN. Why do you bend fuch folemn brows
on me?

So when Salisbury fees the dead body of Arthur, he fays, "It is the fhameful work of Hubert's hand;

"The practise 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 cousin'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?
Have I commandment on the pulfe of life?
SAL. It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis fhame,
That greatnefs fhould fo grofsly offer it :-
So thrive it in your game! and so farewell.

PEMB. Stay yet, lord Salisbury; I'll go with thee,

And find the inheritance of this poor child,
His little kingdom of a forced grave.

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 à Meffenger.

A fearful eye thou haft; Where is that blood,
That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?

So foul a fky clears not without a storm:
Pour down thy weather:-How goes all in France?
MESS. From France to England.3-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;
For, when you should be told they do prepare,
The tidings come, that they are all arriv'd.

3 From France to England.] The king afks how all goes in France, the meffenger catches the word goes, and answers, that whatever is in France goes now into England. JOHNSON.

K. JOHN. O, where hath our intelligence been

drunk?

Where hath it flept? Where is my mother's

care?

That fuch an army could be drawn in France,
And the not hear of it?

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Is stopp'd with duft; the first of April, died
Your noble mother: And, as I hear, my lord,
The lady Conftance in a frenzy died

Three days before: but this from rumour's tongue
I idly heard; if true, or false, I know not.

K. JOHN. Withhold thy fpeed, dreadful occafion!

O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd
My discontented peers!-What! mother dead?
How wildly then walks my eftate in France!*—
Under whofe conduct came thofe powers of France,
That thou for truth giv'ft out, are landed here?
MESS. Under the Dauphin.

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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 stand right wildly.' STEEVENS.

i. e. How ill my affairs go in France!-The verb, to walk, is ufed with great license 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.

Enter the Baftard and Peter of Pomfret.

K. JOHN.

Thou haft made me giddy
With these ill tidings.-Now, what fays the world
To your proceedings? do not feek to stuff
My head with more ill news, for it is full.

BAST. But, if you be afeard to hear the worst,
Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.

ارد

K. JOHN. Bear with me, coufin; for I was amaz'd
Under the tide: but now I breathe again
Aloft the flood; and can give audience
To any tongue, fpeak it of what it will.

BAST. HOW I have fped among the clergymen,
The fums I have collected fhall exprefs.
But, as I travell'd hither through the land,
I find the people ftrangely fantafied;
Poffefs'd with rumours, full of idle dreams;
Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear:
And here's a prophet, that I brought with me
From forth the ftreets of Pomfret, whom I found
With many hundreds treading on his heels;
To whom he fung, in rude harsh-founding rhymes,
That, ere the next Afcenfion-day at noon,
Your highness fhould deliver up your crown.

I was amaz'd-] i. e. ftunned, confounded. So, in
Cymbeline: "I am amaz'd with matter."
Again, in The
Merry Wives of Windfor, Vol. III. p. 499, n. 5:

"You do amaze her: hear the truth of it." STEEVENS. And here's a prophet,] This man was a hermit in great repute with the common people. Notwithstanding the event is faid to have fallen out as he had prophefied, the poor fellow was inhumanly dragged at horfes' tails through the ftreets of Warham, and together with his fon, who appears to have been even more innocent than his father, hanged afterwards upon a gibbet. See Holinfhed's Chronicle, under the year 1213. DOUCE.

See A. of Wyntowns K-3 Cronykil, B. VII, ch. viii. v. 801. de

Stevens.

1

K. JOHN. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didft
thou fo?

PETER. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out fo.
K. JOHN. Hubert, away with him; imprison him;
And on that day at noon, whereon, he says,
I fhall yield up my crown, let him be hang'd:
Deliver him to fafety, and return,

For I must use thee.-O my gentle cousin,

[Exit HUBERT, with Peter. Hear'ft thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd? BAST. The French, my lord; men's mouths are full of it:

Befides, I met lord Bigot, and lord Salisbury,
(With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,)
And others more, going to feek the grave
Of Arthur, who, they fay, is kill'd to-night
On your fuggeftion.

K. JOHN.
Gentle kinfman, go,
And thrust thyself into their companies :
I have a way to win their loves again;
Bring them before me.

BAST.

I will seek them out.

K. JOHN. Nay, but make hafte; the better foot
before.

O, let me have no subject enemies,
When adverse foreigners affright my towns
With dreadful pomp of ftout invafion!-
Be Mercury, fet feathers to thy heels;
And fly, like thought, from them to me again,
BAST. The fpirit of the time fhall teach me speed.

[Exit.

7 Deliver him to fafety,] That is, Give him into fafe cuftody.

JOHNSON.

8who, they fay,] Old copy-whom. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

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