Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles fet: " 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, SAL. Indeed, we fear'd, his sickness was past cure. Before the child himfelf felt he was fick: 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? PEMB. Stay yet, lord Salisbury; I'll go with thee, And find the inheritance of this poor child, That blood, which ow'd the breadth of all this ifle, [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, So foul a fky clears not without a storm: 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 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, 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 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 BAST. But, if you be afeard to hear the worst, ارد K. JOHN. Bear with me, coufin; for I was amaz'd BAST. HOW I have fped among the clergymen, I was amaz'd-] i. e. ftunned, confounded. So, in "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 PETER. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out fo. 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, K. JOHN. BAST. I will seek them out. K. JOHN. Nay, but make hafte; the better foot O, let me have no subject enemies, [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. |