K. JOHN. Spoke like a spriteful noble gentle

man.

Go after him; for he, perhaps, shall need
Some meffenger betwixt me and the peers;
And be thou he.

MESS.

With all my heart, my liege.

K. JOHN. My mother dead!

Re-enter HUBERT.

[Exit.

HUB. My lord, they fay, five moons were feen

to-night:"

Four fixed; and the fifth did whirl about

The other four, in wond'rous motion.

K. JOHN. Five moons?

HUB.

in the streets

Old men, and beldams,

Do prophecy upon it dangerously:

Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths:
And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,
And whisper one another in the ear;

And he, that speaks, doth gripe the hearer's wrift;
Whilft he, that hears, makes fearful action,
With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.
I faw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilft his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth fwallowing a tailor's news;
Who, with his fhears and measure in his hand,

9 -five moons were feen to-night : &c.] This incident is mentioned by few of our hiftorians: I have met with it no where but in Matthew of Westminster and Polydore Virgil, with a small alteration. These kind of appearances were more common about that time than either before or fince. GREY.

This incident is likewife mentioned in the old King John.

STEEVENS.

Standing on flippers, (which his nimble hafte
Had falfely thrust upon contráry feet,)"

9 -flippers, (which his nimble hafte

Had falfely thrust upon contráry feet,)] I know not how the commentators understand this important paffage, which in Dr. Warburton's edition is marked as eminently beautiful, and, on the whole, not without juftice. But Shakspeare feems to have confounded the man's fhoes with his gloves. He that is frighted or hurried may put his hand into the wrong glove, but either fhoe will equally admit either foot. The author feems to be difturbed by the diforder which he defcribes. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnfon forgets that ancient flippers might poffibly be very different from modern ones. Scott in his Difcoverie of Witchcraft tells us: "He that receiveth a mischance, will confider, whether he put not on his fhirt the wrong fide outwards, or his left foe on his right foot." One of the jets of Scogan, by Andrew Borde, is how he defrauded two fhoemakers, one of a right foot boot, and the other of a left foot one. And Davies in one of his epigrams, foft-knit hofe that ferves each leg.”.

66

compares a man to a

FARMER.

In The Fleire, 1615, is the following paffage: " - This fellow is like your upright foe, he will ferve either foot." From this we may infer that fome fhoes could only be worn on the foot for which they were made. And Barrett in his Alvearie, 1580, as an inftance of the word wrong, fays: to put on his booes wrong." Again, in A merye Jeft of a man that was called Howleglas, bl. 1. no date: "Howleglas had cut all the lether for the lefte foute. Then when his mafter fawe all his lether cut for the lefte foote, then asked he Howleglas if there belonged not to the lefte foote a right foote. Then fayd Howleglas to his maifter, If that he had tolde that to me before, I would have cut them; but an it please you I fhall cut as mani right focne unto them." Again, in Frobisher's fecond Voyage for the difcoverie of Cataia, 4to. bl. 1. 1578: "They alfo beheld (to their great maruaile) a dublet of canuas made after the Englifhe fashion, a fhirt, a girdle, three fhoes for contrarie feet," &c. p. 21.A STEEVENS.

See Martin's Defeription of the Weftern Iflands of Scotland, 1703, p. 207: "The generality now only wear fhoes having one thin fole only, and shaped after the right and left foot, fo that what is for one foot will not ferve the other." The meaning feems to be, that the extremities of the fhoes were not round or fquare, but were cut in an oblique angle, or aflant from the great toe to the little one. See likewife, The Philofophical Transactions abridged,

See also the Gentleman's Magazine for April 1797 p. 280. of the Plate somexed, Fig. 3. потеход,

X.

[Told of a many thousand warlike French,

A. That were embatteled and rank'd in Kent: - Another lean unwafh'd artificer

Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.

K. JOHN. Why feek'ft thou to poffefs me with
these fears?

Why urgeft thou fo oft young Arthur's death?
Thy hand hath murder'd him: I had mighty cause
To with him dead, but thou hadft none to kill him.
HUB. Had none, my lord! why, did you not pro-

voke me?.

K. JOHN. It is the curfe of kings, to be attended By flaves, that take their humours for a warrant To break within the bloody house of life:

Vol. III. p. 432, and Vol. VII. p. 23, where are exhibited shoes and fandals fhaped to the feet, fpreading more to the outside than the infide. ToLLET.

if in a

So, in Holland's tranflation of Suetonius, 1606: " morning his fhoes were put one [r. on] wrong, and namely the left for the right, he held it unlucky." Our author himself alfo furnishes an authority to the fame point. Speed in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, fpeaks of a left fhoe. It fhould be remembered that tailors generally work barefooted: a circumftance which Shakfpeare probably had in his thoughts when he wrote this paffage. I believe the word contrary in his time was frequently accented on the fecond fyllable, and that it was intended to be fo accented here. So Spenfer, in his Faery Queen:

"That with the wind contráry courfes few." MALONE. 2-I had mighty caufe-] The old copy, more redundantly, I had a mighty cause. STEEVENS.

Had none, my lord!] Old copy-No had. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

It is the curfe of kings, &c.] This plainly hints at Davifon's cafe, in the affair of Mary Queen of Scots, and fo must have been inferted long after the first representation. WARBURTON.

It is extremely probable that our author meant to pay his court to Elizabeth by this covert apology for her conduct to Mary. The Queen of Scots was beheaded in 1587, fome years, I believe, before he had produced any play on the stage. MALONE.

And, on the winking of authority,

To understand a law; to know the meaning
Of dangerous majefty, when, perchance, it frowns
More upon humour than advis'd refpect.*

HUB. Here is your hand and feal for what I did.

K. JOHN. O, when the laft account 'twixt heaven
and earth

Is to be made, then fhall this hand and feal
Witness against us to damnation!

How oft the fight of means to do ill deeds,
Makes deeds ill done! Hadeft not thou been by,
A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,
Quoted,' and fign'd, to do a deed of fhame,
This murder had not come into my mind:
But, taking note of thy abhorr'd afpéct,
Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,
Apt, liable, to be employ'd in danger,
I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;
And thou, to be endeared to a king,

Made it no confcience to destroy a prince.
HUB. My lord,-

4

K. JOHN. Hadft thou but fhook thy head," or made a pause,

- advis'd respect.] i. c. deliberate confideration, reflection. So, in Hamlet:

There's the refpe&t

"That makes calamity of fo long life." STEEVENS. $ Quoted,] i. e. obferved, distinguish'd. So, in Hamlet : "I am forry, that with better heed and judgement "I had not quoted him." STEEVENS.

See Vol. V. p. 277, n. 8. MALONE.

6 Hadft thou but book thy head, &c.] There are many touches of nature in this conference of John with Hubert. A man engaged in wickedness would keep the profit to himself, and transfer the guilt to his accomplice. These reproaches vented against Hubert are not the words of art or policy, but the eruptions of a mind

こ

When I fpake darkly what I purposed;
Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,
As bid' me tell my tale in exprefs words;
Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,
And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me:
But thou didst understand me by my figns,
And didst in signs again parley with fin;
Yea, without ftop, didft let thy heart confent,
And, confequently, thy rude hand to act

The deed, which both our tongues held vile to

name.

Out of my fight, and never see me more!
My nobles leave me; and my ftate is brav'd,

fwelling with confciousness of a crime, and defirous of discharging
its mifery on another.

This account of the timidity of guilt is drawn ab ipfis receffibus
mentis, from the intimate knowledge of mankind, particularly that
line in which he fays, that to have bid him tell his tale in exprefs
words, would have ftruck him dumb: nothing is more certain, than
that bad men ufe all the arts of fallacy upon themselves, palliate
their actions to their own minds by gentle terms, and hide them-
felves from their own detection in ambiguities and fubterfuges.
JOHNSON.

As bid-] Thus the old copy. Mr. Malone reads-And.
STEEVENS.
Mr. Pope reads-Or bid me, &c. but As is very unlikely to
have been printed for Or.

As we have here As printed instead of And, so vice versâ in King
Henry V. 4to. 1600, we find And mifprinted for As:

"And in this glorious and well foughten field

"We kept together in our chivalry." MALONE.

As, in ancient language, has fometimes the power of as for inftance. So, in Hamlet:

"As, ftars with trains of fire," &c.

In the prefent inftance it feems to mean, as if.

"Had you, (fays
the King, fpeaking elliptically,) turn'd an eye of doubt on my
face, as if to bid me tell my tale in exprefs words," &c. So, in
Spenfer's Faery Queen:

"That with the noise it shook as it would fall;"
i. c. as if. I have not therefore disturbed the old reading.

× Or turnd an

STEEVENS.

I doubt upon my face

eye of as bid me tell my take in express words. } That is, such an eye of doubt

one tall.

my

and as bid

tale bin express words.

M. Meson