CHAT. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth, The furthest limit of my embassy. K. JOHN. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace: Be thou as lightning' in the eyes of France; From the following passage in Barnabie Googe's Cupido conquered, (dedicated with his other poems, in May, 1562, and printed in 1563,) Jeronymo appears to have been written earlier than the earliest of these dates: "Mark hym that showes ye Tragedies, "In Englysh verse is pende." B. Googe had already sounded the praises of Phaer and Gascoigne, and is here descanting on the merits of Kyd. It is not impossible (though Ferrer and Porrex was acted in 1561) that Hieronymo might have been the first regular tragedy that appeared in an English dress. It may also be remarked, that B. Googe, in the foregoing lines, seems to speak of a tragedy " in English verse" as a novelty. STEEVENS. Be thou as lightning-] The simile does not suit well: the lightning, indeed, appears before the thunder is heard, but the lightning is destructive, and the thunder innocent. JOHNSON. The allusion may, notwithstanding, be very proper, so far as Shakspeare had applied it, i. e. merely to the swiftness of the lightning, and its preceding and foretelling the thunder. But、 there is some reason to believe that thunder was not thought to be innocent in our author's time, as we elsewhere learn from himself. See King Lear, Act III. sc. ii. Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. sc. v. Julius Cæsar, Act I. sc. iii. and still more decisively in Measure for Measure, Act II. sc. ii. This old superstition is still prevalent in many parts of the country. RITSON. King John does not allude to the destructive powers either of thunder or lightning; he only means to say, that Chatillon shall appear to the eyes of the French like lightning, which shows that thunder is approaching: and the thunder he alludes to is that of his cannon. Johnson also forgets, that though, philosophically speaking, the destructive power is in the lightning, it For ere thou canst report I will be there, [Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMbroke. ELI. What now, my son? have I not ever said, How that ambitious Constance would not cease, Till she had kindled France, and all the world, Upon the right and party of her son? This might have been prevented, and made whole, With very easy arguments of love; 6 Which now the manage of two kingdoms must With fearful bloody issue arbitrate. has generally, in poetry, been attributed to the thunder. So, Lear says: 5 "You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, ------- sullen presage-] By the epithet sullen, which cannot be applied to a trumpet, it is plain that our author's imagination had now suggested a new idea. It is as if he had said, be a trumpet to alarm with our invasion, be a bird of ill omen to croak out the prognostick of your own ruin. JOHNSON, I do not see why the epithet sullen may not be applied to a trumpet, with as much propriety as to a bell. In our author's King Henry IV. P. II. we find "Sounds ever after as a sullen bell-." MALOne. That here are two ideas is evident; but the second of them has not been luckily explained. The sullen presage of your own decay, means, the dismal passing bell, that announces your own approaching dissolution. STEEVENS. 6 the manage] i. e. conduct, administration: So, in King Richard II: "Expedient manage must be made, my liege." STEEVENS. K. JOHN. Our strong possession, and our right, for us. ELI. Your strong possession, much more than your right; Or else it must go wrong with you, and me: Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, who whispers Essex. ESSEX. My liege, here is the strangest controversy, Come from the country to be judg'd by you, K. JOHN. Let them approach. [Exit Sheriff. Our abbies, and our priories, shall pay Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, and PHILIP, his bastard Brother.8 This expedition's charge.-—What men are you? 7 Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, &c.] This stage direction I have taken from the old quarto. STEEVENS. 8 and Philip, his bastard Brother.] Though Shakspeare adopted this character of Philip Faulconbridge from the old play, it is not improper to mention that it is compounded of two distinct personages. Matthew Paris says: "Sub illius temporis curriculo, Falcasius de Brente, Neusteriensis, et spurius ex parte matris, atque Bastardus, qui in vili jumento manticato ad Regis paulo ante clientelam descenderat," &c. Matthew Paris, in his History of the Monks of St. Albans, calls him Falce, but in his General History, Falcasius de Brente, as above. Holinshed says that "Richard I. had a natural son named BAST. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman, ROB. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge. K. JOHN. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir? You came not of one mother then, it seems. BAST. Most certain of one mother, mighty king, That is well known; and, as I think, one father: But, for the certain knowledge of that truth, I put you o'er to heaven, and to my mother; Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.' Philip, who, in the year following, killed the Viscount De Limoges, to revenge the death of his father. STEevens. Perhaps the following passage in the continuation of Harding's Chronicle, 1543, fol. 24, b. ad ann. 1472, induced the author of the old play to affix the name of Faulconbridge to King Richard's natural son, who is only mentioned in our histories by the name of Philip: " -one Faulconbridge, therle of Kent, his bastarde, a stoute-harted man.” Who the mother of Philip was is not ascertained. It is said that she was a lady of Poictou, and that King Richard bestowed upon her son a lordship in that province. In expanding the character of the Bastard, Shakspeare seems to have proceeded on the following slight hint in the original play: "Next them, a bastard of the king's deceas'd, 9 But, for the certain knowledge of that truth, I put you o'er to heaven, and to my mother; MALONE. Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.] The resemblance between this sentiment, and that of Telemachus, in the first Book of the Odyssey, is apparent. The passage is thus translated by Chapman : ELI. Out on thee, rude man! thou dost shame thy mother, And wound her honour with this diffidence. BAST. I, madam? no, I have no reason for it; That is my brother's plea, and none of mine; The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out At least from fair five hundred pound a year: Heaven guard my mother's honour, and my land! K. JOHN. A good blunt fellow :-Why, being younger born, Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance? BAST. I know not why, except to get the land. And were our father, and this son like him;- I give heaven thanks, I was not like to thee. "My mother, certaine, says I am his sonne; By any child, the sure truth of his sire." Mr. Pope has observed, that the like sentiment is found in Euripides, Menander, and Aristotle. Shakspeare expresses the same doubt in several of his other plays. STEEVENS. But whe'r-] Whe'r for whether. So, in The Comedy of Errors: "Good sir, say whe'r you'll answer me, or no." STEEVENS. |