The rich advantage of good exercise?"
That the time's enemies may not have this
Το grace occafions, let it be our fuit,
That you have bid us afk his liberty;
Which for our goods we do no further afk,
Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,
Counts it your weal, he have his liberty.

K. JOHN. Let it be fo; I do commit his youth

Enter HUBERT.

Το your direction.-Hubert, what news with you? PEMB. This is the man fhould do the bloody

deed;

He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine:

The image of a wicked heinous fault

Lives in his eye; that close aspéct of his
Does fhow the mood of a much-troubled breast;
And I do fearfully believe, 'tis done,
What we so 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 early had in a prison, 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 purpofe 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 still be a conflict in the King's mind,

"Between his purpose and his confcience." VOL. VIII.

K

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

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 paft cure.
PEMB. Indeed, we heard how near his death he
was,

Before the child himself felt he was fick :
This must be anfwer'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 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.

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 set 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 fo 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 a 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 such

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 anfwers, 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?

MESS.

My liege, her ear

Is ftopp'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 speed, dreadful occafion!

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

"Wherein you dreft yourself? 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.

go

i. e. How ill my affairs 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.

Enter the Bastard 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 ftuff 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. 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 streets 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.

6

I was amaz'd-] i. e. ftunned, confounded. So, in Cymbeline: I am amaz'd with matter." Again, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, 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.