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Thou art more deep damn'd than prince Lucifer:3 There is not yet fo ugly a fiend of hell

As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child."

HUB. Upon my foul,

BAST.

If thou didst but consent

To this most cruel act, do but despair,

And, if thou want'ft a cord, the smallest thread That ever spider twisted from her womb

Will ferve to ftrangle thee; a rush will be

A beam to hang thee on; or, would'st thou drown thyfelf,*

Put but a little water in a spoon,
And it shall be as all the ocean,
Enough to stifle fuch a villain up.-
I do fufpect thee very grievously.

HUB. If I in act, consent, or fin of thought,
Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath
Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,
Let hell want pains enough to torture me!
I left him well.

8 Thou art more deep damn'd than prince Lucifer:] So, in the old play:

"Hell, Hubert, truft me, all the plagues of hell
"Hangs on performance of this damned deed;
"This feal, the warrant of the body's blifs,

"Enfureth Satan chieftain of thy foul." MALONE.

9 There is not yet, &c.] I remember once to have met with a book, printed in the time of Henry VIII. (which Shakspeare poffibly might have seen,) where we are told that the deformity of the condemned in the other world, is exactly proportioned to the degrees of their guilt. The author of it obferves how difficult it would be, on this account, to diftinguish between Belzebub and Judas Iscariot. STEEVENS.

2- drown thyfelf,] Perhaps thyself is an interpolation. It certainly spoils the measure; and drown is elsewhere used by our author as a verb neuter. Thus, in King Richard III:

"Good lord, methought, what pain it was to drown.”

STEEVENS.

BAST.

Go, bear him in thine arms.

I am amaz'd,' methinks; and lose my way
Among the thorns and dangers of this world.~
How eafy doft thou take all England up!
From forth this morfel of dead royalty,
The life, the right, and truth of all this realm
Is fled to heaven; and England now is left
To tug, and fcamble, and to part by the teeth
The unowed intereft' of proud-fwelling ftate.
Now, for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty,
Doth dogged war bristle his angry creft,
And fnarleth in the gentle eyes of peace:
Now powers from home, and difcontents at home,
Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits
(As doth a raven on a fick-fallen beast,)
The imminent decay of wrefted pomp.*
Now happy he, whofe cloak and cincture can
Hold out this tempeft. Bear away that child,
And follow me with fpeed; I'll to the king:
A thoufand bufineffes are brief in hand,
And heaven itself doth frown upon the land. [Exeunt.

9 I am amaz'd,] i. e. confounded. So, King John, p. 133, fays: I was amaz'd

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"Under the tide." STEEVENS.

2 To tug, and fcamble,] So, in K. Henry V. fc. i:

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"But that the fcambling and unquiet time.' Scamble and feramble have the fame meaning. See note on the paffage quoted. STEEVENS.

3 The unowed intereft-] i. e. the intereft which has no proper owner to claim it. STEEVENS.

That is, the interest which is not at this moment legally possessed by any one, however rightfully entitled to it. On the death of Arthur, the right to the English crown devolved to his fifter, Eleanor.

MALONE. 4 The imminent decay of wrefted pomp.] Wrefted pomp is greatness obtained by violence. JOHNSON.

Rather, greatness wrefted from its poffeffor. MALONE.

5

and cincture-] The old copy reads-center, probably for ceinture, Fr. STEEVENS.

The emendation was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

ACT V. SCENE I.

The fame. A Room in the Palace.

Enter King JOHN, PANDULPH with the Crown, and Attendants.

K. JOHN. Thus have I yielded up into your hand The circle of my glory.

PAND.

Take again

[Giving JOHN the Crown. From this my hand, as holding of the pope, Your fovereign greatnefs and authority.

K. JOHN. Now keep your holy word: go meet
the French;

And from his holiness use all your power
To stop their marches, 'fore we are inflam'd."
Our discontented counties do revolt;
Our people quarrel with obedience;

7

Swearing allegiance, and the love of foul,
To ftranger blood, to foreign royalty.
This inundation of mistemper'd humour
Refts by you only to be qualified.

Then pause not; for the prefent time's fo fick,

6

ufe all your power

Toftop their marches, 'fore we are inflam'd.] This cannot be right, for the nation was already as much inflamed as it could be, and fo the King himself declares. We fhould read for instead of fore, and then the paffage will run thus:

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ufe all your power

Toftop their marches, for we are inflam'd;

Our difcontented counties do revolt, &c. M. MASON.

counties-] Perhaps counties, in the prefent inftance, do not mean the divifions of a kingdom, but lords, nobility, as in Romeo and Juliet, Much ado, &c. STEEVENS.

That prefent medicine must be minister'd,
Or overthrow incurable enfues.

PAND. It was my breath that blew this tempeft up,
Upon your stubborn usage of the pope :
But, fince you are a gentle convertite,"
My tongue fhall hufh again this storm of war,
And make fair weather in your bluftering land.

7 — a gentle convertite,] A convertite is a convert. Marlow's Jew of Malta, 1633:

So, in

"Gov. Why, Barabas, wilt thou be christened? "Bar. No, governour; I'll be no convertite." STEEVENS. The fame expreffion occurs in As you Like it, where Jaques, speaking of the young Duke, fays:

"There is much matter in these convertites." In both thefe places, the word convertite means a repenting finner; not, as Steevens fays, a convert, by which, in the language of the present time, is meant a perfon who changes from one religion to another; in which fenfe the word could neither apply to K. John, or to Duke Frederick: In the sense I have given it, it will apply to both. M. MASON.

A convertite (a word often used by our old writers, where we should now ufe convert,) fignified either, one converted to the faith, or one reclaimed from worldly pursuits, and devoted to penitence and religion.

Mr. M. Mafon fays, a convertite cannot mean a convert, because the latter word" in the language of the prefent time means a perfon that changes from one religion to another." But the question is, not what is the language of the prefent time, but what was the language of Shak fpeare's age. Marlowe ufes the word convertite exactly in the fenfe now affixed to convert. John, who had in the former part of this play afferted in very strong terms the fupremacy of the king of England in all ecclefiaftical matters, and told Pandulph that he had no reverence for the Pope or his ufurp'd authority," having now made his peace with the holy church," and refigned his crown to the Pope's reprefentative, is confidered by the legate as one newly converted to the true faith, and very properly ftyled by him a convertite. The fame term, in the fecond fenfe above mentioned, is applied to the ufurper, Duke Frederick, in Like it, on his having "put on a religious life, and thrown into neglect the pompous court":

As you

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"There is much matter to be heard and learn'd.”

MALONE.

On this Afcenfion-day, remember well,
Upon your oath of fervice to the
Go I to make the French lay down their arms.

pope,

[Exit.

K. JOHN. Is this Afcenfion-day? Did not the prophet

Say, that, before Afcenfion-day at noon,
My crown I should give off? Even fo I have:
I did fuppofe, it fhould be on constraint;
But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary.

Enter the Bastard.

BAST. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out,

But Dover caftle: London hath receiv'd,
Like a kind hoft, the Dauphin and his powers:
Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone
To offer service to your enemy;

And wild amazement hurries up and down
The little number of your doubtful friends.

K. JOHN. Would not my lords return to me again, After they heard young Arthur was alive?

BAST. They found him dead, and caft into the streets;

8

An empty casket, where the jewel of life
By fome damn'd hand was robb'd and ta'en away.
K. JOHN. That villain Hubert told me, he did

live.

8 An empty casket, where the jewel of life-] Dryden has tranf ferred this image to a fpeech of Antony, in All for Love:

"An empty circle, fince the jewel's gone

STEEVENS.

The fame kind of imagery is employed in K. Richard II:
"A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up cheft
"Is a bold fpirit in a loyal breast.”

MALONE.

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