9

To thrust bis icy fingers in my maw;
Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course
Through my burn's bofom; nor en treat the north
To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips,
And comfort me with cold:-1 do notalk you much,
I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,
And so ingrateful, you deny me that.

P. Hen. Othat there were some virtue in my tears,
That might relieve you ;
K. John.

The falt in them is hot.

3

/

9 To thrust his icy fingers in my maw ;] Decker, in The Gul's Hornbook, ihoġ, has the same thought: the morniug waxing cold, thrust his funity fingers into thy bosome."

Again, in a pamphlet entitled, The great Frost, Cold Doings, &c. in London, 1608 : 6. The cold hand of winter is thrust into our boloins." STEEVENS. The corresponding passage in the old play runs thus:

Philip, some drink. o, for the frozen Alps * To tumble on, and cool this in ward heat,

" Thai rageth as a furnace leven-fold hou
There is so strong a resemblance, not only in the thought, but in
the expression, between the passage before us and the following
lines in two of Marlowe's plays, that we may fairly suppose them
to have been in our author's thoughts ::

“O, I am dull, and the cold band of sleep
• Hath thrust his icy fingers in my breaft,
" And made a frost within me.

Lust's Dominion.
Again :

" O, poor Zabina, O my queen, my queen,
6. Fetch me some' water for my burning breaf,
" 10 cool and comfort me with longer date:

Tamburlaine, 1591. Luft's Dominion, like many of the plays of that time, remained unpublished for a great number of years, and was first printed in 1657," by Francis Kirkman, a bookseller. It must however have been written before 1593, in which year Marlowe died.

MALONE, - I do not ask you much, ] We should read, for the sake of metre, with Sir T. Hanner,-1 ajk not much. Sreevens.

--Jo ftrait, ) i. e. narrow, avaricious; an unusual sense of the word. STEEVENS.

3

Within me is a hell; and there the poison
Is, as a fiend, confin'd to tyrannize
On unreprievable condemned blood.

Enter the Bastard.

Bast. O, I am scalded with my violent motion,

,
And spleen of speed to see your majesty.
K. JOHN. O cousin, thou art come to set mine

eye ;
The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd;
And all the shrouds, wherewith my life should fail,
Are turned to one thread, one little hair :
My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered ;
And then all this thou feeft, is but a clod,
And module of confounded royalty.”

Bast. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward;
Where, heaven he knows, how we shall answer

5

him :

For, in a night, the best

part

of

my power,

4 And all the shrouds, ] Shakspeare here uses the word shrouds in its truc lense. The shrouds are the great ropes, which come from each side of the mait. lo modern poetry the word frequently fignifies the sails of a ship. MALONE.

This latter usage of the word—Shrouds, has hitherto escaped my notice : STEEVENS.

5 And module of confounded royalty. ] Module and model, it has been already observed, were in our author's time only different modes of spelling the same word. Model signified not an archetype after which something was to be formed, but the thing formed after an archetype; and hence it is used by Shakspeare and his contemporaries for a representation. So, in The London Prodigal, 3605 : “ Dear copy of my husband! O let me kiss thee!

(Kifing a piaure. « How like him is this model ?" See Vol. IX. p. 141, n. 5. MALONE.

As I upon advantage did remove,
Were in the walhes, all anwarily,
Devoured by the unexpected flood. [The King dies,

SAL. You breathe these dead news in as dead an

car.

C

My liege! my lord! But now a king,-now thus.

P. Hen. Even so must I run on, and even so stop. What surety of the world, what hope, what stay, When this was now a king, and now is clay!

Bast. Art thou gone so? I do but ftay behind, To do the office for thee of revenge; And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven, As it on earth hath been thy servant ftill. Now, now, you stars, that move in your right

spheres, Where be your powers ? Show now your mended

faiths ; And instantly return with me again, To push destraction, and perpetual shame, Out of the weak door of our fainting land: Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought; The Dauphin rages at our very heels.

SAL. It seems, you know not then so much as we: The cardinal Pandulph is within at rest, Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin ; And brings from him such offers of our peace As we with honour and respect may take, With purpose presently to leave this war.

Bast. He will the rather do it, when he fees Ourselves well linewed to our defence.

6 Were in the washes, all unwarily, &c. ] Tbis untoward accident really happened to King Jeho himself. As he passed from Lynn to Lincolnshire, he loft by an inundation all his treasure, carriages, baggage, and regalią. MALONE.

Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already;
For many carriages he hath despatch'd
To the feaside, and put his cause and quarrel
To the disposing of the cardinal :
With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,
If you think meet, this afternoon will post
Tó consummate this business happily.

Bast. Let it be fo:And you, my noble prince,
With other princes that may best be spar'd,
Shall wait upon your father's funeral,

P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interr'd;
For fo he will'd it.
BAST,

Thither shall it then,
And happily may your sweet self put on
The lineal state and glory of the land !
To whom, with all submission, on my knee,
I do bequeath my faithful services
And true fubje&ion everlastingly.

Sal. And the like tender of our love we make,
To rest without a spot for evermore.
P. Hen. I have a kind soul, that would give you?

thanks,
And knows not how to do it, but with tears,

Bast. O, Let us pay the time but needful woe,
Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs-

a

8

7

us now

-- that would give you --) Yox, which is not in the old copy, was added for the sake of the metre, by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

let us pay the time but needful wor,

Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs. )' Let indulge in sorrow, fince there is abundant cause for it, England has been long in a fcene of confusion, and its calamities have anticipated our tears. By those which we now shed, we only pay her what is her due. MALONE,

I believe the plain meaning of the passage is this :-As previously we have found sufficient cause for lamentation, let us nat waste the present time in superfluous sorrow, STEEVENS.

This England never did, (nor never shall,)
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now there her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them : Nought shall make us

rue, If England to itself do rest but true.' [Exeunt.

9

9 If England to itfelf do rest but true.] This sentiment seems bore rowed from the conclusion of the old play :

“ If England's peers and people join in one,

" Nor pope, nor France, nor Spain, can do them wrong." Again, in K. Henry VI, Part III :

16of itself

" England is safe, if true within itself." STEEVENS. Shakspeare's conclusion seems rather to have been borrowed from these two lines of the old play:

“ Let England live but true within itself,
" And all the world can never wrong her state."

MALONE “ Brother, brother, we may be both in the wrong ; " this sen. timent might originate from A Discourse of Rebellion, drawne forth for to warne the wanton Wiltes how to kepé their Heads on their Shoulders, by T. Churchyard, izmo. 1570;

“ O Britayne bloud, marke this at my desire
" If that you sticke together as you ought
" This lyttle ylc may set the world at nought."

STEEVENS. The tragedy of King John, though not written with the utmost power of Shakspeare, iš varied with a very pleasing interchange of incidents and chara&ers. The lady's grief is very affe&ing ; aud the cbara&er of the Bastard contains that mixture of greatness and levity which this author delighted to exbibit. JOHNSO .

NSON.

THE END OF THE ELEVENTH VOLUME.

LIOT

LIBERTE

LAUSAN

TRIE