To thruft bis icy fingers in my maw;

9

Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their courfe
Through my burn'd bofom; nor entreat the north
To make his bleak winds kifs my parched lips,
And comfort me with cold :—I do not ask you much,*
I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,3
And fo ingrateful, you deny me that.

3

P. HEN. O that there were fome virtue in my tears, That might relieve you;

K. JOHN.

The falt in them is hot.

9 To thrust his icy fingers in my maw;] Decker, in The Gul's Hornbook, 1609, has the fame thought: the morning waxing

cold, thruft his frosty fingers into thy bofome."
Again, in a pamphlet entitled, The great Froft, Cold Doings, c.
in London, 1608: The cold hand of winter is thrust into our
bofoms. STEEVENS.

The correfponding paffage in the old play runs thus:
Philip, fome drink. O, for the frozen Alps
"To tumble on, and cool this inward heat,
"That rageth as a furnace feven-fold hou

There is fo ftroug a refemblance, not only in the thought, but in the expreffion, between the paffage before us and the following lines in two of Marlowe's plays, that we may fairly fuppose them to have been in our author's thoughts:

Again :

"O, I am dull, and the cold band of fleep

Hath thruft his icy fingers in my breast,

“And made a froft within me." Luft's Dominion.

"O, poor Zabina, O my queen, my queen,
Fetch me fome' water for my burning breaft,

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Luft's Dominion, like many of the plays of that time, remained unpublished for a great number of years, and was first printed in 1657, by Francis Kirkman, a bookfeller.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

2

MALONE.

- I do not afk you much, ] We should read, for the fake of metre, with Sir T. Hanmer,-I afk not much. STEEVENS.

3 -Jo ftrait, ] i. e. narrow, avaricious; an unufual fenfe of the word.

STEEVENS.

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

Enter the Bastard.

violent motion,

BAST. O, I am fcalded with my
And fpleen of speed to fee your majefty.

K. JOHN. O coufin, thou art come to fet mine

eye:

The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd;
And all the fhrouds, wherewith my life fhould fail,
Are turned to one thread, one little hair:
My heart hath one poor ftring to flay 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 fhall answer him :.

For, in a night, the beft part of my power,

And all the shrouds, ] Shakspeare here uses the word Shrouds in its true fenfe. The Shrouds are the great ropes, which come from In modern poetry the word frequently

each fide of the mat.

fignifies the fails of a ship. MALONE.

This latter ufage of the word-fhrouds, 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 fame word. Model fignified 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 reprefentation. So, in The London Prodigal,

1605:

"Dear copy of my husband! O let me kifs thee!
[ Kiffing a picture.

"How like him is this model ?" See Vol. IX. p. 141, n. 5. MALONE.

As I upon advantage did remove,
Were in the washes, all unwarily,

Devoured by the unexpected flood.' [The King dies.
SAL. You breathe these dead news in as dead an

ear.

My liege! my lord!-But now a king,-now thus. P. HEN. Even fo muft I run on, and even fo ftop. What furety of the world, what hope, what stay, When this was now a king, and now is clay!

BAST. Art thou gone fo? I do but ftay behind, To do the office for thee of revenge;

And then my foul fhall wait on thee to heaven,
As it on earth hath been thy fervant ftill.——
Now, now, you ftars, that move in your right

spheres,

Where be your powers?

faiths;

Show now your mended

And instantly return with me again,

To push destruction, and perpetual shame,
Out of the weak door of our fainting land:
Straight let us feek, or ftraight 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 reft,

Who half an hour fince came from the Dauphin;
And brings from him fuch 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 sees
Ourselves well finewed to our defence.

This untoward ac

Were in the washes, all unwarily, &c.] cident really happened to King John himself. As he paffed from Lynn to Lincolnshire, he loft by an inundation all his treasure, carriages, baggage, and regalia. MALONE.

SAL. Nay, it is in a manner done already;
For many carriages he hath despatch'd
To the feafide, and put his cause and quarrel
To the difpofing of the cardinal:

With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,
If you think meet, this afternoon will post
To confummate this bufinefs 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 fhall it then.

And happily may your fweet felf put on
The lineal state and glory of the land!
To whom, with all fubmiffion, on my knee,
I do bequeath my faithful fervices

And true fubjection everlaftingly.

SAL. And the like tender of our love we make, To reft without a spot for evermore.

P. HEN. I have a kind foul, 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,3 Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs

7 ——that would give you. You, which is not in the old copy, was added for the fake of the metre, by Mr. Rowe. MALOne. ୫ let us pay the time but needful woe,

Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.] Let us now indulge in forrow, fince there is abundant caufe for it. England has been long in a fcene of confufion, and its calamities have anticipated our tears. By those which we now fhed, we only pay her what is her due. MALONE,

I believe the plain meaning of the paffage is this :-As previously we have found fufficient caufe for lamentation, let us not wafte the prefent time in fuperfluous forrow. STEEVENS.

This England never did, (nor never shall,)
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

But when it firft did help to wound itself.
Now thefe her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them: Nought fhall make us

rue,

If England to itself do reft but true."

[Exeunt.

9 If England to itself do reft but true.] This fentiment feems bore rowed from the conclufion 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:

of itself

England is fafe, if true within itself." STEEVENS.

Shakspeare's conclufion feems 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 ftate."

MALONE.

"Brother, brother, we may be both in the wrong;" this fentiment might originate from A Difcourfe of Rebellion, drawne forth for to warne the wanton Wittes how to kepe their Heads on their Shoulders, by T. Churchyard, 12mo. 1570:

"O Britayne bloud, marke this at my defire-
"If that you flicke together as you ought
"This lyttle yle may fet the world at nought."

STEEVENS.

The tragedy of King John, though not written with the utmoft power of Shakspeare, is varied with a very pleafing interchange of incidents and chara&ers. The lady's grief is very affecting ; aud the character of the Baftard contains that mixture of greatness and levity which this author delighted to exhibit. JOHNSON.

THE END OF THE ELEVENTH VOLUME.

LIOT:

LIBERTE
ET
PATRIE

LAUSAN