PAND. Before the curing of a strong disease, Even in the instant of repair and health, The fit is strongest; evils, that take leave, On their departure most of all show evil : What have you lost by losing of this day? LEW. All days of glory, joy, and happiness. PAND. If you have won it, certainly, you had. No, no: when fortune means to men most good, She looks upon them with a threatening eye. 'Tis strange, to think how much king John hath lost In this which he accounts so clearly won: Are not you griev'd, that Arthur is his prisoner? LEW. As heartily, as he is glad he hath him. PAND. Your mind is all as youthful as your blood. Now hear me speak, with a prophetick spirit; Thy foot to England's throne; and, therefore, mark. The sweet word is life; which, says the speaker, is no longer sweet, yielding now nothing but shame and bitterness. Mr. Pope, with some plausibility, but certainly without necessity, reads the sweet world's taste. MALONE. I prefer Mr. Pope's reading, which is sufficiently justified by the following passage in Hamlet : "How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable "Seem to me all the uses of this world!" Our present rage for restoration from ancient copies may induce some of our readers to exclaim, with Virgil's Shepherd: "Claudite jam rivos, pueri, sat prata biberunt.' STEEVENS. A scepter, snatch'd with an unruly hand, LEW. But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall? PAND. You, in the right of lady Blanch your wife, May then make all the claim that Arthur did. LEW. And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did. PAND. How green are you, and fresh in this old world!' 6 John lays you plots; the times conspire with you: 66 How green &c.] Hall, in his Chronicle of Richard III. says, - what neede in that grene worlde the protector had," &c. HENDERSON. John lays you plots;] That is, lays plots, which must be serviceable to you. Perhaps our author wrote-your plots. John is doing your business. MALONE. The old reading is undoubtedly the true one. A similar phrase occurs in The First Part of King Henry VI: "He writes me here,-that," &c. Again, in the Second Part of the same play: "He would have carried you a fore-hand shaft," &c. STEEVENS. 7 -true blood,] The blood of him that has the just claim. JOHNSON. The expression seems to mean no more than innocent blood in general. RITSON. No natural exhalation in the sky, No scape of nature, no distemper'd day, life, young Arthur's But hold himself safe in his prisonment. PAND. O, sir, when he shall hear of your approach, If that young Arthur be not gone already, •No scape of nature,] The old copy reads-No scope, &c. STEEVENS. It was corrected by Mr. Pope. The word abortives, in the latter part of this speech, referring apparently to these scapes of nature, confirms the emendation that has been made. MALONE. The author very finely calls a monstrous birth, an escape of nature, as if it were produced while she was busy elsewhere, or intent upon some other thing. WARBURTON. 9 And, O, what better matter breeds for you, Than I have nam'd!] I believe we should read-lo! instead of O. M. MASON. |