With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes 19,
I saw a smith stand with his hammer thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
Standing on slippers (which his nimble haste
Had falsely thrust upon contráry feet 20),
Told of a many thousand warlike French,
That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent:
Another lean unwash'd artificer

Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.
K. John. Why seek'st thou to possess me with
these fears?

Why urgest thou so oft

young Arthur's death? Thy hand hath murder'd him: I had a mighty cause To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him. Hub. Had none, my lord! why, did you not provoke me?

K. John. It is the curse of kings to be attended
By slaves, that take their humours for a warrant
To break within the bloody house of life:
And, on the winking of authority,

To understand a law; to know the meaning
Of dangerous majesty, when, perchance, it frowns
More upon humour than advis'd respect 21.

19 This may be compared with a spirited passage in Edward III. Capel's Prolusions, p. 75:

'Our men, with open mouths and staring eyes,

Look on each other, as they did attend

Each other's words, and yet no creature speaks;

A tongue-tied fear hath made a midnight hour,

And speeches sleep through all the waking region.'

20 This passage, which called forth the antiquarian knowledge of so many learned commentators, is now, from the return of the fashion of right and left shoes, become intelligible without a note. 21 Deliberate consideration. So in Hamlet:

There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.'

Hub. Here is your hand and seal for what I did. K. John. O, when the last account 'twixt heaven and earth

Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal

Witness against us to damnation!

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds,
Make deeds ill done! Hadest not thou been by,
A fellow by the hand of nature mark’d,
Quoted 22, and sign'd, to do a deed of shame,
This murder had not come into my mind:
But, taking note of thy abhorr'd aspéct,
Finding thee fit for bloody villany,
Apt, liable, to be employ'd in danger,
I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;
And thou, to be endeared to a king,
Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.
Hub. My lord,-

K. John. Hadst thou but shook thy head, or made

When I spake darkly what I purposed;
Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,

22 To quote is to note or mark. See Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 1:'I am sorry that with better heed and judgment

I had not quoted him.

23 There are many touches of nature in this conference of John with Hubert. A man engaged in wickedness would keep the profit to himself, and transfer the guilt to his accomplice. These reproaches vented against Hubert are not the words of art or policy, but the eruptions of a mind swelling with consciousness of a crime, and desirous of discharging its misery on another. This account of the timidity of guilt is drawn, ab ipsis recessibus mentis, from the intimate knowledge of mankind; particularly that line in which he says, that to have bid him tell his tale in express words would have struck him dumb: nothing is more certain than that bad men use all the arts of fallacy upon themselves, palliate their actions to their own minds by gentle terms, and hide themselves from their own detection in ambiguities and subterfuges.-Johnson.

And 24 bid me tell

my

tale in express words;

Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,
And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me :
But thou didst understand me by my signs,
And didst in signs again parley with sin;
Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,
And, consequently, thy rude hand to act

The deed, which both our tongues held vile to

name.

Out of my sight, and never see me more!
My nobles leave me; and my state is brav'd,
Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign powers;
Nay, in the body of this fleshly land,

This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,
Hostility and civil tumult reigns

Between my conscience, and my cousin's death.
Hub. Arm you against your other enemies,

I'll make a peace between soul and you.

your

Young Arthur is alive: This hand of mine
Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,
Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.
Within this bosom never enter'd yet

The dreadful motion of a murd'rous thought,
And you have slander'd nature in my form;
Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,
Is yet the cover of a fairer mind

Than to be butcher of an innocent child.

K. John. Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the

peers,

Throw this report on their incensed rage,
And make them tame to their obedience!
Forgive the comment that my passion made
Upon thy feature; for my rage was blind,

24 The old copy reads 'As bid me,' &c. Malone made the correction, in which I concur; though as frequently is used for that, which. See Julius Cæsar, Act i. Sc. 2, note 15.

And foul imaginary eyes of blood
Presented thee more hideous than thou art.
O, answer not; but to my closet bring
The angry lords, with all expedient 25 haste:
I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast 26.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. The same. Before the Castle.

Enter ARTHUR, on the Walls.

Arth. The wall is high; and yet will I leap down1:

Good ground, be pitiful, and hurt me not!—
There's few, or none, do know me; if they did,
This ship-boy's semblance hath disguis'd me quite.
I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it.

If I get down, and do not break my limbs,
I'll find a thousand shifts to get away:
As good to die, and go, as die, and stay.

[Leaps down. O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stonesHeaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!

25 Expeditious.

[Dies.

26 The old play of The Troublesome Raigne of King John is divided into two parts; the first of which concludes with the king's despatch of Hubert on this message; the second begins with Enter Arthur, &c. as in the following scene.

1 Shakspeare has followed the old play. In what manner Arthur was deprived of his life is not ascertained. Matthew Paris relating the event uses the word evanuit; and it appears to have been conducted with impenetrable secrecy. The French historians say that John, coming in a boat during the night to the castle of Rouen, where the young prince was confined, stabbed him while supplicating for mercy, fastened a stone to the body, and threw it into the Seine, in order to give some colour to a report, which he caused to be spread, that the prince, attempting to escape out of a window, fell into the river, and was drowned.

Enter PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and BIGOT.

Sal. Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmund'sBury;

It is our safety, and we must embrace

This gentle offer of the perilous time.

Pem. Who brought that letter from the cardinal? Sal. The Count Melun, a noble lord of France; Whose private with me, of the Dauphin's love, Is much more general than these lines import.

Big. To-morrow morning let us meet him then. Sal. Or, rather then set forward: for 'twill be Two long days' journey, lords, or e'er3 we meet. Enter the Bastard.

Bast. Once more to-day well met, distemper'd* lords!

The king, by me, requests your presence straight.
Sal. The king hath dispossess'd himself of us;
We will not line his thin bestained cloak
With our pure honours, nor attend the foot
That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks:
Return, and tell him so; we know the worst.

Bast. Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best.

Sal. Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.

2 Private account.

3 The use of or for ere, before, is at least as old as Chaucer's time. It is the Saxon aen, prius, antequam, priusquam,―ere, or, sooner than; before. Ever is the Saxon ærɲe-aliquando, unquam,-ever, e'er, at any time. Ere ever, or ever, or ere, is, in modern English, sooner than at any time; before ever: and this is the sense in which Shakspeare and our elder writers constantly use the phrase.

4i. e. ruffled, out of humour. So in Hamlet:

in his retirement marvellous distemper'd.

5 To reason, in Shakspeare, is not so often to argue as to talk. So in Coriolanus:

reason with the fellow

Before you punish him.'

VOL. IV.

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