Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, Confound themselves. 'Tis ftrange that death fhould

fing.

I am the cygnet to this pale, faint fwan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death;
And, from the organ pipe of frailty, fings
His foul and body to their lafting reft.

Sal. Be of good comfort, prince; for you are born To fet a form upon that indigeft,

Which he hath left fo fhapeless and fo rude.

King John brought in.

K. John. Ay, marry, now my foul hath elbow-room; It would not out at windows, nor at doors. There is fo hot a fummer in my bofom, That all my bowels crumble up to duft. I am a fcribbled form drawn with a pen Upon a parchment; and against this fire Do I fhrink up.

Hen. How fares your majesty?

K. John. Poifon'd! ill fare! dead, forfook, caft off! 9 And none of you will bid the winter come To thruft his icy fingers in my maw;

Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their courfe
Through my burn'd bosom; nor intreat the north
To make his bleak winds kifs my parched lips,
And comfort me with cold.—I do not afk you much,
I beg cold comfort; and you are fo ftrait,

And fo ungrateful, you deny me that.

Hen. Oh, that there were fome virtue in my tears, That might relieve you!

K. John. The falt of them is hot.

Within me is a hell; and there the poison

Is, as a fiend, confin'd to tyrannize

On unreprievable, condemned blood.

in their throng and prefs-] In their tumult and hurry of reforting to the laft tenable part.

JoHNSON.

This fcene has been imitated by Beaumont and Fletcher ip The Wife for a Month, act 4.

STEEVENS.

Enter

Enter Faulconbridge.

Faulc. Oh! I am fcalded with my violent motion, And fpleen of speed to fee your majefty.

K. John. Oh! coufin, thou art come to fet mine eye.
The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burnt;
And all the fhrowds, wherewith my life fhould fail,
Are turned to one thread, one little hair:

My heart hath one poor ftring 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.

Faule. The dauphin is preparing hitherward; Where, heaven he knows, how we fhall anfwer him: For, in a night, the best part of my power,

As 1 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. but now a king

My liege! my lord!

thus!

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?

Faule. Art thou gone fo? I do but stay 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 still.----

now

Now, now, you stars, that move in your right fpheres,
Where be your powers? Shew now your mended faiths,
And inftantly return with me again,

To push deftruction, and perpetual fhame
Out of the weak door of our fainting land:
Strait let us feek, or strait we fhall be fought;
The dauphin rages at our very heels.

Sal. It feems you know not then fo 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

As we with honour and respect may take,
With purpose presently to leave this war.

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

Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already;
For many carriages he hath difpatch'd
To the fea-fide, 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 business happily.

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

Hen. At Worcester muft his body be interr'd.
For fo he will'd it.

Faulc. Thither shall it then.

And happily may your sweet self put on
The lineal ftate 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 fpot for evermore.

Hen. I have a kind foul, that would give you thanks,

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

Faulc. Oh, let us pay the time but needful woe,
Since it hath been before-hand with our griefs..
This England never did, nor never shall,
Lye at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we fhall fhock them! Nought fhall make us rue,
If England to itself do reft but true. [Exeunt omnes.

THE tragedy of King John, though not written with the utmoft power of Shakespeare, is varied with a very pleafing in terchange of incidents and characters. The lady's grief is very

affecting

affecting, and the character of the Baftard contains that mixture of greatnefs and levity which this author delighted to exhibit. JOHNSON.

There is extant another play of King John, published in 1611. Shakespeare has preferved the greatest part of the conduct of it, as well as a number of the lines. Some of thefe I have pointed out in the notes, and fome I have omitted as undeferving notice. What most inclines me to believe it was the work of fome cotemporary writer, is the number of quotations from Horace, and other fcraps of learning scattered over it. There is likewise a quantity of rhiming Latin, and ballad-metre, in a fcene where the Baftard is reprefented as plundering a monaftery; and fome ftrokes of humour, which feem, from their particular turn, to have been most evidently produced by another hand than that of Shakespeare.

Of this play there is faid to have been an edition in 1591 for Sampfon Clarke, but I have never seen it; and the copy in 1611, which is the oldeft I could find, was printed for John Helme, whofe name appears before no other of the plays of Shakefpeare. I admitted this play fome years ago as Shakespeare's own among the twenty which I publifhed from the old editions; but a more careful perufal of it, and a further conviction of our poet's cuftom of borrowing plots, fentiments, &c. difpofes me to recede from that opinion. STEEVENS.