In their continuance, will not feel themselves.
Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,
Leaves them insensible3; and his siege is now
Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds
With many legions of strange fantasies;
Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,
Confound themselves. "Tis strange, that death should
sing..

I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death;
And, from the organ-pipe of frailty, sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.

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

Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude1.
Re-enter BIGOT and Attendants, who bring in KING
JOHN in a Chair.

K. John. Ay, marry, now, my soul hath elbow

room;

It would not out at windows, nor at doors.
There is so hot a summer in my bosom,
That all my bowels crumble up to dust:
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen
Upon a parchment; and against this fire

Do I shrink

up.

2 Continuance here means continuity. Bacon uses it in that sense also. So Baret, If the disease be of any continuance, if it be an old and settled disease." I should not have thought this passage needed elucidation, had not Malone proposed to read ' in thy continuance.'

3 The old copy reads invisible. Sir T. Hanmer proposed the reading admitted into the text. Malone has endeavoured to

elaborate a meaning out of the old reading, but without success.
I must refer the reader to the variorum editions for his argu-
ment, and Steevens's vein of pleasant irony upon it.
4 A description of Chaos almost in the very words of Ovid:-
Quem dixere Chaos rudis indigestaque moles.—Met. i.
Which Chaos hight a huge rude heap:-

No sunne as yet with lightsome beames the shapeless world did
Golding's Translation.

view.

;

parts,

is now

How fares your majesty?

K. John. Poison'd,-ill fare;-dead, forsook,

cast off;

and won And none of you will bid the winter come,

To thrust his icy fingers in my maw5;

last Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course eath sh Through my burn'd bosom; nor entreat the north To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips, And comfort me with cold:-I do not ask you I beg cold comfort: and you are so strait, And so ingrateful, you deny me that.

death;

S

much,

P. Hen. O, that there were some virtue in my tears, arh That might relieve you!

K. John.

The salt in them is hot.

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.

5 This scene has been imitated by Beaumont and Fletcher, in
A Wife for a Month, Act iv. Decker, in the Gull's Hornbook,
has the same thought:-
:- the morning waxing cold thrust his
frosty fingers into thy bosome.' Perhaps Shakspeare was ac-
quainted with the following passages in two of Marlowe's plays,
which must both have been written previous to King John, for
Marlowe died in 1593 :—

'O I am dull, and the cold hand of sleep
Hath thrust his icy fingers in my breast,

And made a frost within me.'-Lust's Dominion.
'O poor Zabina, O my queen, my queen,
Fetch me some water for my burning breast,
To cool and comfort me with longer date.'

Tamburlaine, 1591.

The corresponding passage in the old play runs thus:-
"Philip, some drink. O for the frozen Alps

To tumble on, and cool this inward heat
That rageth as a furnace seven-fold.'

6 Narrow, avaricious.

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 sail, 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 seest, is but a clod, And module of confounded royalty.

Bast. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward: Where, heaven he knows, how we shall answer him: For, in a night, the best part of my power, As I upon advantage did remove,

Were in the washes, all unwarily,

Devoured by the unexpected flood3. [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 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 stay 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 still.
Now, now, you stars, that move in your right spheres,
Where be your powers? Show now your

faiths;

And instantly return with me again,
To push destruction and perpetual shame
Out of the weak door of our fainting land:

mended

7 Module and model were only different modes of spelling the same word. Model signified not an archetype, after which some thing was to be formed, but the thing formed after an archetype, a copy. Bullokar, in his Expositor, 1616, explains model, the

platform, or form of any thing.'

8 This untoward accident really happened to King John himself. As he passed from Lynn to Lincolnshire he lost by an inundation all his treasure, carriages, baggage, and regalia.

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 sees
Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.

Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already;
For many carriages he hath despatch'd
To the seaside, 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
To cónsummate this business happily.

noble prince,

Bast. Let it be so :—And you, my
With other princes that may best be spared,
Shall wait upon your father's funeral.

P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interr❜d 9; For so 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 subjection 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.

9 In crastino S. Lucæ Johannes Rex Angliæ in castro de Newark obiit, et sepultus est in ecclesia Wigorniensi inter corpora S. Oswaldi et sancti [Wolstani] Chronic. sive Annal. Prioratus de Dunstable, edit. a T. Hearne, t. i. p. 173. A stone coffin, containing the body of King John, was discovered in the cathedral church of Worcester, July 17, 1797.

436

Bast. O, let us pay the time but needful woe,
Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs 10.-
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 these 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 11.

"

[Exeunt. 10 As previously we have found sufficient cause for lamenta tion, let us not waste the time in superfluous sorrow.' "This sentiment may have been borrowed from one of the following passages in the old play :

'Let England live but true within herself,

And all the world can never wrong her state.'

Again at the conclusion:

'If England's peers and people join in one

Nor Pope, nor France, nor Spain can do them wrong.' Shakspeare has used it again in King Henry VI. Part III :— of itself

England is safe, if true within itself.'

Such was also the opinion of the celebrated Duke de Rohan: L'Angleterre est un grand animal qui ne peut jamais mourir, s'il ne se tue lui-même.' The sentiment has been traced still higher :

'O Britaine bloud, marke this at my desire-
If that you sticke together as you ought
This lyttle yle may set the world at nought.'

A Discourse of Rebellion, by T. Churchyard, 1570, 120. Andrew Borde, in his Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, printed in the reign of Henry VIII. says of the English, if they were true wythin themselves they nede not to feare although al

nacions were set against them.'

THE tragedy of King John, though not written with the utmost power of Skakspeare, is varied with a very pleasing interchange of incidents and characters. The lady's grief is very affecting; and the character of the Bastard contains that mixture of greatness and levity which this author delighted to exhibit.

JOHNSON.