Be by some certain king purg'd and depos'd. BAST. By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings ;

4

Secure and confident as lions, they are not at all afraid, but are kings, i. e. masters and commanders, of their fears, until their fears or doubts about the rightful King of England are removed.

TOLLET.

We should read, than ye. What power was this? their fears. It is plain, therefore, we should read:

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Kings are our fears ;

i. e. our fears are the kings which at present rule us.

WARBURTON.

Dr. Warburton saw what was requisite to make this passage sense; and Dr. Johnson, rather too hastily, I think, has received his emendation into the text. He reads:

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Kings are our fears ;·

which he explains to mean,

present rule us."

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our fears are the kings which at

As the same sense may be obtained by a much slighter alteration, I am more inclined to read:

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King'd of our fears;"

King'd is used as a participle passive by Shakspeare more than once, I believe. I remember one instance in Henry the Fifth, Act II. Sc. V. The Dauphin says of England:

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she is so idly king'd."

It is scarce necessary to add, that of, here (as in numberless other places) has the signification of by. TYRWHITT.

King'd of our fears;" i. e. our fears being our kings, or rulers. King'd is again used in King Richard II.:

Then I am king'd again."

It is manifest that the passage in the old copy is corrupt, and that it must have been so worded, that their fears should be styled their kings or masters, and not they, kings or masters of their fears; because in the next line mention is made of these fears being deposed. Mr. Tyrwhitt's emendation produces this meaning by a very slight alteration, and is, therefore, I think, entitled to a place in the text.

The following passage in our author's Rape of Lucrece, strongly, in my opinion, confirms his conjecture:

"So shall these slaves [Tarquin's unruly passions] be kings, and thou their slave."

Again, in King Lear :

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It seems, she was a queen

"Over her passion, who, most rebel-like,

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Sought to be king o'er her."

This passage in the folio is given to King Philip, and in a sub

And stand securely on their battlements,
As in a theatre, whence they gape and point
At your industrious scenes and acts of death,
Your royal presences be rul'd by me;

5

Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,

sequent part of this scene, all the speeches of the citizens are given to Hubert; which I mention, because these, and innumerable other instances, where the same error has been committed in that edition, justify some licence in transferring speeches from one person to another. MALone.

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- these SCROYLES of Angiers-] Escroulles, Fr. i. e. scabby, scrophulous fellows.

Ben Johnson uses the word in Every Man in his Humour: hang them scroyles!" STEEVENS.

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5 At your INDUSTRIOUS Scenes-] I once wished to readillustrious; but now I believe the text to be right. MALONE. The old reading is undoubtedly the true one. Your industrious scenes and acts of death, is the same as if the speaker had said— your laborious industry of war. So, in Macbeth :

"Industrious soldiership." STEEVENS.

6 Do like the MUTINES of Jerusalem,] The mutines are the mutineers, the seditious. So again, in Hamlet:

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and lay

"Worse than the mutines in the bilboes."

Our author had probably read the following passages in A Compendious and Most Marvellous History of the Latter Times of the Jewes Common-Weale, &c. Written in Hebrew, by Joseph Ben Gorion,-translated into English, by Peter Morwyn, 1575: "The same yeere the civil warres grew and increased in Jerusalem; for the citizens slew one another without any truce, rest, or quietnesse. -The people were divided into three parties; whereof the first and best followed Anani, the high-priest; another part followed seditious Jehochanan; the third most cruel Schimeon.Anani, being a perfect godly man, and seeing the common-weale of Jerusalem governed by the seditious, gave over his third part, that stacke to him, to Eliasar, his sonne. Eliasar with his companie took the Temple, and the courts about it; appointing of his men, some to bee spyes, some to keepe watche and warde.-But Jehochanan tooke the market-place and streetes, the lower part of the citie. Then Schimeon, the Jerosolimite, tooke the highest part of the towne, wherefore his men annoyed Jehochanan's parte sore with slings and crosse-bowes. Betweene these three there was also most cruel battailes in Jerusalem for the space of four daies.

"Titus' campe was about sixe furlongs from the towne. The

Be friends awhile, and both conjointly bend
Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town:
By east and west let France and England mount
Their battering cannon, charged to the mouths;
Till their soul-fearing clamours have brawl'd down
The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city:

8

I'd play incessantly upon these jades,
Even till unfenced desolation

Leave them as naked as the vulgar air.
That done, dissever your united strengths,
And part your mingled colours once again;
Turn face to face, and bloody point to point;
Then, in a moment, fortune shall cull forth
Out of one side her happy minion ;
To whom in favour she shall give the day,
And kiss him with a glorious victory.

How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?
Smacks it not something of the policy?

K. JOHN. Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads,

I like it well;-France, shall we knit our powers,
And lay this Angiers even with the ground;
Then, after, fight who shall be king of it?

BAST. An if thou hast the mettle of a king,

next morrow they of the towne seeing Titus to be encamped upon the mount Olivet, the captaines of the seditious assembled together, and fell at argument, every man with another, intending to turne their cruelty upon the Romaines, confirming and ratifying the same atonement and purpose, by swearing one to another; and so became peace amongst them. Wherefore joyning together, that before were three severall parts, they set open the gates, and all the best of them issued out with an horrible noyse and shoute, that they made the Romaines afraide withall, in such wise that they fled before the seditious, which sodainly did set uppon them unawares."

This allusion is not found in the old play. MALONE.

7 Be friends a while, &c.] This advice is given by the Bastard in the old copy of the play, though comprized in fewer and less spirited lines. STEEVENS.

8 Till their SOUL-FEARING clamours-] i, e. soul-appalling. See vol. v. p. 34, n. 7. MALONE.

Being wrong'd, as we are, by this peevish town,— Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery,

As we will ours, against these saucy walls:

And when that we have dash'd them to the ground,
Why, then defy each other; and, pell-mell,
Make work upon ourselves, for heaven, or hell.
K. PHI. Let it be so:-Say, where will you
assault?

K. JOHN. We from the west will send destruction

Into this city's bosom.

AUST. I from the north.

K. PHI.

Our thunder from the south,

Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.

BAST. O prudent discipline! From north to

south;

Austria and France shoot in each other's moutho:

I'll stir them to it :-Come, away, away!

[Aside.

1 CIT. Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe a while

to stay,

And I shall show you peace, and fair-faced league;
Win you this city without stroke, or wound;

Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds,
That here come sacrifices for the field:
Perséver not, but hear me, mighty kings.

K. JOHN. Speak on, with favour; we are bent to hear.

1 CIT. That daughter there of Spain, the lady Blanch1,

Is near to England; Look upon the years

9 O prudent discipline! &c.] The poet has made Faulconbridge forget that he had made a similar mistake. See the preceding page:

1

By east and west let France and England mount "Their battering cannon-," TALBOT.

the lady BLANCH,] The lady Blanch was daughter to Alphonso the Ninth, King of Castile, and was niece to King John by his sister Eleanor. STEEVENS.

Of Lewis the Dauphin, and that lovely maid:
If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,
Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch?
If zealous love should go in search of virtue 2,
Where should he find it purer than in Blanch?
If love ambitious sought a match of birth,
Whose veins bound richer blood than lady Blanch?
Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,
Is the young Dauphin every way complete:
If not complete, O say, he is not she;
And she again wants nothing, to name want,
If want it be not, that she is not he :
He is the half part of a blessed man,
Left to be finished by such a she *;
And she a fair divided excellence,
Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.

O, two such silver currents, when they join,

Do glorify the banks that bound them in :

And two such shores to two such streams made

one,

Two such controlling bounds shall you be, kings,
To these two princes, if you marry them.
This union shall do more than battery can,
To our fast-closed gates; for, at this match,
With swifter spleen 5 than powder can enforce,
The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope,
And give you entrance; but, without this match,

2 If ZEALOUS love, &c.] Zealous seems here to signify pious, or influenced by motives of religion. JOHNSON.

3 If not complete, O say,] The old copy reads-“ If not complete of, say," &c. Corrected by Sir T. Hanmer. MALONE. Such A SHE;] The old copy-as she." STEEVENS. Dr. Thirlby prescribed that reading, which I have here restored to the text. THEOBALD.

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With swifter SPLEEN, &c.] Our author uses spleen for any violent hurry, or tumultuous speed. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, he applies spleen to the lightning. I am loath to think that Shakspeare meant to play with the double of match for nuptial, and the match of a gun. JOHNSON.