PEMB. Then I, (as one that am the tongue of
thefe,

To found the purposes of all their hearts,)
Both for myself and them, (but, chief of all,
Your fafety, for the which myself and them
Bend their beft ftudies,) heartily request
The enfranchisement of Arthur; whofe restraint
Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent
To break into this dangerous argument,-
If, what in reft you have, in right you hold,
Why then your fears, (which, as they fay, attend
The steps of wrong,) fhould move you to mew up
Your tender kinfman," and to choke his days
With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth

To found the purposes-] To declare, to publish the defires of all thofe. JOHNSON.

6 If, what in reft you have, in right you bold, Why then your fears, (which, as they fay, attend The fteps of wrong,) fhould move you to mew up Your tender kinfman, &c.] Perhaps we should read: If, what in wreft you have, in right you hold,———— i. e. if what you possess by an act of seizure or violence, &c. So again, in this play:

The imminent decay of wrefted pomp."

Wreft is a fubftantive used by Spenser, and by our author in Troilus and Creffida. STEEVENS.

The emendation propofed by Mr. Steevens is its own voucher. If then and should change places, and a mark of interrogation be placed after exercife, the full fenfe of the paffage will be reftored. HENLEY.

Mr. Steevens's reading of wreft is better than his explanation. If adopted, the meaning muft be-If what you poffefs, or have in your hand, or grafp. RITSON.

It is evident that the words should and then, have changed their places. M. MASON.

The conftruction is-If you have a good title to what you now quietly poffefs, why then should your fears move you, &c. MALONE. Perhaps this question is elliptically expreffed, and means

66

Why then is it that your fears fhould move you,” &c.

STEEVENS.

The rich advantage of good exercife?"
That the time's enemies may not have this
To grace occafions, let it be our fuit,
That you have bid us afk his liberty;
Which for our goods we do no further afk,
Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,
Counts it your weal, he have his liberty.

To

K. JOHN. Let it be fo; I do commit his youth

Enter HUBERT.

your direction.-Hubert, what news with you? PEMB. This is the man fhould do the bloody

deed;

He fhow'd his warrant to a friend of mine:

The image of a wicked heinous fault

Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his
Does fhow the mood of a much-troubled breast;
And I do fearfully believe, 'tis done,

What we so fear'd he had a charge to do.

SAL. The colour of the king doth come and go, Between his purpose and his conscience,

7 good exercife?] In the middle ages the whole education of princes and noble youths confifted in martial exercises, &c. Thefe could not be easily had in a prifon, where mental improvements might have been afforded as well as any where else; but this fort of education never entered into the thoughts of our active, warlike, but illiterate nobility. PERCY.

8 Between his purpofe and his confcience,] Between his consciousRefs of guilt, and his defign to conceal it by fair profeffions.

JOHNSON.

The purpofe of the King, which Salisbury alludes to, is that of putting Arthur to death, which he confiders as not yet accomplished, and therefore fuppofes that there might still be a conflict in the King's mind,

"Between his purpose and his confcience."

9

Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles fet: "
His paffion is fo ripe, it needs must break.
PEMB. And, when it breaks, I fear, will iffue
thence

The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.
K. JOHN. We cannot hold mortality's ftrong
hand :-

Good lords, although my will to give is living,
The fuit which you demand is gone and dead:
He tells us, Arthur is deceas'd to-night.

SAL. Indeed, we fear'd, his fickness was paft cure. PEMB. Indeed, we heard how near his death he was,

Before the child himself felt he was fick :
This must be anfwer'd, either here, or hence.
K. JOHN. Why do you bend fuch folemn brows
on me?

So when Salisbury fees the dead body of Arthur, he fays, "It is the fhameful work of Hubert's hand;

"The practife and the purpose of the king." M. MASON. Rather, between the criminal act that he planned and commanded to be executed, and the reproaches of his confcience confequent on the execution of it. So, in Coriolanus:

"It is a purpos'd thing, and grows by plot."

We have nearly the fame expreffions afterwards:"

"Nay, in the body of this fleshly land, [in John's own perfon]

"Hoftility, and civil tumult, reigns

"Between my confcience and my confin's death." MALONE. 9 Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles fet:] But heralds are not planted, I prefume, in the midft betwixt two lines of battle; though they, and trumpets, are often fent over from party to party, to propofe terms, demand a parley, &c. I have therefore ventured to read, fent. THEOBALD.

Set is not fixed, but only placed; heralds must be set between battles, in order to be fent between them. JOHNSON.

2 And, when it breaks,] This is but an indelicate metaphor, taken from an impofthumated tumour. JOHNSON,

Think you, I bear the shears of destiny?
Have I commandment on the pulfe of life?
SAL. It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis fhame,
That greatness should fo grofsly offer it :-
So thrive it in your game! and so farewell.

PEMB. Stay yet, lord Salisbury; I'll go with
thee,

And find the inheritance of this poor child,
His little kingdom of a forced grave.

That blood, which ow'd the breadth of all this ifle,
Three foot of it doth hold; Bad world the while!
This must not be thus borne: this will break out
To all our forrows, and ere long, I doubt.

[Exeunt Lords.

K. JOHN. They burn in indignation; I repent; There is no fure foundation fet on blood;

No certain life achiev'd by others' death.

Enter a Meffenger.

A fearful eye thou haft; Where is that blood,
That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?

So foul a fky clears not without a storm:

Pour down thy weather:-How goes all in France? MESS. From France to England.3-Never such a power

For any foreign preparation,

Was levied in the body of a land!

The copy of your fpeed is learn'd by them;
For, when you fhould be told they do prepare,
The tidings come, that they are all arriv'd.

3 From France to England.] The king afks how all goes in France, the meffenger catches the word goes, and anfwers, that whatever is in France goes now into England. JOHNSON.

K. JOHN. O, where hath our intelligence been

drunk?

Where hath it flept? Where is my mother's

care?

That fuch an army could be drawn in France,
And she not hear of it?

MESS.

My liege, her ear

Is stopp'd with duft; the first of April, died
Your noble mother: And, as I hear, my lord,
The lady Conftance in a frenzy died

Three days before: but this from rumour's tongue
I idly heard; if true, or falfe, I know not.

K. JOHN. Withhold thy fpeed, dreadful occafion!

O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd
My discontented peers!-What! mother dead?
How wildly then walks my estate in France! *——
Under whofe conduct came those powers of France,
That thou for truth giv'ft out, are landed here?
MESS. Under the Dauphin.

40, where hath our intelligence been drunk ?

Where hath it flept?] So, in Macbeth:

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Was the hope drunk

"Wherein you dreft yourself? hath it fept fince?"

STEEVENS.

5 How wildly then walks my eftate in France!] So, in one of the Pafton Letters, Vol. III. p. 99: "The country of Norfolk and Suffolk stand right wildly." STEEVENS.

move.

i. e. How ill my affairs go in France!-The verb, to walk, is ufed with great licenfe by old writers. It often means to go; to So, in the Continuation of Harding's Chronicle, 1543: "Evil words walke far." Again, in Fenner's Compter's Commonwealth, 1618: "The keeper, admiring he could not hear his prifoner's tongue walk all this while," &c. MALONE.