T

K. JOHN.

HUS I have yielded up into your hand
The circle of my Glory.

Pand. Take again

[Giving the Crown.

From this my hand, as holding of the Pope,

Your fovereign Greatness and Authority.

K. John. Now keep your holy word; go meet the

French,

And from his Holiness use all your power
To stop their Marches, 'fore we are inflam'd.
Our discontented Counties do revolt;
Our people quarrel with obedience;
Swearing allegiance, and the love of soul,
To stranger blood, to foreign Royalty;
This inundation of mistemper'd humour
Rests by you only to be qualify'd.

Then pause not; for the present time's so sick,
That present medicine must be ministred,

Or Overthrow incurable insues.

Pand. It was my breath that blew this tempest up,

Upon your stubborn usage of the Pope :
But fince you are a gentle convertite,

My tongue shall hush again this storm of war;
And make fair weather in your blust'ring Land.

On this Afcenfion-Day, remember well,

Upon your oath of service to the Pope,

Go I to make the French lay down their arms. [Exit.

K. John. Is this Afcenfion-day? did not the Prophet

Say, that before Afcenfion-day at noon

Ii3

My Crown I should give off? even so I have:
I did suppose, it should be on constraint:
But, heav'n be thank'd, it is but voluntary,

Enter Faulconbridge.

Faulc. All Kent hath yielded, nothing there holds out But Dover-Castle: London hath received, Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his Powers. Your Nobles will not hear you, but are gone To offer fervice to your enemy; And wild amazement hurries up and down The little number of your doubtful friends.

K. John. Would not my Lords return to me again, After they heard, young Arthur was alive ?

Faulc. They found him dead, and cast into the streets, An empty casket, where the jewel, life, By fome damn'd hand was robb'd and ta'en away. K. John. That villain Hubert told me, he did live. Faulc. So on my foul he did, for aught he knew: But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad? Be great in act, as you have been in thought: Let not the world fee fear and fad distrust Govern the motion of a kingly eye: Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire; Threaten the threatner, and out-face the brow Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes, That borrow their behaviours from the Great, Grow great by your example; and put on The dauntless spirit of resolution. Away, and glifter like the God of war, When he intendeth to become the field; Shew boldness and afpiring confidence. What, shall they feek the Lion in his den, And fright him there? and make him tremble there?

Oh, let it not be faid! Forage, and run +

4

- Forage, and run] To forage is here used in its ori-.

ginal sense, for to range abroad.

To

To meet displeasure farther from the doors;
And grapple with him, ere he come so nigh.

K John. The legate of the Pope hath been with me,
And I have made a happy peace with him;
And he hath promis'd to dismiss the Powers
Led by the Dauphin.

Faulc. Oh inglorious league!
Shall we, upon the footing of our Land,
Send fair play-orders, and make compromife,
Infinuation, parley, and base truce,
To arms invasive? shall a beardless boy,
A cocker'd, filken, Wanton brave our fields,
And flesh his spirit in a warlike foil,
Mocking the air with Colours idly spread',
And find no check? let us, my Liege, to arms :
Perchance, the Cardinal can't make your peace;
Or if he do, let it at least be said,

They saw, we had a purpose of defence.

K. John. Have thou the ord'ring of this present time.
Faulc. Away then, with good courage; yet, I know,

Our Party may well meet a prouder foe.

5 Mocking the air with colours] He has the same image in Macbeth.

Where the Norwegian colours
flout the sky,

And fan our people cold.
• Away then, with good cou-
rage! yet, I know,

[Exeunt.

Our party may well meet a

prouder foe.] Let us then away with courage; yet I so well know the faintness of our party, that I think it may easily happen that they shall encounter enemies who have more spirit than themSelves.

SCENE II.

Changes to the Dauphin's Camp, at St. Edmondsbury

Enter, in arms, Lewis, Salisbury, Melun, Pembroke,

Lewis.

Bigot, and Soldiers.

2.

Y Lord Melun, let this be copied out,

Mand keep

it fafe for our remembrance:

Return the precedent to these Lords again,

That having our fair order written down,
Both they and we, perufing o'er these notes,
May know wherefore we took the Sacrament;
And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.

Sal. Upon our fides it never shall be broken.
And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear
A voluntary zeal and un urg'd faith
To your proceedings; yet believe me, Prince,
I am not glad that fuch a Sore of time
Should feek a plaister by contemn'd revolt;
And heal th' inveterate canker of one wound,
By making many. Oh, it grieves my foul,
That I must draw this metal from my fide
To be be a widow-maker: oh, and there,
Where honourable rescue, and defence,
Cries out upon the name of Salisbury.
But such is the infection of the time,

7-at St. Edmondsbury.) I have ventur'd to fix the Place of the Scene here, which is specified by none of the Editors, on the fol'owing Authorities. In the preceding Act, where Salisbury has fixed to go over to the Dauthin, he says;

1

Lords, I will meet him at. St.
Edmondsbury.
And Count Melun, in this laft
Act, fays

1

Upon the Altar at St. Edmondf

bury;

A

:

Even on that Altar, where weς fwore to you Dear Amity, andeverlasting Love. And it appears likewife from the Troubl fome Reign of King John, in two parts (the first rough Model of this play) that the Interchange of Vows betwixt the Dau phin and the English Barons wass at St. Edmondsbury. THEOBALD.

That,

That, for the health and physick of our Right,
We cannot deal but with the very hand
Of stern injustice, and confused wrong.
And is't not pity, oh my grieved friends!
That we, the fons and children of this Ifle,
Were born to fee so sad an hour as this,
Wherein we step after a stranger March
Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up
Her enemies ranks? I must withdraw and weep
Upon the Spot of this enforced cause
To grace the gentry of a land remote,
And follow unacquainted Colours here?
What, here?- O nation, that thou couldst remove!
That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about,
Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself,
And grapple thee unto a Pagan shore!
Where these two christian armies might combine
The blood of malice in a vein of league,
And not to spend it so un-neighbourly.

1

Lewis. A noble temper doft thou shew in this;
And great affection, wrestling in thy bosom,
Doth make an earthquake of Nobility.
Oh, what a noble combat haft thou fought,
Between compulfion, and a brave respect $!
Let me wipe off this honourable dew,
That filverly doth progress on thy cheeks.
My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,
Being an ordinary inundation :
But this effusion of such manly drops,
This show'r, blown up by tempeft of the foul,
Startles mines eyes, and makes me more amaz'd,
Than had I seen the vaulty top of heav'n

Between compulfion, and a brave respect! This compulfion was the necessity of a reformation in the state; which, according to Salisbury's opinion, (who, in his speech preceding,

calls it an enforced cause) could only be procured by foreignarms: And the brave respect was the love of his country. Yet the Oxford Editor, for compulsion, reads compaffion. WARBURTON. Figur'd