KING JOHN. ACT I. SCENE I. Northampton. A room of ftate in the palace. Enter king John, queen Elinor, Pembroke, Effex, and Salisbury, with Chatillion. King JOHN. W, fay, Chatillion, what would France with us? Now, Chat. Thus, after greeting, fpeaks the king of France, 2 In my behaviour, to the majefty, The borrow'd majefty of England here. Eli. The troublefome reign of king John was written in two parts, by W. Shakespeare and W. Rowley, and printed 1611. But the prefent play is intirely different, and infinitely superior to it. POPE. The edition of 1611 has no mention of Rowley, nor in the account of Rowley's works is any mention made of his conjunction with Shakespeare in any play. King John was reprinted in two parts in 1622. The first edition that I have found of this play in its prefent form, is that of 1623, in fol. The edition of 1591 I have not feen. JOHNSON. Hall, Holinfhead, Stowe, &c. are closely followed not only in the conduct, but fometimes in the expreffions throughout the following hiftorical dramas; viz. Macbeth, this play, Richard II. Henry IV. 2 parts, Henry V. Henry VI. 3 parts, Richard III. and Henry VIII. STEEVENS. The Life and Death] Though this play hath this title, yet the action of it begins at the thirty-fourth year of his life; and takes in only fome tranfactions of his reign at the time of his demife, being an interval of about seventeen years. THEOBALD. 2 In my behaviour, -] The word behaviour feems here to have a fignification that I have never found in any other author Eli. A ftrange beginning!-borrow'd majefty! Arthur Plantagenet, lays moft lawful claim To Ireland, Poitiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine; Which fways ufurpingly these several titles; K. John. What follows, if we difallow of this? war, To inforce these rights fo forcibly with-held. K. John. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood, Controulment for controulment; fo answer France. Chat. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth, The farthest limit of my embaffy. K. John. Bear mine to him, and fo depart in peace. 4 Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France; For ere thou canst report, I will be there, The thunder of my cannon fhall be heard. So, hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath, And 5 fullen prefage of your own decay.— An The king of France, fays the envoy, thus fpeaks in my behaviour to the majesty of England; that is, the king of France speaks in the character which I here affume. I once thought that these two lines, in my behaviour, &c. had been uttered by the ambaffador as part of his mafter's meffage, and that behaviour had meant the conduct of the king of France towards the king of England; but the ambaffador's speech, as continued after the interruption, will not admit this meaning. JOHNSON. 3-controul-] Oppofition, from controller. JOHNSON. Be thou as lightning-] The fimile does not fuit well: the lightning indeed appears before the thunder is heard, but the lightning is deftructive, and the thunder innocent. JOHNSON. 5 —Sullen prefage-] By the epithet fullen, which cannot be ap plied An honourable conduct let him have, [Exeunt Chat. and Pem. This might have been prevented, and made whole Which now the manage of two kingdoms must K. John. Our strong poffeffion, and our right for us. Eli. Your strong poffeffion much more than your right; Or else it must go wrong with you and me: Effex. My liege, here is the ftrangest controversy, K. John. Let them approach.— This expedition's charge- [Exit fheriff. Re-enter fheriff with Robert Faulconbridge, and Philip, his brother 7. What men are you? Phil. plied to a trumpet, it is plain, that our author's imagination. had now fuggefted a new idea. It is as if he had faid, be a trumpet to alarm with our invafion, be a bird of ill omen to croak out the prognoftick of your own ruin. JOHNSON. Enter the feriff of Northamptonshire, &c.] This ftage-direction I have taken from the old quarto. STEEVENS. and Philip, his brother.] Though Shakespeare adopted this character of Philip Faulconbridge from the old play, it is Phil. Your faithful fubject, I, a gentleman Rob. The fon and heir to that fame Faulconbridge. K. John. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir; You came not of one mother then, it seems? Phil. Moft certain of one mother, mighty king, Eli. Out on thee, rude man! thou doft fhame thy mother, And wound her honour with this diffidence. Phil. I, madam? no, I have no reason for it; That is my brother's plea, and none of mine; The which if he can prove, he pops me out At least from fair five hundred pound a year: Heaven guard my mother's honour, and my land! K. John. A good blunt fellow: why, being younger born, Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance? Phil. I know not why, except to get the land. But whether I be as true begot, or no, not improper to mention that it is compounded of two distinct perfonages. Matthew Paris fays" Sub illius temporis curriculo, Fal"cafius de Brente, Neuferienfis, et fpurius ex parte matris, at"que Baftardus, qui in vili jumento manticato ad Regis paulo ante clientelam defcenderat," &c. Matt. Paris, in his Hiftory of the Monks of St. Albans, calls him Falco, but in his general History Falcafius de Brente, as above. Holinfhead fays, that Richard I. had a natural fon named Philip, who in the year following killed the vifccunt De Limoges to revenge the death of his father. STEEVENS. But But that I am as well begot, my liege, And were our father, and this fon like him; I give heaven thanks, I was not like to thee. K. John. Why, what a mad-cap hath heaven lent us here? Eli. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face 8, K. John. Mine eye hath well examined his parts, Rob. He bath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face,] The trick or tricking is the fame as the tracing of a drawing, meaning that peculiarity of face which may be fufficiently fhewn by the flightelt outline. This expreffion is used by Heywood and Rowley in their comedy called Fortune by Land and Sea." Her face the trick of her eye, her leer." The following paffages may more evidently prove the expreffion to be borrowed from delineation. Ben Jonfon's Every Man out of his Humour, -You can blazon the reft, Signior? "O ay, I have it in writing here o' purpofe, it coft me two "fhillings the tricking." So again in Cynthia's Revels. "the parish-buckets with his name at length trick'd upon them." STEEVENS. With half that face-] But why with half that face? There is no question but the poet wrote, as I have reitored the text, With that half-face-Mr. Pope, perhaps, will be angry with me for discovering an anachronism of our poet's in the next line; where he alludes to a coin not ftruck till the year 1504, in the reign of king Henry VII. viz. a groat, which, as well as the half groat, bare but half faces impreffed. Vide Stow's Survey of London, p. 47. Holling fhed, Camden's Remains, &c. The poet fneers at the meagre sharp vifage of the elder brother, by comparing him to a filver groat, that bore the king's face in A 4 profile, |