And fought the holy wars in Palestine,

By this brave duke came early to his grave:
And, for amends to his posterity,

At our importance hither is he come,

To spread his colours, boy, in thy behalf;
And to rebuke the usurpation

Of thy unnatural uncle, English John:
Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither.

Arth. God shall forgive you Coeur-de-lion's death
The rather that you give his offspring life,
Shadowing their right under your wings of war:
I give you welcome with a powerless hand,
But with a heart full of unstainèd love : (13)
Welcome before the gates of Angiers, duke.

should belong [to King Philip]. Again, after a few words from Arthur to the Duke, Louis patronisingly commends him as

'A noble boy! who would not do thee right?'

Yet we know that these young princes were about the same age, and had been educated together. This blind adherence to the prefixes of the folio (elsewhere admittedly most inaccurate) appears to have arisen from Shakespeare having crowded into this drama the events of several years. In the later acts Louis plays a conspicuous part, and heads the invasion of England; but at the period in question he was a mere youth, and was evidently so considered by the dramatist. If we read the whole of this scene carefully, we can hardly fail to perceive that Louis is not intended to speak until called upon to express his sentiments with regard to marrying the Lady Blanch. When King John proposes the marriage to King Philip, the latter addresses his son by

'What say'st thou, boy? look in the lady's face ;'

and King John afterwards asks, 'What say these young ones?' How, consistently with real or dramatic decorum, could 'a beardless boy,' 'a cockered silken wanton,' as Louis is described by Philip Falconbridge, be the first to welcome the Duke of Austria before Angiers, and this in the presence of his father, the King of France? The first speech given to King Philip in the received text commences with 'Well, then, to work,' &c., and implies that he had previously spoken. With a few unimportant exceptions, Shakespeare invariably makes his monarchs and great personages open and conclude the dialogue, whenever they appear. This further exception in 'King John' would be a strange and most suspicious instance of the reverse. I may add, too, that in the old play -The Troublesome Raigne of King John of England'-upon which Shakespeare founded his drama, the corresponding speech is assigned, and with undeniable propriety, to King Philip."

(13) But with a heart full of unstained love:] Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector reads ". unstrained love; "-against which very plausible alteration Mr. Knight (Spec. of the Stratford Shakspere, p. 2) has adduced

K. Phi. A noble boy! Who would not do thee right?
Aust. Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss,
As seal to this indenture of my love;-
That to my home I will no more return,
Till Angiers, and the right thou hast in France,
Together with that pale, that white-fac'd shore,
Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides,
And coops from other lands her islanders,-
Even till that England, hedg'd-in with the main,
That water-walled bulwark, still secure
And confident from foreign purposes,-
Even till that utmost corner of the west
Salute thee for her king: till then, fair boy,
Will I not think of home, but follow arms.

Const. O, take his mother's thanks, a widow's thanks,
Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength
To make a more requital to your love.

Aust. The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords In such a just and charitable war.

K. Phi. Well, then, to work: our cannon shall be bent
Against the brows of this resisting town.-
Call for our chiefest men of discipline,
To cull the plots of best advantages:
We'll lay before this town our royal bones,
Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen's blood,
But we will make it subject to this boy.

Const. Stay for an answer to your embassy,
Lest unadvis'd you stain your swords with blood:
My Lord Chatillon may from England bring
That right in peace, which here we urge in war;
And then we shall repent each drop of blood

That hot rash haste so indirectly shed.(15)

from Pericles, act i. sc. 1, "my unspotted fire of love." Compare, too, a passage towards the close of the present play, p. 96.

"And the like tender of our love we make,

To rest without a spot for evermore."

(14) K. Phi.] The folio has "Lewis."

(15) so indirectly shed] Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector reads "So indiscreetly shed;" on which an anonymous critic writes as follows: "In

K. Phi. A wonder, lady,-lo, upon thy wish, Our messenger Chatillon is arriv'd.

Enter CHATILLON.

What England says, say briefly, gentle lord;
We coldly pause for thee; Chatillon, speak.

Chat. Then turn your forces from this paltry siege,
And stir them up against a mightier task.
England, impatient of your just demands,
Hath put himself in arms: the adverse winds,
Whose leisure I have stay'd, have given him time
To land his legions all as soon as I;
His marches are expedient to this town,
His forces strong, his soldiers confident.
With him along is come the mother-queen,
An Até,(16) stirring him to blood and strife;
With her her niece, the Lady Blanch of Spain;
With them a bastard of the king's deceas'd:
And all th' unsettled humours of the land,-
Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,
With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens,—
Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,
Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,

directly' is Shakespeare's word. The Ms. Corrector suggests 'indiscreetly' -a most unhappy substitution, which we are surprised that the generally judicious Mr. Singer should approve of. Indiscreetly' means imprudently, inconsiderately. Indirectly' means wrongfully, iniquitously, as may be learnt from these lines in King Henry V., where the French king is denounced as a usurper, and is told that Henry

'bids you, then, resign

Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
From him the native and true challenger.'

It was certainly the purpose of Constance to condemn the rash shedding
of blood as something worse than indiscreet as criminal and unjust-
and this she did by employing the term 'indirectly' in the Shakespearean
sense of that word." Blackwood's Magazine for Sept. 1853, p. 304-
According to Mr. Grant White, "so indirectly" means so from the
purpose, so extravagantly, and therefore wantonly.”—Mr. W. N. Lettsom
says; "Read indiscreetly' with Collier's Corrector. Staunton would
have it that indirectly" may mean 'wrongfully;' but wrongfully'
would make much worse sense here than 'indiscreetly.""
(16) Até,] The folio has "Ace."

To make a hazard of new fortunes here:
In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits,
Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er,
Did never float upon the swelling tide,

[Drums within.

To do offence and scathe in Christendom.
The interruption of their churlish drums
Cuts off more circumstance: they are at hand,
To parley or to fight; therefore prepare.

K. Phi. How much unlook'd for is this expedition!
Aust. By how much unexpected, by so much
We must awake endeavour for defence;

For courage mounteth with occasion:

Let them be welcome, then; we are prepar'd.

Enter King JOHN, ELINOR, BLANCH, the Bastard, Lords, and

Forces.

K. John. Peace be to France, if France in peace permit

Our just and lineal entrance to our own!

If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to heaven!
Whiles we, God's wrathful agent, do correct

Their proud contempt that beat his peace to heaven.
K. Phi. Peace be to England, if that war return
From France to England, there to live in peace!
England we love; and for that England's sake
With burden of our armour here we sweat.
This toil of ours should be a work of thine;
But thou from loving England art so far,
That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king,
Cut off the sequence of posterity,

Out-faced infant state, and done a rape

Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.

Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face ;-
These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his :

This little abstract doth contain that large
Which died in Geffrey; and the hand of time
Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume.
That Geffrey was thy elder brother born,
And this his son; England was Geffrey's right,

VOL. IV.

And his is Geffrey's :07) in the name of God,
How comes it, then, that thou art call'd a king,
When living blood doth in these temples beat,
Which owe the crown that thou o'ermasterest?

K. John. From whom hast thou this great commission, France,

To draw my answer from (18) thy articles?

K. Phi. From that supernal judge that stirs good thoughts In any breast (19) of strong authority,

To look into the blots and stains of right.

That judge hath made me guardian to this boy :
Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong;

And by whose help I mean to chastise it.
K. John. Alack, thou dost usurp authority.
K. Phi. Excuse, it is to beat usurping down.
Eli. Who is it thou dost call usurper, France ?
Const. Let me make answer;-thy usurping son.
Eli. Out, insolent! thy bastard shall be king.
That thou mayst be a queen, and check the world!
Const. My bed was ever to thy son as true
As thine was to thy husband; and this boy
Liker in feature to his father Geffrey

Than thou and John in manners,-being as like
As rain to water, or devil to his dam.

My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think
His father never was so true begot:

It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.

Eli. There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father. Const. There's a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee. Aust. Peace!

Bast.

Aust.

Hear the crier.

What the devil art thou?

Bast. One that will play the devil, sir, with you,

(17) And his is Geffrey's] ie. whatever was Geffrey's is now his (Arthur's). So Mason. The folio has "And this is Geffreyes," the transcriber or compositor having by mistake repeated the "this" which stands immediately above.

(18) from] Altered by Hanmer to "to,"-rightly perhaps, as "from" may have been caught from the preceding line. (19) breast] The folio has "beast."