An 'a may catch your hide and you alone :
You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,
Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard:
I'll smoke your skin-coat, an I catch you right;
Sirrah, look to't; i' faith, I will, i' faith.

Blanch. O, well did he become that lion's robe
That did disrobe the lion of that robe !

Bast. It lies as sightly on the back of him
As great Alcides' shows (20) upon an ass :-
But, ass, I'll take that burden from your back,
Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.
Aust. What cracker is this same that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath ?—
King Philip, determine what we shall do straight.

K. Phi. Women and fools, break off your conference.—(21)

(20) shows] The folio has "shooes."-Corrected by Theobald.— “The Var. argument [in defence of the old reading] amounts to this:-Some inferior writers have made an allusion with propriety; therefore we are warranted in believing that one infinitely their superíor made the same allusion ridiculously." W. N. LETTSOM.

(21)

Aust. What cracker is this same that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath ?—
King Philip, determine what we shall do straight.

K. Phi. Women and fools, break off your conference.—|

The folio has

"Aust. What cracker is this same that deafes our eares With this abundance of superfluous breath?

King Lewis, determine what we shall doe strait.

Lew. Women & fooles, breake off your conference : "

and Walker (Shakespeare's Versification, &c., p. 4), after remarking that in our poet "Lewis [Louis] is always a monosyllable," declares that Mr. Knight has here" properly restored" the reading of the folio,-the punctuation altered to "King,-Lewis,-determine," &c. But, since Walker wrote, Mr. Knight has agreed with other more recent editors that the word "King" is the prefix to the third line; and with that distribution of the speeches I allowed the passage to stand in my former edition ;

"Aust. What cracker is this same that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath?

K. Phi. Louis, determine what we shall do straight.
Lou. Women and fools, break off your conference.-

But I now feel convinced that the alteration (Theobald's) which I have adopted in my present edition is the right one. If the line,

"King Philip, determine what we shall do straight,"

King John, this is the very sum of all,—
England and Ireland, Anjou,(22) Touraine, Maine,
In right of Arthur do I claim of thee:

Wilt thou resign them, and lay down thy arms?

K. John. My life as soon:-I do defy thee, France.Arthur of Bretagne, yield thee to my hand;

And, out of my dear love, I'll give thee more

Than e'er the coward hand of France can win:
Submit thee, boy.

Eli.

Come to thy grandam, child.

Const. Do, child, go to it' grandam, child; (23) Give grandam kingdom, and it' grandam will Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig:

There's a good grandam.

Arth.

Good my mother, peace!

I would that I were low laid in my grave:
I am not worth this coil that's made for me.

Eli. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.
Const. Now shame upon you, whêr she does or no!
His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's shames,
Draw those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,
Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee;
Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be brib'd
To do him justice, and revenge on you.

Eli. Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!
Const. Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth!
Call not me slanderer; thou and thine usurp

be objected to as having a redundant syllable, it must be remembered that our early dramatists do not always adhere strictly to the laws of metre when proper names are introduced; see note 2 on The Second Part of King Henry VI. And compare the form of address which Austria uses to the same monarch in the next act, pp. 40, 41.

22

66

King Philip, listen to the cardinal."

"Do so, King Philip; hang no more in doubt."

Anjou,] The folio has "Angiers."

(23) Do, child, go to it' grandam, child; &c.] Capell printed "Do, go, child, go; go to its grandame, child," &c.-Mr. W. N. Lettsom suggests, "Do, child, go, child, go to it grandam, child," &c.; and I fully agree with him when he says (note on Walker's Crit. Exam., &c., vol. iii. p. 118) that "Constance here is evidently mimicking the imperfect babble of the nursery."

The dominations, royalties, and rights

Of this oppressed boy: this is (24) thy eld'st son's son,

Infortunate in nothing but in thee:

Thy sins are visited in this poor child;

The canon of the law is laid on him,
Being but the second generation
Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb.
K. John. Bedlam, have done.
Const.

I have but this to say,

That he's (25) not only plagued for her sin,
But God hath made her sin and her the plague
On this removèd issue, plagu'd for her,

And with her plagu'd; (26) her sin his injury,
Her injury the beadle to her sin;

All punish'd in the person of this child,
And all for her; a plague upon her! (27)

Eli. Thou unadvisèd scold, I can produce

A will that bars the title of thy son.

Const. Ay, who doubts that? a will! a wicked will;

A woman's will; a canker'd grandam's will!

K. Phi. Peace, lady! pause, or be more temperate

It ill beseems this presence to cry aim

To these ill-tunèd repetitions.

Some trumpet summon hither to the walls

These men of Angiers: let us hear them speak,
Whose title they admit, Arthur's or John's.

Trumpet sounds. Enter Citizens upon the walls.

First Cit. Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls? K. Phi. "Tis France, for England.

K. John.

England, for itself:

You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects,

(24) this is] An interpolation?-Dr. Guest takes a very different view of the metre here: see his Hist. of English Rhythms, vol. i. pp. 87, 264.

(25) he's] Mr. W. N. Lettsom would read "she's."

(26) playu'd;] Roderick's correction.-The folio has "plague." (27) And all for her; a plague upon her !] Mr. W. N. Lettsom (note on Walker's Crit. Exam., &c., vol. iii. p. 119) conjectures " And all for her, and by her; a plague upon her!"

K. Phi. You loving men of Angiers, Arthur's subjects, Our trumpet call'd you to this gentle parle,

K. John. For our advantage; therefore hear us first.
These flags of France, that are advanced here
Before the eye and prospect of your town,
Have hither march'd to your endamagement:
The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,
And ready mounted are they to spit forth
Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls:
All preparation for a bloody siege

And merciless proceeding by these French
Confront your city's eyes,(28) your winking gates;
And, but for our approach, those sleeping stones,
That as a waist do girdle you about,

By the compulsion of their ordnance (29)
By this time from their fixèd beds of lime
Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made
For bloody power to rush upon your peace.
But, on the sight of us, your lawful king,—
Who painfully, with much expedient march,
Have brought a countercheck before your gates,
To save unscratch'd your city's threaten'd cheeks,—
Behold, the French, amaz'd, vouchsafe a parle;
And now, instead of bullets wrapp'd in fire,

To make a shaking fever in your walls,

They shoot but calm words, folded up in smoke,
To make a faithless error in your ears:

Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,

And let us in, your king; whose labour'd spirits,
Forwearied in this action of swift speed,

Crave harbourage within your city-walls.

K. Phi. When I have said, make answer to us both.

Lo, in this right hand, whose protection

Is most divinely vow'd upon the right

(28) All preparation for a bloody siege
And merciless proceeding by these French
Confront your city's eyes,]

The folio has "Comfort yours Citties eies."-Corrected by Rowe.
(29) ordnance] To be pronounced here (as spelt in the folio) “ordinance.”

Of him it holds, stands young Plantagenet,
Son to the elder brother of this man,

And king o'er him, and all that he enjoys:
For this down-trodden equity, we tread

In warlike march these greens before your town
Being no further enemy to you

Than the constraint of hospitable zeal
In the relief of this oppressèd child
Religiously provokes. Be pleased, then,
To pay that duty which you truly owe

To him that owes it, namely, this young prince :
And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear,
Save in aspéct, have all offence seal'd up;
Our cannons' malice vainly shall be spent
Against th' invulnerable clouds of heaven;
And with a blessed and unvex'd retire,
With unhack'd swords and helmets all unbruis'd,
We will bear home that lusty blood again,
Which here we came to spout against your town,
And leave your children, wives, and you in peace.
But if you fondly pass our proffer'd offer,(30)
'Tis not the rondure (31) of your old-fac'd walls
Can hide you from our messengers of war,
Though all these English, and their discipline,
Were harbour'd in their rude circumference.
Then, tell us, shall your city call us lord,
In that behalf which we have challeng'd it?

(30) But if you fondly pass our proffer'd offer,] "The bad English ('proffer'd offer'), the cacophony, common in this play, prove that 'proffer'd.' Read, I think, 'love.'

and the two-syllable ending, so unoffer' is a corruption originating in Compare 1 Henry VI. iv. 2;

'But, if you frown upon this proffer'd peace,' &c.;

and just below;

'If you forsake the offer of our love.'”

Walker's Crit. Exam., &c., vol. i. p. 290.

(31) rondure] Here the spelling of the folio is "rounder:" but in our author's 21st Sonnet we have

"and all things rare That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.”

(Fr. rondeur.)