Poffefs'd with rumours, full of idle dreams ;
Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear :
And here's a prophet,3 that I brought with me
From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found
With many hundreds treading on his heels;
To whom he fung, in rude harfh-founding rhymes,
That, ere the next Afcenfion-day at noon,
Your highness should deliver up your crown.

K. John. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou fo?
Peter. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out fo.
K. John. Hubert, away with him; imprifon him;
And on that day at noon, whereon, he says,

I fhall yield up my crown, let him be hang'd:
Deliver him to fafety,+ and return,

For I muft ufe thee.-O my gentle coufin,

[Exit HUBERT, with Peter.

Hear'ft thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd?

Baft. The French, my lord; men's mouths are full of it:
Befides, I met lord Bigot, and lord Salisbury,
(With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,)
And others more, going to feek the grave
Of Arthur, who, they fay, is kill'd to-night
On your fuggeftion.

K. John.
Gentle kinfman, go,
And thruft thyfelf into their companies:
I have a way to win their loves again;

Bring them before me.

Bat.

I will feek them out.

K. John. Nay, but make hafte; the better foot before.O, let me have no fubject enemies,

When adverfe foreigners affright my towns
With dreadful pomp of ftout invafion!-
Be Mercury, fet feathers to thy heels;

And

3 This man was a hermit in great repute with the common people. Notwithstanding the event is faid to have fallen out as he had prophefied, the poor fellow was inhumanly dragged at horfes' tails through the streets of Warham, and together with his fon, who appears to have been even more innocent than his father, hanged afterwards upon a gibbet. See Holinshed's Chronicle, under the year 1213. DOUCE.

That is, Give him into fafe cuftody. JOHNSON

& Either "Subjects enemies" or "Subject onmy

And fly, like thought, from them to me again.

Baft. The fpirit of the time fhall teach me fpeed. [Exit.
K. John. Spoke like a fpriteful noble gentleman.-
Go after him; for he, perhaps, shall need

Some meffenger betwixt me and the peers;

And be thou he.

Hub. My lord, they fay, five moons were seen to-night : 5 Four fixed: and the fifth did whirl about

The other four in wond'rous motion.

K. John. Five moons?

Hub.

ftreets

Old men, and beldams, in the

Do prophecy upon it dangerously:

Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths:
And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,
And whisper one another in the ear;

And he, that speaks, doth gripe the hearer's wrift;
Whilft he, that hears, makes fearful action,
With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.
I faw a fmith ftand with his hammer, thus,
The whilft his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth fwallowing a tailor's news;
Who, with his fhears and measure in his hand,
Standing on flippers, (which his nimble hafte
Had falfely thrust upon contráry feet,) 6

Told

5 This incident is mentioned by few of our hiftorians: I have met with it no where but in Mattkew of Westminster and Polydore Virgil, with a fmall alteration. Thefe kind of appearances were more common about that time than either before or fince. GREY.

This incident is likewife mentioned in the old King John. STEEVENS.

I know not how the commentators understand this important paffage, which in Dr. Warburton's edition is marked as eminently beautiful, and, on the whole, not without justice. But Shakspeare feems to have confounded the man's fhoes with his gloves. He that is frighted or hurried may put his hand into the wrong glove, but either fhoe will equally admit either foot. The author feems difturbed by the diforder which he deferibes. JOHNSON. Had Johnson witnessed the Late fistion of making the shoes to fit Dr. night & lift trespectonely his Exception

not have been made. It. 1819

Told of a many thousand warlike French,
That were embatteled and rank'd in Kent :
Another lean unwash'd artificer

Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.

K. John. Why feek'st thou to poffefs me with these fears?
Why urgeft thou fo oft young Arthur's death?

Thy hand hath murder'd him: I had mighty caufe
To with him dead, but thou hadft none to kill him.

Hub. Had none, my lord! why, did you not provoke

me?

K. John.

Dr. Johnson forgets that ancient flippers might poffibly be very different from modern ones. Scott in his Discoverie of Witchcraft tells us: "He that receiveth a mischance, will confider, whether he put not on his fhirt the wrong fide outwards, or his left fhoe on his right foot." One of the jefts of Scogan, by Andrew Borde, is how he defrauded two fhoemakers, one of a right foot boot, and the other of a left foot one. And Davies in one of his epigrams, compares a man to "a foft-knit bose that ferves each leg." FARMER.

-This fellow is

In The Fleire, 1615, is the following paffage: " like your upright fhoe, he will ferve either foot." From this we may infer that fome fhoes could only be worn on the foot for which they were made. And Barratt in his Alvearie, 1580, as an inftance of the word wrong, fays: " -to put on his booes wrong." Again, in Frobisher's fcond Voyage for the discoverie of Cataia, 4 o. bl. l. 1578: "They alfo beheld (to their great maruile) a dublet of canvas made after the Englishe fashion, a fhirt, a girdle, three shoes for contrarie feet," &c. p. 21.

STEEVENT.

See Martin's Defcription of the Western Islands of Scotland, 1703, p. 207: "The generality now only wear fhoes having one thin fole only, and fhaped after the right and left foot, fo that what is for one foot will not ferve the other." The meaning feems to be, that the extremities of the fhoes were not round or fquare, but were cut in an oblique angle, or aflant from the great toe to the little one. See likewife, The Philofopbical Tranfactions abridged, Vol. III. p. 432, and Vol. VII. p. 23, where are exhibited fhoes and fandals fhaped to the feet, fpreading more to the outfide than the infide. ToLLET.

-if in a morning

So, in Holland's translation of Suetonius, 1606: ". his fhoes were put one [r. on] wrong, and namely the left for the right, he held it unlucky." Our author himself also furnishes an authority to the fame point. Speed in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, fpeaks of a left fhoe. It fhould be remembered that tailors generally work bare-footed: a circumstance which Shakspeare probably had in his thoughts when he wrote this paffage. MALONE.

K. John. It is the curfe of kings, to be attended
By flaves, that take their humours for a warrant
To break within the bloody house of life:
And, on the winking of authority,

To understand a law; to know the meaning
Of dangerous majefty, when, perchance, it frowns
More upon humour than advis'd refpect.8

Hub. Here is your hand and feal for what I did.

K. John. O, when the laft account 'twixt heaven and earth

Is to be made, then fhall this hand and feal
Witness against us to damnation!

How oft the fight of means to do ill deeds,
Makes deeds ill done! Hadeft not thou been by,
A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,
Quoted, and fign'd, to do a deed of shame,
This murder had not come into my mind:
But, taking note of thy abhorr'd afpéct,
Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,
Apt, liable, to be employ'd in danger,
1 faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;
And thou, to be endeared to a king,

Made it no confcience to destroy a prince.
Hub. My lord,

K. John. Hadft thou but fhook thy head, or made a paufe,

When

7 This plainly hints at Davifon's cafe, in the affair of Mary Queen of Scots, and fo must have been inferted long after the first reprefentation. WARBURTON.

It is extremely probable that our author meant to pay his court to Elizabeth by this covert apology for her conduct to Mary. The Queen of Scots was beheaded in 1587, fome years, I believe, before he had produced any play on the ftage. MALONE.

8 i. e. deliberate confideration, reflection. STEEVENS.

9 Quoted,] i. e. obferved, diftinguish'd. STEEVENS.

2 There are many touches of nature in this conference of John with Hubert. A man engaged in wickedness would keep the profit to himself, and transfer the guilt to his accomplice. Thefe reproaches vented against Hubert are not the words of art or policy, but the eruptions of a mind fwelling with confcioufness of a crime, and defirous of difcharging its mifery on another.

When I fpake darkly what I purpofed;
Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,
As bid me tell my tale in exprefs words;

Deep fhame had ftruck me dumb, made me break off,
And thofe thy fears might have wrought fears in me :
But thou didst understand me by my figns,
And didft in figns again parley with fin;
Yea, without ftop, didft let thy heart confent,
And, confequently, thy rude hand to act

The deed, which both our tongues held vile to name.
Out of my fight, and never fee me more!
My nobles leave me; and my ftate is brav'd,
Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign powers:
Nay, in the body of this fleshly land,

This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,
Hoftility and civil tumult reigns

Between my conscience, and my coufin's death.
Hub. Arm you against your other enemies,
I'll make a peace between your foul and you.
Young Arthur is alive: This hand of mine
Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,
Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.
Within this bofom never enter'd yet

my

form;

The dreadful motion of a murd'rous thought,3
And you have flander'd nature in
Which, howfoever rude exteriorly,
Is yet the cover of a fairer mind

Than to be butcher of an innocent child.

K. John. Doth Arthur live? O, hafte thee to the peers,

Throw

This account of the timidity of guilt is drawn ab ipfis receffibus mentis, from the intimate knowledge of mankind, particularly that line in which he fays, that to have bid him tell his tale in express words, would have ftruck bim dumb: nothing is more certain, than that bad men ufe all the arts of fallacy upon themselves, palliate their actions to their own minds by gentle terms, and hide themselves from their own detection in ambiguities and fubterfuges. JOHNSON.

3 Nothing can be falfer than what Hubert here fays in his own vindication; for we find, from a preceding fcene, the motion of a murd'rous thought had entered into him, and that very deeply: and it was with difficulty that the tears, the entreaties, and the innocence of Arthur had diverted and fuppreffed it. WARBURTON.