K. John. Why feek'st thou to poffefs me with thefe Why urgest thou fo oft young Arthur's death? K. John. " It is the curfe of Kings, to be attended By flaves that take their humours for a warrant, "To break into the bloody house of life: "And, on the winking of authority, "To understand a law, to know the meaning "Of dang'rous majefty; when, perchance, it frowns "More upon humour, than advis'd refpect." Hub. Here is your hand and feal, for what I did. K. John. Oh, when the last account 'twixt heav'n 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? for hadft not thou been by, "A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd, "Quoted, and fign'd to do a deed of fhame, "This murther had not come into my mind." But taking note of thy abhorr'd afpect, Finding thee fit for bloody villany, Apt, liable to be employ'd in danger, I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death. K. John. "Hadft thou but fhook thy head, or made a pause, "When I fpake darkly what I purpofed: 4 It is the curfe of Kings, &c.] This plainly hints at Davifon's cafe, in the affair of Mary Queen of Scots, and fo must have been inferted long after the firft reprefentation. "Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face, "Or bid me tell my tale in express words; "Deep shame 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, The deed, which both our tongues held vile to name.-- This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath, Between my confcience, and my coufin's death. 5 The dreadful motion of a murderer's thought, And 5 The dreadful motion of a MURD'ROUS thought.] Nothing can be falfer than what Hubert here fays in his own vindication; (yet it was the poet's purpose that he fhould fpeak truth) for we find, from a preceding fcene, the motion of a murd rous thought had entred into him, and that, very deeply: and it was with difficulty that the tears, the intreaties, and the innocence of Arthur had diverted and fuppreffed it. Nor is the expreffion, in this reading, at all exact, it not being the neceffary quality of a murd rous thought to be dreadful, affrighting or terrible: For it being commonly excited by the flattering views of intereft, pleasure, or revenge, the mind is often too much taken up with those ideas to attend, fteadily, to the confequences. We muft conclude therefore that Shakespear wrote, a MURDERER's thought. And And you have flander'd nature in my form; 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 Throw this report on their incenfed rage, S CE NE V. A Street before a Prison. Enter Arthur on the Walls, difguis'd. [Exeunt. Arth. Good ground, be pitiful, and hurt me not! HE wall is high, and yet will I leap down. There's few or none do know me: if they did, If I get down, and do not break my limbs, As good to die, and go; as die, and ftay. [Leaps down. And this makes Hubert speak truth, as the poet intended he should. He had not committed the murder, and confequently the motion of a murderer's thought had never enter'd his bofom. And in this reading, the epithet dreadful is admirably juft, and in nature. For after the perpetration of the fact, the appetites, that hurried their owner to it, lofe their force; and nothing fucceeds, to take poffelfion of the mind, but a dreadful confcioufnefs, that torments the murderer without refpite or intermiffion. Oh 3 Oh me! my Uncle's spirit is in these stones : Enter Pembroke, Salisbury and Bigot. [Dies. Sal. Lords, I will meet him at St. Edmondsbury; Pem. Who brought that letter from the Cardinal? Faulc. Once more to day well met, diftemper'd The King by me requests your prefence strait. Faulc. What e'er you think, good words, I think, Sal. Our griefs, and not our manners, reafon now. [Seeing Arthur. 6 Whofe private, &c.] i. e. whofe private account, of the Daxphin's affection to our cause, is much more ample than the letters. Gg 4 Mr. Pope. Pem. Pem. O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty! The earth had not a hole to hide this deed. Sal. Murder, as hating what himself hath done, Doth lay it open to urge on revenge. Bigot. Or when he doom'd this beauty to the grave, Sal. Sir Richard, what think you? have you beheld, What you do fee? could thought, without this object, The height, the creft, or crest unto the crest That ever wall-ey'd wrath, or ftaring rage, Pem. All murders paft do ftand excus'd in this; Shall give a holiness, a purity, To the yet-unbegotten fins of time; Faulc. It is a damned and a bloody work, Sal. If that it be the work of any hand? By |