K. John. Why feek'st thou to poffefs me with thefe
fears?

Why urgest thou fo oft young Arthur's death?
Thy hand hath murther'd him: I had a cause
To wish him dead, but thou had'st none to kill him.
Hub. Had none, my Lord? why, did you not pro-
voke me?

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.
And thou, to be endeared to a King,
Mad'ft it no confcience to deftroy a Prince.
Hub. My Lord-

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,
And didft in figns again parley with fin;
Yea, without stop, did'ft 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 state is brav'd,
Ev'n at my gates, with ranks of foreign pow'rs;
Nay, in the body of this fleshly land,

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

Between my confcience, 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

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.
Gg3

And

And you have flander'd nature in my form;
Which, how foever 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 report on their incenfed rage,
And make them tame to their obedience.
Forgive the comment that my paffion made
Upon thy feature, for my rage was blind;
And foul imaginary eyes of blood
Presented thee more hideous than thou art.
Oh, anfwer not, but to my closet bring
The angry lords with all expedient haste.
I conjure thee but flowly: run more fast.

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,
This fhip-boy's femblance hath disguis'd me quite.
I am afraid, and yet I'll venture it.

If I get down, and do not break my limbs,
I'll find a thousand fhifts to get away:

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 :
Heav'n take my foul, and England keep my bones!

Enter Pembroke, Salisbury and Bigot.

[Dies.

Sal. Lords, I will meet him at St. Edmondsbury;
It is our fafety; and we must embrace
This gentle offer of the perilous time.

Pem. Who brought that letter from the Cardinal?
Sal. The Count Melun, a noble lord of France,
6 Whose private with me of the Dauphin's love
Is much more gen'ral than these lines import.
Bigot. To-morrow morning let us meet him then.
Sal. Or rather then fet forward, for 'twill be
Two long days' journey, lords, or e'er we meet.
Enter Faulconbridge.

Faulc. Once more to day well met, diftemper'd
lords;

The King by me requests your prefence strait.
Sal. The King hath difpoffeft himself of us;
We will not line his thin, beftained cloak
With our pure honours: nor attend the foot,
That leaves the print of blood where-e'er it walks.
Return, and tell him fo: we know the worst.

Faulc. What e'er you think, good words, I think,
were beft.

Sal. Our griefs, and not our manners, reafon now.
Faulc. But there is little reafon in your grief,
Therefore, 'twere reason, you had manners now.
Pem. Sir, Sir, impatience hath its privilege.
Faulc. 'Tis true, to hurt its mafter, no man elfe.
Sal. This is the prison: what is he lyes here?

[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,
Found it too precious princely for a grave.

Sal. Sir Richard, what think you? have you beheld,
Or have you read, or heard, or could you think,
Or do you almoft think, altho' you fee,

What you do fee? could thought, without this object,
Form fuch another? 'tis the very top,

The height, the creft, or crest unto the crest
Of murder's arms; this is the bloodiest shame,
The wildest favag'ry, the vileft stroke,

That ever wall-ey'd wrath, or ftaring rage,
Prefented to the tears of foft remorfe.

Pem. All murders paft do ftand excus'd in this;
And this fo fole, and fo unmatchable,

Shall give a holiness, a purity,

To the yet-unbegotten fins of time;
And prove a deadly blood-fhed but a jeft,
Exampled by this heinous fpectacle.

Faulc. It is a damned and a bloody work,
The graceless action of a heavy hand:
If that it be the work of any hand.

Sal. If that it be the work of any hand?
We had a kind of light, what would enfue.
It is the fhameful work of Hubert's hand,
The practice and the purpofe of the King:
From whofe obedience I forbid my foul,
Kneeling before this ruin of fweet life,
And breathing to this breathlefs excellence
The incenfe of a vow, a holy vow!
Never to taste the pleasures of the world,
Never to be infected with delight,
Nor converfant with eafe and idleness,
Till I have fet a glory to this hand,

By