K. Pbilp. Well then, to work; our engines than

be bent
Against the brows of this refifting 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 French-mens' blood,
But we will make it subject to this boy.

Conft. Stay for an answer to your Embassie,
Left 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 ralh halte fo indirectly shed,

Enter Chatillon, K. Philip. * A wonder, lady !_Lo, upon thy wish Our messenger Chatillon is arrived. - What England says, fay briefly, gentle lord, We coldly pause for thee. Chatillon, speak.

Chat. Then turn your forces from this paultry fiege,
And stir them up against a mightier task.
England, impatient of your just demands,
Hath

put himself in arms; the adverse winds,
Whofe leisure I have staid, have giv’n him time
To land his legions all as soon as I.
His marches are'expedient to this town,
His forces strong, his foldiers confident.
With him along is come the mother-Queen ;
An Até, stirring him to blood and strife.
Wich her, her niece, the lady Blanch of Spain;
With them a baftard of the King deceas’d,

* A wonder, lady.) The won vails more or less in every mind der is only that Chatillon hap- agitated by great affairs, turns pened to arrive at the moment into a miraculous interposition, when Confiance mentioned him, or omen of good. which the French king, accord Expedieni.] Immediate, exe ing to a superstition which pre- peditious.

And

1

And all th' unsettled humours of the land;
Rafh, inconsid’rate, fiery voluntaries,
With ladies' faces, and fierce dragorts' fpleens,
Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,

Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,
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,
To do offence and 3 scathe in christendom.
The interruption of their churlish drums [Drums beat.
Cuts off more circumstance; they are at hand.
To parly, or to fight, therefore prepare.
K. Pbilip. How much unlook'd for is this expe-

dition !
Auft. 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.
S CE N E

II.
Enter King of England, Faulconbridge, Elinor,

Blanch, Pembroke, and others.
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 heav'n.
Whilft we, God's wrathful agent, do correct
Their proud contempt that beats his peace to heav'n.

K. Philip. 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 burthen of our armour here we sweat ;
This toil of ours should be a work of thine.
But thou from loving England art fo far,

* Bearing their birth-rights, With bearing manors on them. &c.] So in Henry VIII.

3 Scarbe.) Destruction ; waste. Many broke their backs Ee 2

That

That thou hast under-wrought its 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 Gefferg's face.
These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his ;
This little abstract doth contain that large,
Which dy'd in Geffrey ; and the hand of time
Shall draw this brief into as large a volume.
That Geffrey was thy elder brother born,
And this his son ; England was Geffrey's right,
And this is Geffrey's; in the name of God,
How comes it then, that thou art callid a King,
When living blood doth in these temples beat,
Which own the crown that thou o'er-maftereft?
K. John. From whom haft thou this

great commifsion, France, To draw my answer to thy articles ? K. Philip. From that fupernal judge, that stirs good

thoughts
In any breast 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. Philip. Excuse it, 'tis to beat usurping down.
Eli. Who is't, that thou dost call usurper, France?
Conft. Let me make answer : thy usurping son.-

Eli. Out, insolent ! thy bastard shall be King, That thou may'st be a Queen, and check the world! * To look into the blots and sains Spots : so Shakespeare calls Bare

of right.] Mr. Theobald quo spotted with blood, the bloodreads, with the first folin, blots, bolter'd Banquo. The verb to which being so early authorised, blot is used figuratively for to difand so much better understood, grace, a few lines lower. And, needed not to have been changed perhaps, after all, belts was only by. Dr. Warburton to bolts, cho' a typographical mistake. bolts might be used in that time for

Conft.

Conft. My bed was ever to thy son as true, As thine was to thy husband ; and this boy, Liker in feature to his father Geffery, Than thou and Jobn, 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. Çonft. There's a good grandam, boy, that would

blot thee.
Auft. Peace.
Faulc. Here the crier.
Auft. What the devil art thou ?

Faulc. One that will play the devil, Sir, with you,
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 smoak 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 difrobe the Lion of that robe.

Faulc. It lies as sightly on the back of him,

s It lies as lightly on the back “my great Father King Richard of bim,

once wore, looks as uncoothly great Alcides' Shoes upon

on thy Back, as that other noe an Afs.] But why his Shoes, “ ble Hide, which was borne by in the Name of Propriety? For “ Hercules, would look on the let Hercules and his Shoes have “ Back of an Ass.” A double been really as bigas they were ever Allusion was intended ; first, to supposed to be, yet they (I mean the Fable of the Ass in the Lion's che Shoes) would not have been Skin ; then Richard I. is finely an Overload for an Ass. I am set in Competition with Alcides ; persuaded, I have retrieved the as Auftria is satirically coupled true Reading; and let us observe with the Ass. the Juftness of the Comparison

THEOBALD. now. Faulconbridge in his Re Mr. Theobald had the art of sentment would say this to Auf making the most of his discoIria, “That Lion's Skin, which veries.

As

Еe 3

As great Alcides' fhews upon an ass ;
But, ass, I'll take that burden from your back,
Or lay on that, shall make your shoulders crack.

Auft. What cracker is this fame, that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath ?
King Philip, determine what we shall do strait.
K. Philip. Women and fools, break off your con:

ference. King John, this is the very sum of all. England, and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine, In right of Arthur | do claim of thee. Wilt thou resign them, and lay down thy arms

? K. John. My life as soon–I do defy thee, Frances - Arthur of Britain, 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.

Conft. Do, child, go to it' grandam, child.
Give grandam kingdom, and it' grandam will
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig;
These's a good grandam.

Artb. 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.
Cont. Now shame upon you, whether she does or no!
His grandam's wrong, and not his mother's shames,
Draws those heav'n-moving pearls from his poor eyes,
Which heay'n fhall take in nature of a fee :
Ay, with these crystal beads heav'n shall be brib'd
To do him justice, and revenge on you.

Eli. Thou monstrous flanderer of heav'n and earth!

Conft. Thou monstrous injurer of heav'n and earth! Call me not Nanderer ; thou, and thine, usurp The domination, royalties and rights Of this oppressed boy. This is thy eldest son's son, Infortunate in nothing but in thee;

Thy