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K. John. Coufin, go draw our puiffance together.[Exit Faulconbridge. France, I am burn'd up with inflaming wrath; A rage, whofe heat hath this condition, That nothing can allay, nothing but blood, The blood, and deareft-valu'd blood, of France.

K. Phil. Thy rage fhall burn thee up, and thou fhalt turn

To afhes, ere our blocd fhall quench that fire:
Look to thyself, thou art in jeopardy.

K. John. No more than he that threats.-To arms, let's hie!

SCENE II.

A field of battle.

[Exeunt.

Alarums, excurfions: enter Faulconbridge, with Auftria's head.

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Faule. Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous

hot;

Some airy devil hovers in the fky,

And

Some airy devil- -] We must read: Some fiery devil, if we will have the cause equal to the effect. WARBURTON.

There is no end of fuch alterations; every page of a vehement and negligent writer will afford opportunities for changes of terms, if mere propriety will justify them. Not that of this change the propriety is out of controverfy. Dr. Warburton will have the devil fiery, becaufe he makes the day hot; the author makes him airy, because he hovers in the sky, and the heat and mischief are natural confequences of his malignity. JOHNSON.

Shakespeare here probably alludes to the diftinctions and divifions of fome of the demonologifts, fo much read and regarded in his time. They diftributed the devils into different tribes and claffes, each of which had its peculiar properties, attributes, &c.

These are described at length in Burton's Anatomie of Melancholy, part. I. fect. ii. p. 45. 1632:

"Of thefe fublunary devils-Pfellus makes fix kinds; fiery,

aeriall,

And pours down mischief. down mischief.

While Philip breathes 2.

Auftria's head lie there;

Enter King John, Arthur, and Hubert.

K. John. Hubert, keep this boy :-Philip3, make

up;

My mother is affailed in our tent,

And ta'en, I fear.

Faule. My lord, I refcu'd her;

Her highness is in fafety, fear you not:
But on, my liege; for very little pains
Will bring this labour to an happy end.

SCENE III.

[Exeunt.

Alarums, excurfions, retreat.

Re-enter King John, Elinor,
Hubert, and Lords.

Arthur, Faulconbridge,

K. John. So fhall it be; your grace fhall stay be

hind,

[To Elinor.

aeriall, terreftriall, watery, and fubterranean devils, befides thofe faieries, fatyres, nymphes, &c."

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Fiery fpirits or divells are fuch as commonly worke by blazing ftarres, fire-drakes, and counterfeit funnes and moones, and fit on fhip's mafts, &c. &c."

"Aeriall fpirits or divells are fuch as keep quarter most part in the aire, caufe many tempefts, thunder and lightnings, teare oakes, fire steeples, houses, strike men and beasts, make it raine ftones, &c." PERCY.

2 Here Mr. Pope, without authority, adds from the old play already mentioned:

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Thus hath king Richard's fon perform'd his vow, "And offer'd Auftria's blood for facrifice

"Unto his father's ever-living foul." STEEVENS. Philip,] Here the king, who had knighted him by the name of Sir Richard, calls him by his former name. Tyrwhitt would read:

Hubert, keep [thou] this boy, &c. STEEVENS.

Mr.

So ftrongly guarded.-Coufin, look not fad:

[To Arthur.

Thy grandam loves thee; and thy uncle will
As dear be to thee as thy father was.
Arth. O, this will make my mother die with grief,
K. John. Coufin, away for England; hafte before;
[To Faulconbridge.
And, ere our coming, fee thou fhake the bags
Of hoarding abbots; imprifoned angels
Set at liberty: the fat ribs of peace
Muft by the hungry now be fed upon :

Use our commiflion in his utmoft force,

Faulc. 5 Bell book and candle fhall not drive me back,

When gold and filver becks me to come on.
I leave your highness :-Grandam, I will pray

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the fat ribs of peace

Muft by the hungry now, be fed upon :]

This word now feems a very idle term here, and conveys no fatif factory idea. An antithefis, and oppofition of terms, fo perpetual with our author, requires:

Muft by the hungry war be fed upon.

War, demanding a large expence, is very poetically faid to be hungry, and to prey on the wealth and fat of peace. WARBURTON,

This emendation is better than the former, but yet not necef. fary. Sir T. Hanmer reads, hungry maw, with less deviation from the common reading, but with not fo much force or elegance as var. JOHNSON.

Either emendation is unneceffary. The hungry now is this bungry infant. Shakespeare perhaps ufes the word now as a subftantive, in Meafure for Measure:

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till this very now,

"When men were fond, I fmil'd and wonder'd how."

STEEYENS.

5 Bell book and candle, &c.] In an account of the Romish curfe given by Dr, Gray, it appears that three candles were extinguished, one by one, in different parts of the execration. JOHNSON. I meet with the fame expreffion in Ram-alley, or Merry Tricks,

1611:

"I'll have a prieft fhall mumble up a marriage
"Without lell, book or candle," STEEVENS,

(If ever I remember to be holy)

For your fair fafety; fo I kifs your hand.
Eli. Farewel, gentle coufin.

K. John. Coz, farewel

[Exit Faule. Eli. Come hither, little kinfman; hark, a word. [Taking him to one fide of the flage. K. John. Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hu

bert,

We owe thee much; within this wall of flesh
There is a foul, counts thee her creditor,
And with advantage means to pay thy love :
And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath
Lives in this bofom, dearly cherished.
Give me thy hand. I had a thing to fay,-
But I will fit it with fome better time.
By heaven, Hubert, I am almoft afham'd
To fay what good refpect I have of thee.

Hub. I am much bounden to your majesty.
K. John. Good friend, thou haft no cause to say so

yet:

But thou shalt have; and creep time ne'er fo flow,
Yet it fhall come, for me to do thee good.

I had a thing to fay,-But let it go:
The fun is in the heaven; and the proud day,
Attended with the pleafures of the world,
Is all too wanton, and too full of gawds,
To give me audience :-If the midnight bell
Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth,
7 Sound on unto the drowsy race of night;

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If

-full of gawds,] Gawds are any fhowy ornaments. So, in the Dumb Knight, 1633:

" To caper in his grave, and with vain gards

"Trick up his coffin." STEEVENS.

7 Sound on unto the drowsy race of night;] We fhould read: Sound one- WARBURTON.

I fhould fuppofe found on (which is the reading of the old copy) to be the true one. The meaning feems to be this; if the midnight bell, by repeated frokes, was to befien away the race of beings who are

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If this fame were a church-yard where we ftand,
And thou poffeffed with a thoufand wrongs;
Or if that furly fpirit, melancholy,

Had bak'd thy blood, and made it heavy, thick;
(Which, elfe, runs tickling up and down the veins,
Making that ideot, laughter, keep mens' eyes,
And ftrain their cheeks to idle merriment,

A paffion hateful to my purpofes)

Or if that thou could'ft fee me without eyes,
Hear me without thine ears, and make reply
Without a tongue, ufing conceit alone,
Without eyes, ears, and harmful found of words;
Then, in defpight of broad-ey'd watchful day,
I would into thy bofom pour my thoughts:

bufy at that hour, or quicken night itself in its progress, the morning bell (that is, the bell that strikes one) could not, with ftrict prapriety, be made the agent; for the bell has ceafed to be in the fervice of night, when it proclaims the arrival of day. Sound on has a peculiar propriety, because by the repetition of the strokes at twelve, it gives a much more forcible warning than when it only ftrikes one.

Such was once my opinion concerning the old reading; but on re-confideration, its propriety cannot appear more doubtful to any one than to myself.

It is too late to talk of haftening the night when the arrival of the morning is announced; and I am afraid that the repeated ftrokes have lefs of folemnity than the fingle notice, as they take from the horror and awful filence here described as fo propitious to the dreadful purposes of the king. Though the hour of one be not the natural midnight, it is yet the moft folemn moment of the poetical one; and Shakespeare himself has chofen to introduce his Ghoft in Hamlet:

"The bell then beating one."

Mr. Malone obferves, "that one and on, are perpetually confounded in the old copies of our author." STEEVENS.

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Mr.

-broad-ey'd] The old copy reads-brooded. Pope made the alteration, which, however elegant, may be unneceffary. All animals while brooded, i. e. with a brood of young ones under their protection, are remarkably vigilant. The King fays of Hamlet:

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-fomething's in his foul

"O'er which his melancholy fits at brood." STEEvens.

But,

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