But, ah, I will not :-Yet I love thee well;
And, by my troth, I think, thou lov'ft me well.
Hub. So well, that what you bid me undertake,
Though that my death were adjunct to my act,
By heaven, I would do it.

K. John. Do not I know, thou would'st ?
Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye
On yon young boy: I'll tell thee what, my friend,
He is a very ferpent in my way;

And, wherefoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,
He lies before me: Doft thou understand me?
Thou art his keeper.

Hub. And I'll keep him so,

That he shall not offend your majesty.
K. John. Death.

Hub. My lord?

K. John. A grave.

Hub. He fhall not live.

K. John. Enough.

I could be merry now: Hubert, I love thee;
Well, I'll not fay what I intend for thee :
9 Remember. Madam, fare you well:
I'll fend those powers o'er to your majesty.
Eli. My bleffing go with thee!

K. John. For England, coufin, go:
Hubert fhall be your man, attend on you
With all true duty.-On toward Calais, ho!

[Exeunt.

This is one of the scenes to which may be promifed a lasting commendation. Art could add little to its perfection, and time itself can take nothing from its beauties. STEEVENS.

SCENE

SCENE IV.

The French court.

Enter King Philip, Lewis, Pandulph, and attendants. K. Phil. So, by a roaring tempeft on the flood, A whole armado of collected fail *

2.

Is fcatter'd, and disjoin'd from fellowship.

Pand. Courage and comfort! all fhall yet go well. K. Phil. What can go well, when we have run fo ill?

Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers loft?
Arthur ta'en prisoner? divers dear friends flain?
And bloody England into England gone,
O'er-bearing interruption, fpite of France?
Lewis. What he hath won, that hath he fortify'd:
So hot a speed with fuch advice difpos'd,
Such temperate order in fo fierce a caufe,

A whole armado &c.] This fimilitude, as little as it makes for the purpofe in hand, was, I do not queftion, a very taking one when the play was firit reprefented; which was a winter or two at moft after the Spanish invafion in 1588. It was in reference likewife to that glorious period that Shakespeare concludes his play in that triumphant manner:

"Thus England never did, nor never fhall,
"Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, &c."

But the whole play abounds with touches relative to the then pofture of affairs. WARBURTON.

This play, fo far as I can difcover, was not played till a long time after the defeat of the armado. The old play, I think, wants this fimile. The commentator fhould not have affirmed what he can only guefs. JOHNSON.

Armado is a Spanish word fignifying a fleet of war. The armado in 1588 was called fo by way of diftinction. STEEVENS.

- of collected fail] Thus the modern editors. The old copy reads-convicted. STEEVENS.

3

in fo fierce a caufe,] We fhould read course, i. e. march. The Oxford editor condefcends to this emendation.

WARBURTON.

A fierce caufe is a caufe conducted with precipitation. "Fierce wretchedness," in Timon, is, hafty, fudden mifery. STEEVENS.

Doth

Doth want example; Who hath read, or heard,
Of any kindred action like to this?

K. Phil. Well could I bear that England had this

praise,

So we could find fome pattern of our fhame.

Enter Conftance.

Look, who comes here! a grave unto a foul;
Holding the eternal fpirit, against her will,
In the vile prison of afflicted breath +:-
I pr'ythee, lady, go away with me.

Conft. Lo, now! now fee the iffue of your peace!
K. Phil. Patience, good lady! comfort, gentle Con-
ftance!

Conft. No, I defy all counfel, all redress,
But that which ends all counfel, true redrefs,
Death, death:-Oh amiable lovely death!
Thou odoriferous ftench! found rottennefs!
Arife forth from the couch of lafting night,
Thou hate and terror to profperity,
And I will kifs thy deteftable bones;
And put my eye-balls in thy vaulty brows;
And ring thefe fingers with thy houfhold worms;
And stop this gap of breath with fulfome duft,
And be a carrion monfter like thyfelf:

a grave unto a foul,

Holding the eternal fpirit, againft her will,

In the vile prifon of afflicted breath :]

I think we fhould read earth. The paffage feems to have been copied from fir Thomas More: "If the body be to the foule a prifon, how ftrait a prifon maketh he the body, that stuffeth it with riff-raff, that the foule can have no room to stirre itself→ but is, as it were, enclosed not in a prifon, but in a grave."

FARMER. Perhaps the old reading is justifiable. So, in Mcafure for Meafure:

"To be imprifon'd in the viewlefs vinds." STEEVENS. No, I defy &c.] To defy anciently fignified to refufe.] So, in Romeo and Juliet:

"I do defy thy commiferation." STEEVENS.

Come,

Come, grin on me; and I will think thou finil'ft, And bufs thee as thy wife! Mifery's love,

Oh, come to me!

K. Phil. Oh fair affliction, peace.

Conft. No, no, I will not,

having breath to cry :-Oh, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth! Then with a paffion would I fhake the world; And rouze from fleep that fell anatomy, Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice, Which fcorns a 7 modern invocation.

Pand. Lady, you utter madness, and not forrow. Conft. Thou art unholy to belie me fo; I am not mad this hair I tear, is mine; My name is Conftance; I was Geffrey's wife; Young Arthur is my fon, and he is loft: I am not mad;—I would to heaven, I were! For then, 'tis like I fhould forget myfelf: Oh, if I could, what grief fhould I forget!Preach fome philofophy to make me mad, And thou fhalt be canoniz'd, cardinal; For, being not mad, but fenfible of grief, My reasonable part produces reason

And bufs ther as thy wife!] Thus the old copy. The word bufs, however, being now only ufed in vulgar language, our modern editors have exchanged it for kifs. The former is used by Drayton in the 3d canto of his Barons' Wars, where queen Ifabel fays:

"And we by figns fent many a fecret buss." Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, b. iii. c. 10: "But every fatyre first did give a busse "To Hellenore; fo buffes did abound."

Again, Stanyhurst the tranflator of Virgil, 1582, renders ofcula libavit natæ

"Buft his prittye parrat prating &c." STEEVENS. 7 modern invocation.] It is hard to fay what Shakespeare means by modern: it is not oppofed to ancient. In All's Well that ends Well, fpeaking of a girl in contempt, he uses this word: "her modern grace." It apparently means fomething flight and inconfiderable. JOHNSON.

Modern, I believe, is trite, common. So, in As s you like It:

"Full of wife faws and modern inftances." STEEVENS,

How

How I may be deliver❜d of these woes,
And teaches me to kill or hang myself:
If I were mad, I fhould forget my fon;
Or madly think, a babe of clouts were he:
I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
The different plague of each calamity.

8

K. Phil. Bind up thofe treffes: Oh, what love I

note

In the fair multitude of those her hairs!

Where but by chance a filver drop hath fallen,
Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends?
Do glew themselves in fociable grief;
Like true, infeparable, faithful loves,
Sticking together in calamity.

Conft. To England, if you will.

K. Phil. Bind up your hairs.

Conft. Yes, that I will; And wherefore will I do it?

I tore them from their bonds; and cry'd aloud,
Oh that thefe hands could fo redeem my fon,

As they have given thefe hairs their liberty!
But now I envy at their liberty,

And will again commit them to their bonds,
Because my poor child is a prifoner.-

And, father cardinal, I have heard you say,

That we fhall fee and know our friends in heaven: If that be true, I fhall fee my boy again;

For, fince the birth of Cain, the first male-child,

Bind up thofe trees:] It was neceffary that Conftance fhould be interrupted, because a paffion fo violent cannot be borne. long. I with the following fpeeches had been equally happy; but they only ferve to fhew, how difficult it is to maintain the pathetic long. JOHNSON.

91

viry friends] The old copy reads, airy fiends. Wiery is an adjective used by Heywood in his Silver Age, 1613: My vaffal furies, with their wiery strings,

"Shall lafh thee hence." STEEVENS.

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