Thou art stained as black-nay, nothing so black
As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill the child.

Hub. Upon my soul-
Faul.

If thou didst but consent

To this most cruel act, do but despair;

And, if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread
That ever spider twisted from her womb

Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be

A beam to hang thee on: or wouldst thou drown thyself,
Put but a little water in a spoon,

And it shall be as all the ocean,

Enough to stifle such a villain up.—
I do suspect thee very grievously.
Hub. I left him well.

Faul.

Go, bear him in thine arms.

I am amazed, methinks; and lose my way
Among the thorns and dangers of this world.-
How easy dost thou take all England up
From forth this morsel of dead royalty,
The life, the right and truth of all this realm,
Is fled to heaven; and England now is left
To tug and scamble, and to part by the teeth
The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.
Now, for the bare-picked bone of majesty,
Doth dogged War bristle his angry_crest,
And snarleth in the gentle eyes of Peace:
Now powers from home, and discontents at home,
Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits
(As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast)
The 'imminent decay of wrested pomp.
Now happy he whose cloak and cincture 12 can
Hold out this tempest.-Bear away that child,
And follow me with speed; I'll to the king:
A thousand businesses are brief in hand,
And Heaven itself doth frown upon the land.

[Exeunt.

The Dauphin, aided by the disaffected nobles of England, gives battle to John at St. Edmund's-Bury. The king's troops are repulsed, and John is conveyed to Swinstead Abbey, sick of a fever. There the King dies.

SCENE.-Swinstead Abbey.13

Enter BIGOT and Attendants, who bring in KING JOHN in a chair.

K. John. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room;

It would not out at windows, nor at doors.
There is so hot a summer in my bosom,
That all my bowels crumble up to dust:
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen

Upon a parchment, and against this fire
Do I shrink up.

P. Henry. How fares your majesty?

K. John. Poisoned-ill fare;-dead, forsook, cast off :
And none of you will bid the Winter come,
To thrust his icy fingers in my maw;14

Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course
Through my burned bosom, nor entreat the North
To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips,
And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much,
I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,

And so ungrateful, you deny me that.

P. Henry. O that there were some virtue in my tears, That might relieve you!

K. John.

The salt in them is hot.

Within me is a hell; and there the poison

Is, as a fiend, confined to tyrannize

On 'unreprievable condemned blood.

Enter FAULCONBRIDGE.

Faul. O, I am scalded with my violent motion, And spleen of speed to see your majesty!

K. John. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye:15
The tackle of my heart is cracked and burned;

And all the shrouds, wherewith my life should sail,
Are turned to one thread, one little hair:

My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered;

And then all this thou seest is but a clod,

And module 16 of confounded royalty.

Faul. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward;

Where Heaven He knows how we shall answer him:

For, in a night, the best part of my power,

As I upon advantage did remove,
Were in the Washes 17 all unwarily

'Devoured by the unexpected flood.

[The KING dies.

Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.

My liege! my lord! but now a king, now thus!

P. Henry. Even so must I run on, and even so stop.
What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
When this was now a king, and now is clay?—
At Worcester must his body be interred,

For so he willed it.

Faul.
Thither shall it then.
And happily may your sweet self put on
The lineal state and glory of the land!
To whom, with all submission, on my knee
I do bequeath my faithful services
And true subjection everlastingly.

Sal. And the like tender of our love we make,

To rest without a spot for evermore.

P. Henry. I have a kind soul, that would give you thanks,
And knows not how to do it, but with tears.

Faul. O let us pay the time but needful woe,
Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.-
This England never did, (nor never shall,)
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them! Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.

abhorred', hat'ed.
advised', intentional.
artif'icer, work'man.
avaunt', begone'.
bus'inesses, affairs'.
com'ment, criticism.
confounded, baffled.
confu'sion, tu'mult.
con'sequently, there'fore.
devour'ed, swallowed up.
discontent'ed, dissatisfied.
endeared, made a favourite

expe'dient, prompt.
griev'ously, pain'fully.
hon'oured, revered'.
hostility, war.
hu'mours, whims.

im'minent, threatening.

incen'sed, infuriated.
in'finite, bound'less.
inhab'it, dwell.

intelligence, informa'tion.
nobility, rank.
parchment, scroll.

[Exeunt.

From France to England.-That is, | boast, is from the same root; the primary All in France goes from France to England.

* Bel'dams, old women; lit. fine-lady; but belle is used as a prefix in French (much as grand is used in English); for example, belle-mère, mother-in-law.

meaning of which is to crack, and so to attract notice. Hence, also, Sc. braw, showy; Fr. brave, gay, gallant; O. E. brave, handsome; and modern brave, courageous.

Not for my life I dare not for my life defy a nobleman; yet I dare defend my innocent life against any man, even an emperor.

10 Do not prove me so, by provoking me to kill you.

11 Rheum, tears; lit. any fluid. It comes from a Greek word meaning to flow.

12 Cinc'ture, belt, or girdle; lit. anything which binds or surrounds.

13 Swinstead Abbey.-The historical * A many thousand, many a thousand. account gives Newark Castle in NottingA is used before many, or a word express-hamshire as the scene of King John's death.

ing number, when the whole of the things
are to be regarded as one mass; for ex-
ample, An eight days." (Luke, ix. 28.)
"Embat'tailed, marshalled in order of

battle.

7 Quoted, marked; noted.

14 Maw, mouth.

15 To set mine eye To close mine eyes after I am dead.

16 Mod'ule, a model or image.

17 The Washes, between Norfolk and Lincoln, where King John lost his baggage

8 Braved, set at defiance. To brag, to and regalia in 1216.

PUNCTUATION.

THE following passage will show the importance of Punctuation :

"

Hubert rode on his brother's horse being lame he did not reach home till midnight."

As the words stand, they admit of several meanings. In reading the passage aloud, these different meanings are indicated by breaks or pauses. In writing or printing it, they are indicated by the insertion of points. It may be read and pointed in at least three ways:

1. Hubert rode on his brother's horse, being lame. He did not reach home till midnight. 2. Hubert rode on. His brother's horse being lame, he did not reach home till midnight. 3. Hubert rode on, his brother's horse being lame. He did not reach home till midnight.

The primary use of punctuation, therefore, is to prevent mistakes, and to make the meaning of what we write as plain as possible.

The above example shows that points are required to separate words that are to be kept apart in meaning. But while points thus disjoin the words between which they stand, they serve at the same time to conjoin the words that stand between them. Thus in No. 3, the comma (,) after “on' not only separates that word from "his brother's horse," but it also forces us to take together the words "his-brother's-horse-being-lame," as the expression of a single thought. This, then, is the double purpose of punctuation,—first to separate, and then to give distinctness to each of the separated parts. In ordinary cases, two points are sufficient for this purpose:The Period, to separate sentence from sentence;

The Comma, to separate the distinct parts of a sentence from each other. These are the points most frequently used, and some authors rarely use any others. But when a sentence is long, and complicated in structure, its meaning may be made clear by the use of the Semicolon (;) and the Colon (:).

For example, when a sentence consists of two or more great divisions, within which commas are used, it is desirable to separate the great divisions from each other by a different point; and for this purpose the semicolon is employed.

EXAMPLES.-Sloth makes all things difficult, but Industry all easy; and he that riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night; while Laziness travels so slowly, that Poverty soon overtakes him.

In like manner,

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

when parts of a division are separated by semicolons,

the divisions themselves must be separated by a colon.

EXAMPLES. If this life is unhappy, it is a burden to us which it is difficult to bear; if it is in every respect happy, it is dreadful to be deprived of it: so that, in either case, the result is the same; for we must exist in anxiety and apprehension.

Hear me for my cause; and be silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honour; and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom; and awake your senses, that you may the better judge.

SPECIAL RULES.

1. Explanatory and parenthetical words are marked off from the rest of the sentence by commas.

EXAMPLES.-Shakespeare, the great dramatist, was born at Stratford-on-Avon, where he also died.-History, moreover, is a very profitable study.

The effect of two commas in such cases is much the same as that of the parenthesis ( ). 2. When the explanation limits the word to which it belongs, or implies contrast, no commas should be used.

EXAMPLES.-Jonson the dramatist must not be confounded with Johnson the critic. -His library is rich in books which treat of the progress of the physical sciences.

3. A series of words of the same kind, whether single or in pairs, is divided by commas.

EXAMPLES.-Henry was kind, liberal, and forgiving.—He was kind and liberal, gentle and forgiving.

4. A sudden break in the structure of a sentence is indicated by a dash (—). EXAMPLE. If you had not come, I should have supposed-but why discuss this when you are here?

5. When the original structure of the sentence is resumed, a second dash must be inserted.

EXAMPLE. The defects and faults of "Paradise Lost"-for faults and defects every work of man must have-it is the business of impartial criticism to discover.

6. The dash is used before an enumeration of particulars.

EXAMPLE.-Napoleon sacrificed everything to his aim-money, troops, generals, oven his own safety.

7. The dash is also used between two sentences which relate to different subjects, or which are addressed to different persons.

EXAMPLE.

66

'King (to Hotspur). Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
you
shall hear in such a kind from me

Or

As will displease you.-My Lord Northumberland,
We license your departure with your son.—

Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it."

66

8. Each part of a direct quotation is enclosed between inverted commas. EXAMPLE." Reading," says Bacon, maketh a full man, conference a ready man, writing an exact man."

9. When a quotation forms an independent sentence, it is preceded by a colon.

EXAMPLE. When Preston had read the sentence of William's Declaration in which the spiritual peers were referred to, King James proceeded: "My lords, I do not believe one word of this. I am satisfied of your innocence; but I think it fit to let you know of what you are accused."

In the above case the comma and dash are sometimes used.

EXAMPLE-How well the silent anguish of Macduff is conveyed to the reader by the friendly expostulation of Malcolm,—“ What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows."