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'st it no conscience to destroy a Prince.
Hub. My Lord-

4

K. John. Hadft thou but fhook thy head, or made a pause,

When I fpake darkly what I purposed:
Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,

Or bid me tell my tale in exprefs words;

Deep fhame 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 signs,

And didst in signs again parley with fin:
Yea, without ftop, did't 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 fpots of blood.
Within this bofom never enter'd yet

The dreadful motion of a murd'rous thought, s
And you have flander'd nature in my form;
Which, howfoever 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 incensed rage,
And make them tame to their obedience.
Forgive the comment that my paffion made
Upon thy feature, for my rage was blind;

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 scene, the motion of a murd'rous thought kad 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, pleafure, or revenge, the mind is often too much taken up with thofe ideas to attend, fteadily, to the confequences. We must conclude therefore that Shakespeare

wrote,

—a MURDERER's thought. And this makes Hubert speak

truth, as the poet intended he fhould. He had not committed the murder, and confequently the motion of a murderer's thought bad never enter'd his bosom. And in this reading, the epithet dreadful is admirably just, 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 poffeffion of the mind, but a dreadful consciousnefs, that torments the murderer without refpite or intermiffion.

WARBURTON.

I do not fee any thing in this change worth the vehemence with which it is recommended. Read the line either way, the fenfe is nearly the fame, nor does Hubert tell truth in either reading when he charges John with flandering his form. He that could once intend to burn out the eyes of a captive prince, had a mind not too fair for the rudeft form.

And

And foul imaginary eyes of blood
Prefented thee more hideous than thou art.
Oh, answer not, but to my closet bring
The angry Lords with all expedient haste.
I conjure thee but flowly run more fast.

SCENE V.

A Street before a Prifon.

Enter Arthur on the Walls, difguis'd.

TH

[Exeunt.

Arth. THE wall is high, and yet will I leap down, Good ground, be pitiful, and hurt me not!

There's few or none do know me: if they did,

This ship-boy's femblance hath difguis'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 shifts to get away:

As good to die, and go; as die, and ftay. [Leaps down.
Oh me! my Uncle's fpirit is in these stones :
Heav'n take my foul, and England keep my bones! [Dies.

Enter Pembroke, Salisbury and Bigot.

Sal. Lords, I will meet him at St. Edmondsbury; It is our fafety; and we must embrace

This gentle offer of the perilous time.

Pemb. Who brought that letter from the Cardinal? Sal. The Count Me un, a noble Lord of France, 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 day's journey, Lords, or ere we meet.

6 Whofe private, &c.-] i. e. whofe private account, of the Dauphin's affection to our caufe,

is much more ample than the letters.

POPE.

Enter

Enter Faulconbridge.

Faule. Once more to day well met, diftemper'd
Lords;

The King by me requefts your presence ftrait.
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 best.

Sal. Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now. ?
Faulc. But there is little reafon in your grief,
Therefore 'twere reason, you had manners now.
Pemb. Sir, Sir, impatience hath its privilege.
Faulc. 'Tis true, to hurt its master, no man else.
Sal. This is the prison: what is he lies here?
[Seeing Arthur.
Pemb. 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 almost 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 creft 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,

7 To reafon, in Shakespeare, is not so often to argue, as to talk.

5

Prefented

i

Prefented to the tears of foft remorse.

Pemb. All murders past do stand 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 purpose of the King:
From whofe obedience I forbid my foul,
Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,
And breathing to this breathless excellence
The incenfe of a vow, a holy vow! 3
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 giving it the worship of revenge. 9
Pemb.

Bigot.

8

} Our fouls religiously confirm thy words.

SCENE VI.

Enter Hubert.

Hub. Lords, I am hot with hafte, in feeking you; Arthur doth live, the King hath fent for you. Sal. Oh, he is bold, and blushes not at death.