To this fair island, and the territories; To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine; Which sways usurpingly these several titles ; K. JOHN. What follows, if we disallow of this? war, 2 To enforce these rights so forcily withheld. K. JOHN. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood, Controlment for controlment: so answer France 3. 2-control-] Opposition, from controller. JOHNSON. I think it rather means constraint or compulsion. So, in the second Act of King Henry V. when Exeter demands of the King of France the surrender of his crown, and the King answers"Or else what follows?" Exeter replies: 66 Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown, "Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it." The passages are exactly similar. M. MASON. 3 Here have we war for war, and blood for blood, Controlment for controlment, &c.] King John's reception of Chatillon not a little resembles that which Andrea meets with from the King of Portugal, in the first part of Jeronimo, &c. 1605: "And. Thou shalt pay tribute, Portugal, with blood.— "Bal. Tribute for tribute then; and foes for foes. "And. -I bid you sudden wars." STEEVENS. Jeronimo was exhibited on the stage before the year 1590. MALONE. From the following passage in Barnabie Googe's Cupido conquered, (dedicated with his other poems, in May, 1562, and printed in 1563,) Jeronymo appears to have been written earlier than the earliest of these dates: "Mark hym that showes y Tragedies, 66 Thyne owne famylyar frende, By whom ye Spaniard's hawty style B. Googe had already founded the praises of Phaer and Gascoigne, and is here descanting on the merits of Kyd. It is not impossible (though Ferrex and Porrex was acted in CHAT. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth, The furthest limit of my embassy. K. JOHN. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace: 4 Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France; 1561) that Hieronymo might have been the first regular tragedy that appeared in an English dress. It may also be remarked, that B. Googe, in the foregoing Jines, seems to speak of a tragedy "in English verse as a novelty. STEEVENS. The foregoing note is entirely founded on a mistake. Googe's verses relate, not to Kyd's Tragedy, but to Alexander Neville's translation of the Spaniard Seneca's Tragedy of Edipus, printed in 1560. A. Neville was Googe's particular friend; in the verses quoted, Mercury is the speaker, and he is addressing Googe the author: "Marke him that thundred out the deeds "of olde Anchises sun "Whose English verse gyves Maroes grace, "in all that he hath done; "Whose death the Muses sorrow much thyne owne famylyar frende, "By whom ye Spaniard's hawty style "in Englysh verse is pende.' The first person here alluded to, is Thomas Phayer, who had published a translation of the first seven books of the Æneid, and was prevented by death from finishing the work. The second is Higgins, the author of the Mirrour of Magistrates. The third, Alexander Neville, the familiar friend of Googe, who has a copy of encomiastic verses on Googe prefixed to the very book here quoted. Several of Googe's poems in that work are addressed to Neville, and his answers are subjoined. MALONE. 4 Be thou as LIGHTNING] The simile does not suit well: For ere thou canst report I will be there, The thunder of my cannon shall be heard: 5 An honourable conduct let him have : the lightning, indeed, appears before the thunder is heard, but the lightning is destructive, and the thunder innocent. JOHNSON. The allusion may, notwithstanding, be very proper, so far as Shakspeare had applied it, i. e. merely to the swiftness of the lightning, and its preceding and foretelling the thunder. But there is some reason to believe that thunder was not thought to be innocent in our author's time, as we elsewhere learn from himself. See King Lear, Act III. Sc. II. Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. Sc. V. Julius Cæsar, Act I. Sc. III. and still more decisively in Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. II. This old superstition is still prevalent in many parts of the country. RITSON. King John does not allude to the destructive powers either of thunder or lightning; he only means to say, that Chatillon shall appear to the eyes of the French like lightning, which shows that thunder is approaching: and the thunder he alludes to is that of his cannon. Johnson also forgets, that though, philosophically speaking, the destructive power is in the lightning, it has generally, in poetry, been attributed to the thunder Lear says: "You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, So, SULLEN presage-] By the epithet sullen, which cannot be applied to a trumpet, it is plain that our author's imagination had now suggested a new idea. It is as if he had said, be a trumpet to alarm with our invasion, be a bird of ill-omen to croak out the prognostick of your own ruin. JOHNSON. I do not see why the epithet sullen may not be applied to a trumpet, with as much propriety as to a bell. In our author's King Henry IV. Part II. we find MALONE. "Sounds ever after as a sullen bellSurely Johnson is right: the epithet sullen may be applied as Milton also has applied it to a bell “ swinging slow with sullen roar," with more propriety than to the sharp sound of a trumpet. BOSWELL. That here are two ideas is evident; but the second of them has not been luckily explained. "The sullen presage of your own decay," means, the dismal passing bell, that announces your own approaching dissolution." STEEVENS, Pembroke, look to't: Farewell, Chatillon. [Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBroke. ELI. What now, my son? have I not ever said, How that ambitious Constance would not cease, This might have been prevented, and made whole, With very easy arguments of love; 6 Which now the manage of two kingdoms must With fearful bloody issue arbitrate. K. JOHN. Our strong possession, and our right, for us. ELI. Your strong possession, much more than your right; Or else it must go wrong with you, and me: Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, who whispers Essex. ESSEX. My liege, here is the strangest contro- Come from the country to be judg'd by you, 6 the manage-] i. e. conduct, administration. So, in King Richard II. : 66 66 for the rebels, Expedient manage must be made, my liege." STEEVENS. 7 Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, &c.] This stage direction I have taken from the old quarto. STEEVENS, Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, and This expedition's charge.-What men are you? ROB. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge. K. JOHN. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir? 8 and PHILIP, his bastard Brother.] Though Shakspeare adopted this character of Philip Faulconbridge from the old play, it is not improper to mention that it is compounded of two distinct personages. Matthew Paris says: "Sub illius temporis curriculo, Falcasius de Brente, Neusteriensis, et spurius ex parte matris, atque Bastardus, qui in vili jumento manticato ad Regis paulo ante clientelam descenderat," &c. Mathew Paris, in his History of the Monks of St. Albans, calls him Falce, but in his General History, Falcasius de Brente, as above. Holinshed says that "Richard I. had a natural son named Philip, who, in the year following, killed the Viscount De Limoges, to revenge the death of his father." STEEVENS. Perhaps the following passage in the continuation of Harding's Chronicle, 1543, fol. 24, b. ad ann. 1472, induced the author of the old play to affix the name of Faulconbridge to King Richard's natural son, who is only mentioned in our histories by the name of Philip: "one Faulconbridge, therle of Kent, his bastarde, a stoute-hearted man." Who the mother of Philip was is not ascertained. It is said that she was a lady of Poictou, and that King Richard bestowed upon her son a lordship in that province. In expanding the character of the Bastard, Shakspeare seems to have proceeded on the following slight hint in the original play: "Next them, a bastard of the king's deceas'd, "A hardie wild-head, rough, and venturous." MALONE. |