And it shall be as all the ocean,
Enough to stifle such a villain up.--
I do suspect thee very grievously.

HUB. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought
Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath
Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,
Let hell want pains enough to torture me!
I left him well.

BAST. Go, bear him in thine arms.I am amaz'd3, 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-pick'd 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,)

""

I am AMAZ'D,] i. e. confounded. So, King John, p. 322, says:

I was amaz'd

"Under the tide."

STEEVENS.

9 To tug and SCAMBLE,] So, in K. Henry V. Sc. I.: "But that the scambling and unquiet time."

Scamble and scramble have the same meaning. See note on the passage quoted. STEEVENS.

The UNOWED interest] i. e. the interest which has no proper owner to claim it. STEEVENS.

That is, the interest which is not at this moment legally possessed by any one, however rightfully entitled to it. On the death of Arthur, the right to the English crown devolved to his sister, Eleanor. MALONE.

3

can

The imminent decay of wrested pomp 2.
Now happy he, whose cloak and cincture
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.

ACT V. SCENE I.

The Same. A Room in the Palace.

Enter King JOHN, PANDULPH with the Crown, and Attendants.

K. JOHN. Thus have I yielded up into your hand The circle of my glory.

PAND.

Take again

[Giving JOHN the Crown. From this my hand, as holding of the pope, Your sovereign greatness and authority.

K. JOHN. Now keep your holy word: go meet the French;

And from his holiness use all your power
To stop their marches, 'fore we are inflam'd‘.

2 The imminent decay of WRESTED POMP.] greatness obtained by violence. JOHNSON.

Rather, greatness wrested from its possessor. MALONE. 3- - and CINCTURE -] The old copy reads-center, probably for ceinture, Fr. STEEVENS.

The emendation was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

4 use all your power

Wrested is pomp

To stop their marches, 'FORE we are inflam'd.] This cannot be right, for the nation was already as much inflamed as it could be, and so the King himself declares. We should read for, instead of 'fore, and then the passage will run thus:

Our discontented counties' do revolt;
Our people quarrel with obedience;
Swearing allegiance, and the love of soul,
To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.
This inundation of mistemper'd humour
Rests by you only to be qualified.

Then pause not; for the present time's so sick,
That present medicine must be minister'd,
Or overthrow incurable ensues.

PAND. It was my breath that blew this tempest

up,

Upon your stubborn usage of the pope :
But, since you are a gentle convertite 6,

66

use all your power

To stop their marches, for we are inflam'd;

"Our discontented counties do revolt," &c. M. MASON.

66

s - counties-] Perhaps counties, in the present instance, do not mean the divisions of a kingdom, but lords, nobility, as in Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, &c. STEEVENS. a gentle CONVERTITE,] A convertite is a convert. So, in Marlow's Jew of Malta, 1633:

6

"Gov. Why, Barabas, wilt thou be christened?

"Bar. No, governour; I'll be no convertite." STEEVENS. The same expression occurs in As You Like It, where Jaques, speaking of the young Duke, says:

66

There is much matter in these convertites."

In both these places the word convertite means a repenting sinner; not, as Steevens says, a convert, by which, in the language of the present time, is meant a person who changes from one religion to another; in which sense the word can neither apply to King John, or to Duke Frederick: In the sense I have given it, it will apply to both. M. MASON.

A convertite (a word often used by our old writers, where we should now use convert) signified either one converted to the faith, or one reclaimed from worldly pursuits, and devoted to penitence and religion.

66

Mr. M. Mason says, a convertite cannot mean a convert, because the latter word, in the language of the present time, means a person that changes from one religion to another." But the question is, not what is the language of the present time, but what was the language of Shakspeare's age. Marlow uses the word convertite exactly in the sense now affixed to convert. John, who had in the former part of this play asserted, in very

My tongue shall hush again this storm of war,
And make fair weather in your blustering land.
On this Ascension-day, remember well,
Upon your oath of service to the pope,
Go I to make the French lay down their arms.

[Exit.

K. JOHN. Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet

Say, that, before Ascension-day at noon,
My crown I should give off? Even so I have:
I did suppose, it should be on constraint;
But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary.

Enter the Bastard.

BAST. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out,

But Dover castle: London hath receiv'd,
Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers:
Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone
To offer service to your enemy;

And wild amazement hurries up and down
The little number of your doubtful friends.

K. JOHN. Would not my lords return to me

again, After they heard young Arthur was alive?

strong terms, the supremacy of the king of England in all ecclesiastical matters, and told Pandulph that he had no reverence for "the Pope, or his usurp'd authority," having now made his peace with the "holy church," and resigned his crown to the Pope's representative, is considered by the legate as one newly converted to the true faith, and very properly styled by him a convertite. The same term, in the second sense above-mentioned, is applied to the usurper, Duke Frederick, in As You Like It, on his having "put on a religious life, and thrown into neglect the pompous court:

66

out of these convertites

"

"There is much matter to be heard and learn'd." So, in The Rape of Lucrece :

"He thence departs a heavy convertite." MALOne.

BAST. They found him dead, and cast into the streets;

An empty casket, where the jewel of life"

By some damn'd hand was robb'd and ta'en away. K. JOHN. That villain Hubert told me, he did live.

BAST. So, on my soul, he did, for aught he

knew.

But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?
Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
Let not the world see fear, and sad distrust,
Govern the motion of a kingly eye:
Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviours from the great,
Grow great by your example, and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution R.
Away, and glister like the god of war,
When he intendeth to become the field 9:
Show boldness, and aspiring confidence.
What shall they seek the lion in his den,
And fright him there? and make him tremble
there ?

O, let it not be said!-Forage, and run1

7 AN EMPTY CASKET, where the JEWEL of life-] Dryden has transferred this image to a speech of Antony, in All for Love: "An empty circle, since the jewel's gone -" STEEVENS. The same kind of imagery is employed in King Richard II. : "A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest

"Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast." MALONE. 8 -and put on

The dauntless spirit of resolution.] So, in Macbeth:
"Let's briefly put on manly readiness,
"And meet i' the hall together." MALONE.

9 — to become the field :] So, in Hamlet :

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this

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

such a sight as

"Becomes the field." STEEVENS.

I-FORAGE, and run-] To forage is here used in its original sense, for to range abroad.

JOHNSON.