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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. :

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A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest

"Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast." MALONE.

and put on

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

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MALONE.

to become the field :] So, in Hamlet :

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such a sight as this

"Becomes the field." STEEVENS.

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

To meet displeasure further from the doors;
And grapple with him, ere he come so nigh.
K. JOHN. The legate of the pope hath been with

me,

And I have made a happy peace with him;
And he hath promis'd to dismiss the powers
Led by the Dauphin.

BAST.

O inglorious league!
Shall we, upon the footing of our land,
Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,
Insinuation, parley, and base truce,

To arms invasive? shall a beardless boy,
A cocker'd silken wanton brave our fields,
And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,

Mocking the air with colours idly spread 2,
And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms:
Perchance, the cardinal cannot make your peace;
Or if he do, let it at least be said,

They saw we had a purpose of defence.

K. JOHN. Have thou the ordering of this present time.

BAST. Away then, with good courage; yet, I know,

Our party may well meet a prouder foe3. [Exeunt.

2 Mocking the air with colours idly spread,] He has the same image in Macbeth:

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Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky, "And fan our people cold." JOHNSON.

From these two passages Mr. Gray seems to have formed the first stanza of his celebrated Ode:

"Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!
"Confusion on thy banners wait!

"Though fann'd by conquest's crimson wing
They mock the air with idle state." MALONE.

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"Let us then

3 Away then, with good courage; yet, I know, Our party may well meet a prouder foe.] away with courage; yet I so well know the faintness of our party, that I think it may easily happen that they shall encounter enemies who have more spirit than themselves." JOHNSON.

SCENE II.

A Plain, near St. Edmund's-Bury‘.

Enter, in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEM-
BROKE, BIGOT, and Soldiers.

LEW. My lord Melun, let this be copied out,
And keep it safe for our remembrance:
Return the precedent' to these lords again;
That, having our fair order written down,
Both they, and we, perusing o'er these notes,
May know wherefore we took the sacrament,
And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.

SAL. Upon our sides it never shall be broken.
And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear

Dr. Johnson is, I believe, mistaken. Faulconbridge means'for all their boasting, I know very well that our party is able to cope with one yet prouder and more confident of its strength than theirs. Faulconbridge would otherwise dispirit the King, whom he means to animate. STEEVENS.

Yet I know, is-still I know. BOSWELL.

4 — near St. Edmund's-Bury.] I have ventured to fix the place of the scene here, which is specified by none of the editors, on the following authorities. In the preceding Act, where Salisbury has fixed to go over to the Dauphin, he says:

"Lords, I will meet him at St. Edmund's-Bury."

And Count Melun, in this last Act, says:

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—and many more with me,

Upon the altar at St. Edmund's-Bury;

"Even on that altar, where we swore to you

"Dear amity, and everlasting love."

And it appears likewise, from The Troublesome Reign of King John, in two Parts, (the first rough model of this play.) that the interchange of vows betwixt the Dauphin and the English barons was at St. Edmund's-Bury. THEOBALD.

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the PRECEDENT, &c.] i. e. the rough draught of the original treaty between the Dauphin and the English lords. Thus (adds Mr. M. Mason) in King Richard III. the scrivener employed to engross the indictment of Lord Hastings, says, "that it took him eleven hours to write it, and that the precedent was full as long a doing." STEEVENS.

Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself,
A voluntary zeal, and unurg'd faith,

To your proceedings; yet, believe me, prince,
I am not glad that such a sore of time
Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt,
And heal the inveterate canker of one wound,
By making many: O, it grieves my soul,
That I must draw this metal from my side
To be a widow-maker; O, and there,
Where honourable rescue, and defence,
Cries out upon the name of Salisbury :
But such is the infection of the time,
That, for the health and physick of our right,
We cannot deal but with the very hand
Of stern injustice and confused wrong.-
And is't not pity, O my grieved friends!
That we, the sons and children of this isle,
Were born to see so sad an hour as this
Wherein we step after a stranger march
Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up

;

Her enemies' ranks, (I must withdraw and weep Upon the spot of this enforced cause',)

To grace the gentry of a land remote,

And follow unacquainted colours here? What, here?-O nation, that thou could'st remove!

That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about

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6 after a STRANGER march ] Our author often uses stranger as an adjective. See the last scene, p. 341:

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Swearing allegiance, and the love of soul, "To stranger blood, to foreign royalty."

So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, vol. v. p. 190: "To seek new friends, and stranger companies."

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MALONE.

the SPOT of this enforced cause,] Spot probably means, stain or disgrace. M. MASON.

So, in a former passage:

"To look into the spots and stains of right." MALONE. 8 - CLIPPETH thee about,] i. e. embraceth. So, in Coriolanus:

"Enter the city; clip your wives." STEEVENS.

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And grapple thee unto a pagan shore 1;
Where these two Christian armies might combine
The blood of malice in a vein of league,
And not to-spend it so unneighbourly 2!

LEW. A noble temper dost thou show in this;
And great affections, wrestling in thy bosom,
Do make an earthquake of nobility.

3

O, what a noble combat hast thou fought
Between compulsion and a brave respect!
Let me wipe off this honourable dew,
That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks :
My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,

9 And GRAPPLE thee-] The old copy reads-" And cripple thee," &c. Perhaps our author wrote gripple, a word used by Drayton, in his Polyolbion, Song 1:

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"That thrusts his gripple hand into her golden maw."

Our author, however, in Macbeth, has the verb-grapple : Grapples thee to the heart and love of us—." The emendation (as Mr. Malone observes) was made by Mr. Pope.

STEEVENS.

- unto a PAGAN shore ;] Our author seems to have been thinking on the wars carried on by Christian princes in the holy land against the Saracens, where the united armies of France and England might have laid their mutual animosities aside, and fought in the cause of Christ, instead of fighting against brethren and countrymen, as Salisbury and the other English noblemen who had joined the Dauphin were about to do. MALONE.

And not To-spend it so unneighbourly.] Shakspeare employs, in the present instance, a phraseology which he had used before in The Merry Wives of Windsor:

"And fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean-knight."

To, in composition with verbs, is common enough in ancient language. See Mr. Tyrwhitt's observations on this last passage, and many instances in support of his position, vol. viii. p. 164, n. 9. STEEVENS.

3

hast THOU fought,] Thou, which appears to have been accidentally omitted by the transcriber or compositor, was inserted by the editor of the fourth folio. MALONE.

4 Between COMPULSION and a brave respect!] This compulsion was the necessity of a reformation in the state; which, according to Salisbury's opinion, (who, in his speech preceding, calls it an enforced cause,) could only be procured by foreign arms and the brave respect was the love of his country. WARBURTON.

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