Doth make the fault the worfe by the excufe
As patches, fet upon a little breach,
Difcredit more in hiding of the fault,9
Than did the fault before it was so patch'd.

SAL. To this effect, before you were new-crown'd, We breath'd our counsel: but it pleas'd your high

nefs

To overbear it; and we are all well pleas'd;
Since all and every part of what we would,"
Doth make a ftand at what your highness will.

K. JOHN. Some reasons of this double coronation

3

I have poffefs'd you with, and think them strong;
And more, more ftrong, (when leffer is my fear,)
I fhall indue you with: Mean time, but ask
What you would have reform'd, that is not well;
And well fhall you perceive, how willingly

I will both, hear and grant you your requests.

MALONE.

9 -in biding of the fault,] Fault means blemish. Since all and every part of what we would,] Since the whole

and each particular part of our wishes, &c.

3 Some reafons of this double coronation

MALONE.

I have poffefs'd you with, and think them frong;

And more, more strong, (when leffer is my fear,)

I fhall indue you with:] Mr. Theobald reads (the leffer is my fear) which, in the following note, Dr. Johnson has attempted to explain. STEEVENS.

I have told you fome reasons, in my opinion ftrong, and fhall tell more yet stronger; for the ftronger my reafons are, the less is my fear of your disapprobation. This feems to be the meaning...

And more, more ftrong, (when leffer is my fear,)
I fhall indue you with: The firft folio reads:

(then leffer is my fear)

The true reading is obvious enough:

(when leffer is my fear). TYRWHITT.

JOHNSON.

I have done this emendation the juftice to place it in the text.

VOL. XI.

E c

STEEVENS.

PEMB. Then I, (as one that am the tongue of
thefe,

To found the purpofes5 of all their hearts,)
Both for myself and them, (but, chief of all,
Your fafety, for the which myself and them
Bend their beft ftudies,) heartily request
The enfranchisement of Arthur; whose restraint
Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent
To break into this dangerous argument,-
If, what in reft you have, in right you hold,
Why then your fears, (which, as they fay, attend
The fteps of wrong,) fhould move you to mew up
Your tender kinfman, and to choke his days.
With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth

6

To found the purposes-] To declare, to publish the defires of

all thofe. JOHNSON.

6

If, what in reft you have, in right you hold,

Why then your fears, (which, as they fay, attend

The Ateps of wrong,) fhould move you to mew up

Your tender kinfman, &c.] Perhaps we fhould read:
If, what in wreft you have, in right you hold,

i. e. if what you poffefs by an act of seizure or violence, &c.
So again, in this play:

The imminent decay of wrefted pomp.

Wreft is a fubftantive used by Spenfer, and by our author in Troilus and Creffida. STEEVENS.

The emendation proposed by Mr. Steevens is its own voucher. If then and should change places, and a mark of interrogation be placed after exercife, the full fenfe of the paffage will be reftored. HENLEY.

Mr. Steevens's reading of wreft is better than his explanation. If adopted, the meaning muft be- If what you poffefs, or have in your hand, or grafp. RITSON.

It is evident that the words Should and then, have changed their places. M. MASON.

MALONE.

The conftru&iou is. If you have a good title to what you now quietly poffefs, why then Should your fears move you, &c. Perhaps this question is elliptically expreffed, and meansWhy then is it that your fears fhould move you, &c. STEEVENS.

་་

The rich advantage of good exercife?"
That the time's enemies may not have this
To grace occafions, let it be our fuit,
That you have bid us afk his liberty;

Which for our goods we do no further afk,
Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,
Counts it your weal, he have his liberty.
K. JOHN. Let it be fo; I do commit his youth

Enter HUBERT.

To your direction.-Hubert, what news with you? PEMB. This is the man fhould do the bloody deed;

He fhow'd his warrant to a friend of mine:
The image of a wicked heinous fault

Lives in his eye; that clofe afpéct of his
Does fhow the mood of a much-troubled breast;
And I do fearfully believe, 'tis done,
What we fo fear'd he had a charge to do.
SAL. The colour of the king doth come and go,
Between his purpofe and his confcience,

7

-good exercife?] In the middle ages the whole education of princes and noble youths confifted in martial exercifes, &c. Thefe could not be eafily had in a prison, where mental improvements might have been afforded as well as any where elfe; but this fort of education never entered into the thoughts of our active, warlike, but illiterate nobility. PERCY.

8 Between his purpose and his confcience, ] Between his confcionsnefs of guilt, and his defign to conceal it by fair profeffions.

JOHNSON.

The purpose of the King, which Salisbury alludes to, is that of putting Arthur to death, which he confiders as not yet accom. plished, and therefore fuppofes that there might ftill be a conflic in the King's mind,

“Between his purpose and his conscience."

Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles fet:"
His paffion is fo ripe, it needs muft break.
PEMB. And, when it breaks, I fear, will iffuc
thence

2

The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.
K. JOHN. We cannot hold mortality's ftrong
hand:-

Good lords, although my will to give is living,
The fuit which you demand is gone and dead:
He tells us, Arthur is deceas'd to-night.

SAL. Indeed, we fear'd, his fickness was past cure.
PEMB. Indeed, we heard how near his death he

was,

Before the child himself felt he was fick :

This must be anfwer'd, either here, or hence. K. JOHN. Why do you bend fuch folemn brows on me?

So when Salisbury fees the dead body of Arthur, he fays, "It is the fhameful work of Hubert's hand;

"The practise and the purpose of the king." M. MASON. Rather, between the criminal a&t that he planned and commanded to be executed, and the reproaches of his confcience confequent on the execution of it. So, in Coriolanus:

"It is a purpos'd thing, and grows by plot."

We have nearly the fame expreffions afterwards:

Nay, in the body of this fleshly land, [in John's own perfon]

Hoftility, and civil tumult, reigns

"Between my confcience and my cousin's death.' MALONE.

• Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles fet:] But heralds are not planted, I prefume, in the midft betwixt two lines of battle; though they, and trumpets, are often fent over from party to party, to propose terms, demand a parley, &c. I have therefore ventured to read, fent. THEOBALD.

Set is not fixed, but only placed; heralds must be set between battles, in order to be fent between them. JOHNSON.

And, when it breaks, ] This is but an indelicate metaphor, taken from an impofthumated tumour. JOHNSON.

Think you, I bear the fhears of destiny?
Have I commandment 'on the pulse of life?
SAL. It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis fhame,
That greatnefs fhould fo grofsly offer it:-
So thrive it in your game! and fo farewell.
PEMB. Stay yet, lord Salisbury; I'll go with
thee,

And find the inheritance of this poor child,
His little kingdom of a forced grave.

That blood, which ow'd the breadth of all this ifle,
Three foot of it doth hold; Bad world the while!
This must not be thus borne; this will break out
To all our forrows, and ere long, I doubt.

[Exeunt Lords. K. JOHN. They burn in indignation; I repent; There is no fure foundation fet on blood; No certain life achiev'd by others' death,

Enter a Meffenger.

A fearful eye thou haft; Where is that blood,
That I have feen inhabit in those cheeks?
So foul a fky clears not without a storm:

Pour down thy weather:-How goes all in France?
MESS. From France to England. 3-Never fuch

a power

For any foreign preparation,

Was levied in the body of a land!

The copy of your fpeed is learn'd by them;
For, when you should be told they do prepare,
The tidings come, that they are all arriv'd.

3 From France to England. ] The king afks how all goes in France, the meffenger catches the word goes, and answers, that whatever is in France goes now into England. JOHNSON..