KING JOHN. ACT I.

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Scene 1. Page 19.

Bast. Good den, sir Richard.

See former note, p. 139.

Scene 1. Page 26.

Bast. ... Basilisco like.

This braggadocio character must have been very popular, as his oaths became proverbial. Thus in Fennor's Compter's commonwealth, 1617, 4to, we have, "three-pil'd, huge Basilisco oaths that would have torn a roring-boyes eares in a thousand shatters."

ACT II.

Scene 1. Page 39.

Ell. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.
Const. Now shame upon you, whether she does, or no!

Mr. Ritson proposes to read, whether he does or no! i. e. whether he weeps or not; and he adds that Constance, so far from admitting, expressly denies that she shames him. It may be answered, that this reading is equally objectionable; for Constance admits also that her son wept. In either case there is ambiguity; but the words as they stand are infinitely more natural, and even defensible, according to common usage.

Scene 1. Page 44.

K. John. Have brought a countercheck before your gates.

Mr. Steevens thinks this one of the old terms used at chess, but none such occurs in any of the treatises on that game. It is presumed to be simply a military word. Thus the Bastard afterwards asks, "shall a silken wanton brave our fields and find no check?" and we still say, "the enemy has received a check."

Scene 1. Page 47.

K. Phi. Command the rest to stand.—God, and our right!

An English motto is here improperly put into the mouth of a Frenchman. Richard the First is said to have originally used DIEU ET MON DROIT.

Scene 2. Page 64.

K. Phi. ... Young princes close your hands
Aust. And your lips too; for, I am well assur'd,
That I did so, when I was first assur'd.

The kiss was a part of the ceremony of affiancing. Thus in Twelfth night:

"A contract of eternal bond of love,
Attested by the holy close of lips."

See the note in page 67.

ACT III.

Scene 4. Page 107.

Const. And buss thee as thy wife.

In former times there was no vulgarity in this word, as the two first quotations by Mr Steevens demonstrate; but he is peculiarly unfortunate in his last example, which may without detriment be omitted in future editions. The singular vulgarity of Stanihurst's language cannot with propriety be used to exemplify the undegraded use of any word whatever.

No further proof of the justice of this remark is necessary than the mention of his "dandiprat cockney Cupido," or the "blubbering Andromache," whom he describes as "stuttering and stammering to fumble out an answer to her sweeting delicat Hector;" and numerous expressions of a similar nature occur in his eccentric translation of the pure and elegant Virgil. To buss is either from the French baiser, or from some radical word common to both languages, and was formerly written bass. Thus Stanihurst, whom it may be allowable to quote on this occasion;

"That when Queen Dido shall col thee and smacklye bebasse thee:"

And the duke of Orleans, in one of his love poems written in the time of King Henry the Fifth;

"Lend me your praty mouth madame
I wis dere hart to basse it swete."

Scene 4. Page 115.

Pand. No natural exhalation in the sky,
No scape of nature, no distempered day,
No common wind, no customed event,
But they will pluck away his natural cause,
And call them meteors, prodigies and signs,
Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven.

The old copy reads scope of nature. The alteration was made by Pope, and plausibly commented on by Warburton, who seems to have influenced Mr. Malone to adopt it. The speaker's design is to show that all the common effects of nature which he mentions would be perverted by the people; but an escape of nature would be very properly deemed an abortive. The original reading is therefore correct; nor could an apter word have been selected. Thus in King Henry the Fourth, Part I.:

"And curbs himself even of his natural scope."

ACT IV.

Scene 2. Page 128.

Pemb. If what in rest you have, in right you hold.

Mr. Steevens would read wrest, which he explains to be violence. But surely "the murmuring lips of discontent" would not insinuate that John was an usurper; because the subsequent words, "in right you hold," would then be contradictory. One could not say, "if, being an usurper, you reign by right." The construction may therefore be more simple: "If the power you now possess in quiet be held by right, why should your fears," &c. The explanation given by Mr. Malone might have sufficed.

Scene 2. Page 137.

K. John. It is the curse of kings to be attended
By slaves that take their humours for a warrant
To break within the bloody house of life.

Mr. Malone ingeniously conceives this to be a covert apology for Elizabeth's conduct to the queen of Scots; yet it may be doubted whether any such apology would be thought necessary during the life of Elizabeth. May it not rather allude to the death of the earl of Essex? If this conjecture be well founded, it will serve to ascertain the date of the composition of the play, and to show that Meres had mistaken the older piece for Shakspeare's.

Scene 2. Page 139.

K. John. Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,
As bid me tell my tale in express words.

And, and or, have been proposed instead of as, but without necessity. The words are elliptical in Shakspeare's manner, and only mean, "or turn'd such an eye of doubt as bid me," &c.

Scene 3. Page 142.

Sal. Two long days journey lords, or e'er we meet.

Dr. Percy has judiciously remarked that ever or e'er in this phrase is a useless augmentative, or being of itself equivalent to before. The corruption is not much older than Shakspeare's time. In some of the editions of Cranmer's Bible, Ecclesiastes xii. 6 is rendered, "Or ever the silver lace be taken away, and or ever the golden well be broken." In others the second ever is omitted. Wicliffe's translation, an invaluable monument of our language, has it, "er be to broke the silveren corde," &c. This is pure Saxon Æ? or e?; and so is our modern ere, often erroneously spelled e'er, as a supposed contraction of ever. Yet in Chaucer's time it had become or;

"For, par amour, I loved hir first or thou."
Knight's tale, v. 1155.

though some copies, both manuscript and printed, read er in this place as well as in others. Mr. Steevens seems properly to object to the orthography of ore.

ACT V.

Scene 1. Page 155.

Bast. Away then, with good courage; yet I know,
Our party may well meet a prouder foe.

Mr. Steevens has noticed Dr. Johnson's misconception of this passage; yet it may be doubted whether he has sufficiently simplified the meaning, which is, "yet I know that our party is fully competent to engage a more valiant foe." Prouder has in this place the signification of the old French word preux.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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