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ato pictures of nursery life, bringing childre: upon the scene, and delighting us with their innocent archness and sweet-witted prattle, as in case of Hermione and Mamillius in The Winter's Tale, and of Lady Macduff and her sou in Macbeth; but the part of Arthur is by far his most charming and powerful thing in that line. That his glorious, manly heart loved to make childhood its playmate, cannot be doubted.

The reign of King John furnished no characters fully answerable to the demands of dramatic interest. To meet this want, therefore, there was need of one or more representative characters, men in whom should be centralized and consolidated various elements of national character, which were in fact dispersed through a multitude of individuals. And such is Faulconbridge, with his fiery flood of Norman vigour bounding through his veins, his irrepressible gush of animal spirits, his athletic and frolicsome wit, his big, brave, manly heart, his biting sword, and his tongue equally biting, afraid of nothing but to do what were dishonourable or wrong. And with all his laughing roughness of speech, and iron sternness of act, so blunt, bold, and downright, he is full of humane and gentle feeling. With what burning eloquence of indignation does he denounce the supposed murder of Arthur! though he has no thought of abetting his claim to the throne against the present occupant. The Poet has managed with great art that he may be held to John throughout the play, by ties which he is too clear of head and too upright of heart to think of renouncing. "In the outset he receives honour from the hands of John, — and he is grateful in the conclusion he sees his old patrou, weak indeed and guilty, but surrounded with enemies.-and he will not be faithless." In his clear-sighted and comprehensive patriotism the diverse interests that split others into factions, and plunge them into deadly strife, are smoothly reconciled; and he is ready with tongue and sword to beat down whatsoever any where obstructs the reign of a broad and generous nationality. Verily, he stands next to Falstaff as an ideal representative of actual men. Thoroughly Gothic in features and proportions, and as thoroughly English in temper and spirit, his presence rays life and true manliness into every part of the drama, where they would else be wanting. Is it strange that a nation which could grow such originals shoul. nave beaten all the rest of the world in every thing useful, of beautiful, or great?

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

KING JOHN.

PRINCE HENRY, his Son.

ARTHUR, Duke of Bretagne.

WILLIAM MARESHALL, Earl of Pembroke.

GEFFREY FITZ-PETER, Earl of Essex.

WILLIAM LONGSWORD, Earl of Salisbury.

ROBERT BIGOT, Earl of Norfolk.

HUBERT DE BURGH, Chamberlain to the King.

ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE.

PHILIP FAULCONBRIDGE, his Half-Brother.
JAMES GURNEY, Servant to Lady Faulconbridge.
PETER of Pomfret.

PHILIP, King of France.
LEWIS, the Dauphin.

ARCHDUKE OF AUSTRIA.

CARDINAL PANDULPH, the Pope's Legate.

MELUN, a French Lord.

CHATILLON, Ambassador from France.

ELINOR, Widow of King Henry II.

CONSTANCE, Mother to Arthur.

BLANCH, Daughter to Alphonso, King of Castile.

LADY FAULCONBRIDGE.

Lords, Ladies, Citizens of Angiers, Sheriff, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants.

SCENE, sometimes in England, sometimes in Franco.

KING JOHN.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Northampton.

A Room of State in the Palace.

Enter King JOHN, Queen ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and Others, with CHATILLON.

John. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?

Chat. Thus, after greeting, speaks the king of France,

In my behaviour,' to the majesty,

The borrow'd majesty, of England here.

Eli. A strange beginning! - borrow'd majesty?
John. Silence, good mother: hear the embassy.
Chat. Philip of France, in right and true behalf
Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,
Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
To this fair island, and the territories,

To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine;
Desiring thee to lay aside the sword

Which sways usurpingly these several titles,
And put the same into young Arthur's hand,
Thy nephew, and right royal sovereign.2

That is, by me; in the words and action I am now going

to use.

2 As Richard I. died without lawful issue, the crown in the strict order of succession would have fallen to his nephew Arthur, Duke of Brittany, then in his twelfth year. But the crown was

Juhn. What follows, if we disallow of this?
Chat. The proud control3 of fierce and bloody

war,

To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.

John. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,

Controlment for controlment: so answer France. Chat. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth, The farthest limit of my embassy.

John. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace:
Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
For ere thou canst report I will be there,

The thunder of my cannon shall be heard:"
So, hence!
Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,
And sullen 5 presage of your own decay.—

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An honourable conduct let him have:
Pembroke, look to't. Farewell, Chatillon.

[Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBROKE

nen partly elective, the nation choosing from the members of the royal family the one they thought fittest for the office. Arthur held the duchy of Brittany in right of his father, Geffrey Plantagenet, an elder brother of John. Anjou, Touraine, and Maine, the ancient patrimony of the house of Anjou, were his by hereditary right. As Duke of Brittany Arthur was a vassal of Philip Augustus, King of France; and Constance engaged to Philip that her son should do him homage also for Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and Poictou, on condition that Philip should support his claim to the English crown. England having declared for John, the play opens with Philip's interference in behalf of Arthur.

H.

3 Control here means constraint or compulsion. 4 The Poet here anticipates the use of gunpowder by about a hundred years. Thus, again, in Act ii. he speaks of "bullets wrapp'd in fire." A similar anachronism occurs in Macbeth, Acti sc. 2: "They were as cannons overcharg'd with double cracks.' John's reign began in 1199, and cannon are said to have been first used at the battle of Cressy, in 1346. In all these cases Shakespeare simply aimed to speak the language that was most intelligible to his audience, rendering the ancient engines of war by their modern equivalents. Of course he is found fault with by those who in a drama prefer chronological accuracy to dramatic effect.

That is, gloomy, dismal.

H.

Eli. What now, my son? have I not ever said, How that ambitious Constance would not cease, Till she had kindled France, and all the world,

Upon the right and party of her son?"

This might have been prevented and made whole, With very easy arguments of love;

7

Which now the manage of two kingdoms must With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

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:
So much my conscience whispers in your ear;
Which none but Heaven, and you, and I, shall hear.

Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, who whispers
ESSEX.

Essex. My liege, here is the strangest controversy, Come from the country to be judg'd by you,

That e'er I heard: Shall I produce the men?
John. Let them approach.- [Exit Sheriff.
Our abbeys, and our priories, shall pay

Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, and
PHILIP, his bastard Brother.

8

This expedition's charge. What men are you?

Elinor's hostility to Constance is thus accounted for by Holinshed: "Surely Queen Elinor, the king's mother, was sore against her nephew Arthur, rather moved thereto by envy conceived against his mother, than upon any just occasion given in the behalf of the child; for that she saw if he were king how his mother Constance would look to bear most rule within the realm of England, till her son should come to lawful age to govern of himself."

H.

7 That is, conduct, administration. So in Richard II.: "For the rebels expedient manage must be made, my liege."

8 We have already seen that Richard I. died without lawful issue. Holinshed, speaking of the first year of John's reign, says, "The same year also, Philip, bastard son to King Richard, to

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