Ile stirre them to it: Come, away, away. 438 Hub. Heare vs great kings, vouchfafe awhile to stay 440 Rescue those breathing liues to dye in beds, Perfeuer not, but heare me mighty kings. Iohn. Speake on with fauour, we are bent to heare. Hub. That daughter there of Spaine, the Lady Blanch Is neere to England, looke vpon the yeeres 445 447 444. Perfeuer] Persevere F3F4, Rowe, Pope, Han. Rann. 445. Speake on with fauour,] Ff. Speak on; with favour Rowe, Pope, Han. Rann. Mason (Com., p. 155). Speak on with favour; Cam.+, Fle. Neils. Craig. Speak on, with favour, Theob. et cet. 447. neere] niece Coll. ii, iii. (MS.), Sing. ii, Dyce, Wh. Ktly, Cam.+, Del. Huds. ii, Words. Dono. Neils. England,] Ff, Rowe. England. Del. Dono. Neils. England; Pope et cet. 447. neere to England] STEEVENS: The Lady Blanche was daughter to Alphonso IX, King of Castile, and was niece to King John by his sister Eleanor.-COLLIER (Notes & Emend., etc., p. 202): The MS. Corrector tells us, naturally enough, to read: 'Is niece to England.' This is unquestionably right, and the mistake was readily made; we only wonder that it was not till now corrected.-SINGER (Sh. Vind., p. 84): The correction of 'near' to niece is quite legitimate and undoubted on all accounts.-[In his second edition Singer follows this correction, remarking that 'the error is an easy one.' 'No doubt of it,' replies Collier in his second edition, 'and so are many other errors which, till pointed out in the corr. fo. 1632, neither Mr Singer nor any other editor during the last century and a half thought of setting right.'-If any justification be sought for such a personal and wholesale attack by Collier it may be found in the fact that this is one of the very few MS. corrections which Singer, in his volume, accepted half-heartedly, treating the majority with severe censure and thinly veiled hints of grave doubt as to their validity. ED.]-ANON. (New Readings, etc., Blackwood's Maga., Sept., 1853, p. 304): For 'near' the MS. correction is niece. But the Lady Blanch is repeatedly, throughout the play, spoken of as niece to King John and the Queen Mother. Therefore, if for no other reason than that of varying the expression, we must give our suffrage most decidedly in favour of the original reading. 'Near to England' of course means nearly related to England; and it seems much more Of Lewes the Dolphin, and that louely maid. 448. Lewes] Lewis Ff. Louis Dyce, Hal. Wh. Huds. ii, Words. Dolphin] Ff, Wh. Ktly, Fle. 448 450 Dauphin Rowe et cet. (passim). natural, as well as more poetical, that the Citizen should speak in this general way of Lady Blanch, than that he should condescend on her particular degree of relationship, and style her the 'niece to England.'-DYCE (ed. ii.) unhestitatingly accepts the MS. correction for the very same reasons that prompt its rejection by the anonymous writer in Blackwood, i. e., that the Lady Blanch is repeatedly referred to as the niece of King John. Dyce adds: 'Lest some over-subtle critic should object to this very slight alteration, on the ground that the Folio gives "neece" [in other passages] with a capital letter and "neere" without one, I may observe that, as a matter of course, the compositor would not use a capital letter for a word which he had erroneously supposed to be an adjective.'-KEIGHTLEY (Expositor, p. 221): In Two Gentlemen we have: 'An heir and niece allied unto the Duke.'-IV, i, 49.-[This is Keightley's justification of the present reading of the Folio; but it is not, I think, quite to the point. The line from Two Gentlemen reads, in the Folio, ‘And heire and Neece, allied unto the Duke.' The first 'And' is corrected in the 3d Folio, and Theobald, who made the change of 'Neece' to near, remarked, pertinently, that 'Shakespeare would not have been guilty of such tautology as to say that the lady was a niece and allied to the Duke'; but this objection does not apply to the present line in King John; no other relationship is mentioned. Keightley is to be commended for adhering to the Folio text, but his reason for so doing is unfortunate.-ED.]-Miss PORTER: Why is this expression for the niece already introduced, and here spoken of as held dear by John, not better in this place than the repetition, Neece? It seems to be an utterly needless change. [The opinion expressed in the last sentence is quite in accord with that of the present ED.] 448. the Dolphin] R. G. WHITE: So the Folio invariably, whenever this title occurs, either in this or any other of these plays; and so the Chronicles and all the contemporary literature; the old French word, too, was not Dauphin, but Daulphin. This is consequently not an old irregular spelling (which, indeed, it could not be), but an old English form of the title, which, therefore, an editor has not the right to change. And, indeed, there is no more cogent reason for calling Louis the Dauphin, than for calling Philip the Roi of France, except the usage of the present day, with which we have not to do. With the modern form of the title Talbot's punning sneer, 'Pucelle or puzzel, Dolphin or dogfish' (1 Henry VI: I, iv), would be utterly pointless. [See Dram. Personæ, s. v. Lewis: note by FRENCH.] 449–453. If lustie loue . . . of birth] RUSHTON (Sh. and The Arte of Eng. Poe., p. 135) quotes these lines in illustration of what Puttenham calls 'Symploche or the Figure of Reply.'-'In the works of many of the authors of Shakespeare's time,' says Rushton, 'this form of Repetition appears. It is very old. Homer makes use of it in the Iliad, xiv, 317.' As other examples from Shakespeare he gives: Rich. III: V, iii, 255-262; Lucrece, ll. 736-749. [See Appendix: Criticism, BRANDES.] If zealous loue should go in search of vertue, 451 455 Is the yong Dolphin euery way compleat, If not compleat of, fay he is not shee, And she againe wants nothing, to name want, 451. zealous] JOHNSON: 'Zealous' seems here to signify pious, or influenced by motives of religion. [SCHMIDT (Lex., s. v. zealous) quotes other examples besides the present line where 'zealous' conveys the idea of religious piety: Sonnet xxvii, 6; All's Well, III, iv, ii; Richard III: III, vii, 94.] 457-463. If not... in him] WORDSWORTH (i, 436), in justification of his omission, says: 'These lines appear so unworthy of Shakespeare, even as put into the mouth of a citizen, that I was unwilling to retain them in the text.' 457-459. If not compleat of...not hee] PYE (p. 139): I cannot but think these lines, so disgraceful to a most beautiful passage, are the interpolation of some person who could not reconcile the Dauphin being complete with his being only the half part of a blessed man, and so inserted this stuff to make up the deficiency, whereas the word 'complete' is used here by no very uncommon irregularity of our Poet for completely; the meaning of these lines is: that the Dauphin was as completely endowed with beauty, virtue, and birth as the Lady Blanch; but for both to be as completely happy as they are completely accomplished they must each possess their counterpart in marriage. 457. compleat of, say] KNIGHT: Hanmer's change, 'O say,' is to substitute the language of the eighteenth century for that of the sixteenth.-COLLIER: The meaning is that if the Dauphin be not complete of, or in, these qualities, it is merely because he is not Blanch.-[Hudson's interpretation and that of the Cowden Clarkes is substantially the same as Collier's; in his second ed. Hudson rejects the Folio reading, remarking that it 'can hardly be made to yield any sense at all'; for the word 'of' he substitutes then, adding, "The context naturally suggests this reading; but possibly we ought to read: "If not complete he, say he is not she."'] -WRIGHT, following Hanmer, says: 'The misprint is a very easy one, and no parallel use of "of" has, so far as I am aware, been found.' 460 He is the halfe part of a blessed man, 465 And two fuch fhores, to two fuch ftreames made one, Two fuch controlling bounds fhall you be, kings, To these two Princes, if you marrie them: And giue you entrance: but without this match, 470 Lyons more confident, Mountaines and rockes 460, 461. blessed...finished] blessed... finished Dyce, Huds. ii, Fle. Words. 461. as shee] Ff, Rowe, Pope, Coll. i, Ktly, Cam.+, Del. Neils. a She Thirlby, Theob. Coll. ii. (MS.) et cet. 462. faire diuided] fair-divided Walker (Crit., i, 35). 464. O two] Ff, Rowe, Pope, Theob. i. Oh! Two Theob. ii, Warb. Johns. Var. '73. O! two Han. Coll. Wh. i, Huds. i, Del. Craig. Oh, two Var. '78, '85, Rann. O, two Cap. et cet. 468. them:] them. Pope et seq. 469. then] than Ff. 475 can] Coll. Dyce, Wh. Cam.+, Del. Neils. can, Ff. et cet. 470. faft closed] fast-closed Theob. et seq. fast-closed Dyce, Huds. ii, Fle. Words. Dono. 471. Spleene] speed Pope, Herr. then...enforce] than...enforce, Ff. 474. enraged] enragèd Dyce, Huds. ii, Fle. Words. Dono. 475, 476. more...More] so...So Pope, +, Cap. 463. perfection lyes in him] ROLFE: For the idea that woman was completed, or perfected by marriage, compare Twelfth Night, I, i, 38 et seq., and II, iv, 42. See also Lord Berners's translation of Froissart: 'My daughter should be happy if she might come to so great a perfection as to be enjoined in marriage with the Earl of Guerles'; Overbury, The Wife: 'Marriage their object is; their being then, And now perfection, they receive from men,' [Capell's Prolusions, p. 4,] and Donne, Epithalamium: 'Weep not, nor blush, here is no grief nor shame; To-day put on perfection, and a woman's name,' [ed. Grosart, p. 275]. 470. at this match] JOHNSON: I am loath to think that Shakespeare meant to play with the double of 'match' for nuptial, and the 'match' of a gun.-[To Johnson, in his immortal Preface, we are indebted for the trenchant phrase that: A quibble was for Shakespeare the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it.-ED.] 471. swifter spleene] THEOBALD: That is, with a passion of desire more swift in its influence than your fire and fury can compel us to. The Poet uses this word again afterwards in this play in the very same sense: 'Oh, I am scalded with my violent motion And spleen of speed to see your majesty.'-[V, vii, 56]. 476 More free ftom moțion, no not death himselfe In mortall furie halfe so peremptorie, As we to keepe this Citie. Baft. Heeres a stay, 476. ftom motion] Fr. no not] no, not Theob. et seq. -no, not Ktly. 478. Citie.] city. [The Kings, &c., talk apart. Coll. iii. 479 479. flay] flaw Johns. conj. Huds. ii. say Sing. ii. (Becket). story or storm Spedding (ap. Cam.). style Vaughan. 479. Heeres a stay] JOHNSON: I cannot but think that every reader wishes for some other word in the place of 'stay,' which though it may signify an hindrance, or man that hinders, is yet very improper to introduce the next line. I read: 'Here's a flaw.' That is, here is a gust of bravery, a blast of menace. This suits well with the spirit of the speech. 'Stay' and flaw, in a careless hand, are not easily distinguished; and if the writing was obscure, flaw being a word less usual, was easily missed.-STEEVENS (Var., 1778): Perhaps the force of the word 'stay' is not exactly known. I meet with it in Damon & Pythias, 1582: 'Not to prolong my lyfe thereby, for which I reckon not this, But to set my things in a stay.'[Haz. Dods., iv, 54]. Perhaps by a 'stay,' in this instance, is meant a steady posture. Shakespeare's meaning may therefore be: 'Here's a steady, resolute fellow, who shakes,' etc. A 'stay,' however, seems to have been meant for something active in the following passage in the 6th Canto of Drayton's Baron's Wars: 'Oh could ambition apprehend a stay, The giddy course it wandereth in, to guide.' Again, in The Faerie Queene: 'Till riper years he raught, and stronger stay.'— II, x, [20]. Perhaps the metaphor is from navigation. Thus, in Chapman's version of the tenth book of Homer's Odyssey: 'Our ship lay anchor'd close, nor needed we Feare harm on any stays,' [l. 123]. A marginal note adds: 'For being cast on the staies, as ships are by weather.' [In all subsequent editions Steevens, wisely I think, omits this last conjectural explanation which has no possible bearing on the use of 'stay' in the present line in King John. In its place he follows the quotation from Spenser, with this amplification: 'Shakespeare, therefore, who uses wrongs for wrongers, &c., might have used a "stay" for a stayer. Churchyard, in his Siege of Leeth, 1575, having occasion to speak of a trumpet that sounded to proclaim a truce, says: "This staye of warre made many men to muse."-[ed. Chalmers, p. 92]. I am therefore convinced that the first line of Faulconbridge's speech needs no emendation.'—It is to be regretted that Steevens has not furnished an example wherein Shakespeare uses wrongs for wrongers; if there be such it has escaped the vigilant eyes of both SCHMIDT (Lex.) and ABBOTT. Steevens's quotation from Churchyard is certainly apposite to the present passage, whether 'stay' be taken to mean stayer or pause. His complete rejection of Johnson's emendation was doubtless withheld during the lifetime of his greater co-editor.-ED.]MALONE: 'Stay,' I apprehend, here signifies a supporter of a cause. Here's an extraordinary partizan, that shakes, &c. So, in this play: 'What surety of the world, what hope, what stay.'-V, vii, 76. Again, in 3 Henry VI: 'Now thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay.'-[II, i, 69]. Again, in Rich. III: 'What stay had I, but Edward, and he's gone.'-[II, ii, 74]. Again, in Davies's Scourge of Folly, 1611: 'England's fast friend, and Ireland's constant stay.'-[Epigram 189; ed. Grosart, p. 29]. It is observable that partizan, in like manner, though now generally used to signify an adherent to a party, originally meant a pike or |