Conft. My bed was ever to thy fon as true,
As thine was to thy hufband: and this boy
Liker in feature to his father Geffrey,

Than thou and John in manners; being as like,
As rain to water, or devil to his dam.
My boy a baftard! By my foul, I think,
His father never was fo true begot;

It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.3

Eli. There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father. Conft. There's a good grandam, boy, that would blot

thee.

Auft. Peace!

Baft.

Auft.

Hear the crier.4

What the devil art thou?

Baft. One that will play the devil, fir, with you,
An'a may catch your hide and you alone.'
You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,
Whofe valour plucks dead lions by the beard;
I'll smoke your fkin-coat, an I catch you right;
Sirrah, look to't; i'faith, I will, i'faith.

Blanch. O, well did he become that lion's robe,
That did difrobe the lion of that robe!

3 Conftance alludes to Elinor's infidelity to her husband Lewis the Seventh, when they were in the Holy Land; on account of which he was divorced from her. She afterwards (1151) married our King Henry II. MALONE.

4 Alluding to the ufual proclamation for filence, made by ariers in courts of justice, beginning Oyez, corruptly pronounced O-Yes. Austria has juft faid Peace! MALONE.

5 The ground of the quarrel of the Baftard to Auftria is no where fpesified in the prefent play. But the ftory is, that Auftria, who killed King Richard Caur-de-lion, wore as the fpoil of that prince, a lion's bide, which had belonged to him. This circumstance renders the anger of the Baftard very natural, and ought not to have been omitted. POPE.

The omiffion of this incident was natural. Shakspeare having familiarized the ftory to his own imagination, forgot that it was obscure to his audience; or what is equally probable, the ftory was then fo popular that a hint was fufficient at that time to bring it to mind; and thefe plays were written with very little care for the approbation of pofterity.

JOHNSON. The proverb alluded to is, "Mortuo leoni et lepores infultant.” Erafmi ADAG. MALONE.

Baft. It lies as fightly on the back of him,
As great Alcides' fhoes upon an afs: 7-
But, afs, I'll take that burden from your back;
Or lay on that, shall make your fhoulders crack.

Auft. What cracker is this fame, that deafs our ears
With this abundance of fuperfluous breath?

K. Phi. Lewis, determine what we shall do ftraight.
Lew. Women and fools, break off your conference.-
King John, this is the very fum of all,—

England, and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,
In right of Arthur do I claim of thee:

Wilt thou refign them, and lay down thy arms?
K. John. My life as foon :-I do defy thee, France,
Athur of Bretagne, yield thee to my hand;

And, out of my dear love, I'll give thee more
Than e'er the coward hand of France can win :
Submit thee, boy,

Eli.

Come to thy grandam, child. Conft. Do, child, go to it, grandam, child; Give grandam kingdom, and it' grandam will Give it, a plum, a cherry, and a fig:

There's a good grandam.

Arth.

Good my mother, peace!
I would, that I were low laid in my grave;

I am not worth this coil, that's made for me.
Eli. His mother shames him fo, poor boy, he weeps.

Conft.

7 But why his foes in the name of propriety? For let Hercules and his fhoes have been really as big as they were ever fuppofed to be, yet they (I mean the foes) would not have been an overload for an afs. I am perfuaded, I have retrieved the true reading; and let us obferve the juftnefs of the comparison nów. Faulconbridge in his refentment would fay this to Auftria: "That lion's fkin, which my great father King Richard once wore, looks as uncouthly on thy back, as that other noble hide, which was borne by Hercules, would look on the back of an afs." A double allufion was intended; firft, to the fable of the ass in the lion's fkin; then Richard I. is finely fet in competition with Alcides, as Auftria is fatirically coupled with the afs. THEOBALD.

The shoes of Hercules are more dies on much the fame occafions.

than once introduced in the old come

STEEVENS.

i. e. upon the boofs of an afs. Mr. Theobald thought the fhoes muft be placed on the back of the afs; and, therefore, to avoid this incongruity, reads-Alcides' bows. MALONE.

Conft. Now fhame upon you, whe'r fhe does, or no!
His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's fhaines,
Draw thofe heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,
Which heaven fhall take in nature of a fee;

Ay, with thefe crystal beads heaven fhall be brib'd
To do him juftice, and revenge on you.

Eli. Thou monftrous flanderer of heaven and earth!
Conft. Thou monftrous injurer of heaven and earth!
Call not me flanderer; thou, and thine, ufurp
The dominations, royalties, and rights,

Of this oppreffed boy: This is thy eldest son's son,
Infortunate in nothing but in thee;

Thy fins are vifited in this poor child;
The canon of the law is laid on him,
Being but the fecond generation
Removed from thy fin-conceiving womb.
K. Jobn. Bedlam, have done.
Cmft.
That he's not only plagued for her fin,
But God hath made her fin and her the plague

C 2

I have but this to say,

On

Read-whe'r he does, or no !-i. e. whether he weeps, or not. Conftance, so far from admitting, exprefsly denies that she shames him. RITSON.

This paffage appears to me very obscure. The chief difficulty arifes from this, that Conftance having told Elinor of her fin-conceiving awomb, purfues the thought, and uses fin through the next lines in an ambiguous fenfe, fometimes for crime, and fometimes for offspring.

He's not only plagued for ber fin, &c. He is not only made miserable by vengeance for her fin or crime; but her fin, her offspring, and she, are made the inftruments of that vengeance, on this defcendant; who, though of the fecond generation, is plagued for her and with ber; to whoma he is not only the caufe but the instrument of evil.

The next claufe is more perplexed. All the editions read:

--plagu'd for ber,

I point thus:

And with her plague her fin; bis injury

Her injury, the bea ile to ber fin,

All punish'd in the perf.n of this child.

-plagu'd for ber

And with ber-Plague her fon! bis injury
Her injury, the beadle to ber fin.

That

On this removed iffue, plagu'd for her,
And with her plague, her fin; his injury

Her

That is; instead of inflicting vengeance on this innocent and remote defcendant, punish her fon, her immediate offspring: then the affliction will fall where it is deferved, his injury will be ber injury, and the mifery of her fin; her fon will be a beadle, or chastiser, to her crimes, which are now all punish'd in the person of this child. JOHNSON. Mr. Roderick reads:

-flagu'd for her,

And with her plagu'd; ber fin, bis injury.-
We may read:

But God bath made her fin and her the plague
On this removed flue, plagu'd for ber;

And, with her fin, ber plague, bis injury

Her injury, the beadle to her fin.

i. e. God bath made ber and her fin together, the plague of her most remote de Jcendants, who are plagued for her; the fame power hath likewife made ber fin ber own plague, and the injury fhe bas done to bim her own injury, as a beadle to lafh that fin. i. e. Providence has so ordered it, that the who is made the inftrument of punishment to another, has, in the end, converted that other into an inftrument of punishment for herself. STEEVENS.

Conftance obferves that be (ifte, pointing to King John," whom from the flow of gall fhe names not,") is not only plagued [with the prefent war] for his mother's fin, but God hath made her fin and her the plague alfo on this removed iffue, [Arthur,] plagued on her account, and by the means of her finful offspring, whofe injury [the ufurpation of Arthur's rights] may be confidered as her injury, or the injury of her finconceiving womb; and John's injury may alfo be confidered as the beadle or officer of correction employed by her crimes to inflict all these punishments on the perfon of this child. TOLLET.

Plagued in thefe plays generally means punished. So, in King Richard

III:

"And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed." So, Holinshed, 66

-they for very remorfe and dread of the divine plague, will either shamefully flie," &c.

Not being fatisfied with any of the emendations propofed, I have ad. hered to the original copy. I fufpect that two half lines have been loft after the words-And with her. If the text be right, with, I think, means by, (as in many other paffages,) and Mr. Tollet's interpretation the true one. Removed, I believe, here fignifies remote. MALONE.

Much as the text of this note has been belaboured, the original reading needs no alteration.

-I bave but this to fay.

That he's not only plagued for ber fin,

But God bath made her fin and her the plague
On this removed iffue, plagued for her,

Her injury, the beadle to her fin;
All punish'd in the perfon of this child,
And all for her; A plague upon her!

Eli. Thou unadvifed fcold, I can produce
A will, that bars the title of thy fon.

Conft. Ay, who doubts that? a will! a wicked will

A woman's will; a canker'd grandam's will!

K. Phi. Peace, lady; paufe, or be more temperate: It ill befeems this prefence, to cry aim

To thefe ill-tuned repetitions."

C 3

And with her plague, ber fin; bis injury,
Her injury, the beadle to her fin,

All punished in the perfon of this child.

;

Some

The key to these words is contained in the last speech of Constance, where the alludes to the denunciation in the fecord commandment, of "vifiting the iniquities of the parents upon the children, unto the THIRD and FOURTH generation," &c.

"Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth!

"Thy fins are vifited in this poor child;
"The canon of the law is laid on him,
"Being but the fecond generation

"Removed from thy fin-conceiving womb."

Young Arthur is here reprefented as not only fuffering from the guilt of his grandmother; but, also, by ber, in perfon, the being made the very inftrument of his fufferings. As he was not her immediate, but REMOVED Jue-the fecond generation from ber fin-conceiving womb-it might have been expected, that the evils to which, upon her account, he was obnoxious, would have incidentally befallen him; inftead of his being punished for them all, by ber immediate infliction.-He is not only plagued on account of her fin, according to the threatening of the commandment; but, the is preferved alive to her fecond generation, to be the inftrument of inflicting on her grandchild the penalty annexed to her fin; fo that be is plagued on ber account, and with ber` plague, which is, ber fin, that is [taking, by a common figure, the caufe for the confequence] the penalty entailed upon it. His injury, or the evil he fuffers, her fin brings upon him and HER injury, or, the evil the inflicts, be fuffers from her, as the beadle to ber fin, or executioner of the punishment annexed to it. HENLEY.

2 Dr. Warburton has well obferved on one of the former plays, that to ery aim is to encourage. I once thought it was borrowed from archery ; and that aim! having been the word of command, as we now fay prefent! to cry aim had been to incite notice, or raife attention. But I rather think, that

the