ngs 332 O, now doth death line his dead chaps with steel; Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus? The other's peace; till then, blows, blood, and death! 1 Cit. The king of England, when we know the K. Phi. Know him in us, that here hold up his right. K. John. In us, that are our own great deputy, And bear possession of our person here; Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you. 1 Cit. A greater power than we, denies all this; And, till it be undoubted, we do lock Our former scruple in our strong-barr'd gates: And stand securely on their battlements, Mr. Pope changed this to mouthing, and was followed by subsequent editors. 'Mousing,' says Malone, is mammocking and devouring eagerly, as a cat devours a mouse.' "Whilst Troy was swilling sack and sugar, and mousing fat venison, the mad Greekes made bonfires of their houses.-The Wonderful Year, by Decker, 1603.-Shakspeare often uses familiar terms in his most serious speeches; and Malone has adduced other instances in this play: but in this very speech 'his dead chaps' is surely not more elevated than mousing. 1 Potentates. 8 The old copy reads 'Kings of our fear,' &c. The emendation is Mr. Tyrwhitt's King'd of our fears,' i. e our fears being our kings or rulers. It is manifest that the reading of the old copy is corrupt, and that it must have been so worded, that their fears should be styled their kings or masters, and not they kings or masters of their fears, because iu the next line mention is made of these fears being deposed. 9 Escrouelles, Fr. scabby fellows. As in a theatre, whence they gape and point Be friends a while, and both conjointly bend Leave them as naked as the vulgar air. To whom in favour she shall give the day, How like you this wild counsel, mighty states? K. John. Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads, I like it well;-France, shall we knit our powers, As we will ours, against these saucy walls: 10 The mutines are the mutincers, the seditious. Thus in Hamlet: -and lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes.' This allusion is not in the old play. Shakspeare probably received the hint from Ben Gorion's History of the Latter Times of the Jew's Commonweale, &c. translated by Peter Morwyn, 1575. 11 i. e. soul-appalling; from the verb to fear, to make afraid. Why, then defy each other; and, pell-mell, Aust. I from the north. I'll stir them to't:-Come, away, away! 1 Cit. Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe a while to stay, And I shall show you peace, and fair-fac'd league; K. John. Speak on, with favour; we are bent to hear. 1 Cit. That daughter there of Spain, the lady Blanch13, Is near to England; Look upon the years Is the young Dauphin every way complete: 12 The poet has made Faulconbridge forget that he had made a similar mistake. See the preceding page : By east and west let France and England mount 13 The Lady Blanch was daughter to Alphonso, the ninth king of Castile, and was niece to King John by his sister Eleanor. 14 Zealous for pious. If not complete, say, he is not she; And she again wants nothing, to name want, As we to keep this city. Bast. Here's a stay16, That shakes the rotten carcass of old death Talks as familiarly of roaring lions, As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs! What cannoneer begot this lusty blood? He speaks plain cannon, fire, and smoke, and bounce: 15 Spleen is used by Shakspeare for any violent hurry or tumultuous speed. In A Midsummer Night's Dream he applies spleen to the lightning. Baret 16 A stay here seems to mean a supporter of a cause. 'Here's an extraordinary partisan or maintainer that shakes' &c. translates columen vel firmamentum reipublicae by the stay, the chiefe mainteyner and succour of, &c. It has been proposed to read, 'Here's a say,' i. e. a speech; and it must be confessed that it would agree well with the tenor of the subsequent part of Faulconbridge's speech. He gives the bastinado with his tongue; Mark, how they whisper: urge them, while their souls Are capable of this ambition: Lest zeal, now melted, by the windy breath Cool and congeal again to what it was. 1 Cit. Why answer not the double majesties This friendly treaty of our threaten'd town? K. Phi. Speak England first, that hath been forward first To speak unto this city: What say you? K. John. If that the Dauphin there, thy princely son, Can in this book of beauty read17, I love, As she in beauty, education, blood, 17 So in Pericles: 'Her face the book of praises,' &c, Again in Macbeth ; 'Your face, my thane, is as a book where men |