The interruption of their churlifh drums

[Drums beat. Cuts off more circumftance: they are at hand, To parley, or to fight; therefore, prepare.

K. PHI. How much unlook'd for is this expedition!

AUST. By how much unexpected, by so much
We must awake endeavour for defence;

For courage mounteth with occafion:
Let them be welcome then, we are prepar'd.

Enter King JOHN, ELINOR, BLANCH, the Baftard, PEMBROKE, and Forces.

K. JOHN. Peace be to France; if France in peace permit

Our just and lineal entrance to our own!

If not; bleed France, and peace afcend to heaven! Whiles we, God's wrathful agent, do correct Their proud contempt that beat his peace to hea

ven.

K. PHI. Peace be to England; if that war re

turn

From France to England, there to live in peace!
England we love; and, for that England's fake,
With burden of our armour here we fweat:
This toil of ours fhould be a work of thine;
But thou from loving England art so far,
That thou haft underwrought his lawful king,
Cut off the fequence of pofterity,
Outfaced infant ftate, and done a rape
Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.

7-underwrought-] i. e. underworked, undermined.

STEEVENS.

Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face ;-
Thefe eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his :
This little abftract doth contain that large,
Which died in Geffrey; and the hand of time
Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume.
That Geffrey was thy elder brother born,
And this his fon; England was Geffrey's right,
And this is Geffrey's: In the name of God,
How comes it then, that thou art call'd a king,
When living blood doth in these temples beat,
Which owe the crown that thou o'ermaftereft?
K. JOHN. From whom haft thou this

miffion, France,

To draw my answer from thy articles?

great com

K. PHI. From that fupernal judge, that stirs good thoughts

In any breast of strong authority,

To look into the blots and ftains of right."

8 this brief-] A brief is a fhort writing, abstract, or defcription. So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

9

"Here is a brief how many fports are ripe."

England was Geffrey's right,

STEEVENS.

And this is Geffrey's:] I have no doubt but we fhould read"and his is Geffrey's." The meaning is, " England was Geffrey's right, and whatever was Geffrey's, is now his," pointing to Arthur, M. MASON.

2 To look into the blots and ftains of right.] Mr. Theobald reads, with the first folio, blots, which being fo early authorized, and fo much better underflood, needed not to have been changed by Dr. Warburton to bolts, though bolts might be used in that time for Spots: fo Shakspeare calls Banquo "Spotted with blood, the blood-bolter'd Banquo." The verb to blot is ufed figuratively for to difgrace, a few lines lower. And perhaps, after all, bolts was only a typographical mistake. JOHNSON. Blots is certainly right.

The illegitimate branch of a family always carried the arms of it with what in ancient heraldry was

That judge hath made me guardian to this boy: Under whofe warrant, I impeach thy wrong; And, by whofe help, I mean to chástise it.

K. JOHN. Alack, thou doft ufurp authority.
K. PHI. Excufe; it is to beat ufurping down.
ELI. Who is it, thou doft call ufurper, France?
CONST. Let me make anfwer;-thy ufurping fon.
ELI. Out, infolent! thy baftard fhall be king;
That thou may'st be a queen, and check the world!'
CONST. 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 bastard! By my foul, I think,

His father never was so true begot;

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

called a blat or difference. So, in Drayton's Epistle from Queen fabel to K. Richard II:

"No baftard's mark doth blot his conquering fhield." Blots and ftains occur again together in the firft fcene of the third act. STEEVENS.

Blot had certainly the heraldical fenfe mentioned by Mr. Steevens. But it here, I think, means only blemishes. So again, in Act III. MALONE.

3 That thou may't be a queen, and check the world!] "Surely (fays Holinfhed) Queen Eleanor, the kyngs mother, was fore againft her nephew Arthur, rather moved thereto by envye conceyved against his mother, than upon any juft occafion, given in the behalfe of the childe; for that the faw, if he were king, how his mother Conftance would looke to beare the most rule within the realme of Englande, till her fonne fhould come to a lawfull age to govern of himfelfe. So hard a thing it is, to bring women to agree in one minde, their natures commonly being fo contrary.'

MALONE.

an if thou wert his mother.] Conftance alludes to Elinor's infidelity to her husband Lewis the Seventh, when they were in the

ELI. There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy

father.

CONST. There's a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee.

AUST. Peace!

BAST.

AUST.

Hear the crier."

What the devil art thou?

BAST. 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 skin-coat, an I catch you right; Sirrah, look to't; i'faith, I will, i'faith.

Holy Land; on account of which he was divorced from her. She afterwards (1151) married our King Henry II. MALONE.

5 Hear the crier.] Alluding to the ufual proclamation for filence, made by criers in courts of juftice, beginning Oyez, corruptly pronounced O-Yes. Auftria has juft faid Peace! MALONE.

6 One that will play the devil, fir, with you,

An 'a may catch your hide and you alone.] The ground of the quarrel of the Baftard to Auftria is no where fpecified 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 hide, which had belonged to him. This circumftance renders the anger of the Bastard very natural, and ought not to have been omitted. POPE. See p. 27, n. 9, and p. 28, n. 2. MALONE.

The omiffion of this incident was natural. Shakspeare having familiarized the ftory to his own imagination, forgot that it was obfcure to his audience; or what is equally probable, the story 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.

You are the hare-] So, in The Spanish Tragedy:

"He hunted well that was a lion's death;

"Not he that in a garment wore his skin:

"So hares may pull dead lions by the beard."

See p. 6, n. 4. STEEVENS.

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

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

8

BAST. It lies as fightly on the back of him, As great Alcides' fhoes upon an afs: But, afs, I'll take that burden from your back; Or lay on that, shall make your shoulders crack. AUST. What cracker is this fame, that deafs our

ears

With this abundance of fuperfluous breath?

It lies as fightly on the back of him,

As great Alcides' fhoes upon an afs:] But why his boes in the name of propriety? For let Hercules and his boes have been really as big as they were ever supposed to be, yet they (I mean the hoes) would not have been an overload for an afs. I am perfuaded, I have retrieved the true reading; and let us obferve the juftness of the comparison now. Faulconbridge in his refentment would fay this to Auftria: That lion's skin, 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; first, to the fable of the afs 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 foes of Hercules are more than once introduced in the old comedies on much the fame occafions. So, in The Ifle of Gulls, by J. Day, 1606:

66

-are as fit, as Hercules's boe for the foot of a pigmy." Again, in Greene's Epiftle Dedicatory to Perimedes the Blacksmith, 1588: "and fo, left I should shape Hercules' fhoe for a child's foot, I commend your worship to the Almighty." Again, in Greene's Penelope's Web, 1601: "I will not make a long harveft for a fmall crop, nor go about to pull a Hercules' hoe on Achilles' foot." Again, ibid: "Hercules' hoe will never ferve a child's foot." Again, in Stephen Goffon's School of Abuse, 1579: draw the lyon's fkin upon Æfop's affe, or Hercules' fhoes on a childes feete." Again, in the second of William Rankins's Seven Satyres, &c. 1598:

"Yet in Alcides' buskins will he ftalke." STEEVENS.

- to

upon an afs:] i. e. upon the hoofs of an afs. Mr. Theobald thought the boes must be placed on the back of the ass; and, therefore, to avoid this incongruity, reads-Alcides' horus, MALONE.