Have done me shame. Brave soldier, pardon me,
That any accent, breaking from thy tongue,
Should'scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.
Faulo. Come, come; Sans compliment, what news

abroad
Hub. Why here walk I, in the black brow of night,
To find you out.

Faulo, Brief then; and what's the news?

Hub. O my sweet Sir, news fitted to the night;
Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.

Faulc. Shew me the very wound of this ill news,
I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it.

Hub. The King, I fear, is poison'd by a Monk.
I left him almost speechless, and broke out

T'acquaint you with this evil; that you might
The better arm you to the sudden time,
Than if you had at leisure known of this:

Faulc. How did he take it? Who did raste to him?

Hub. A monk, I tell you ; a resolved villain,
Whose bowels suddenly burst out; the King
Yet speaks; and, peradventure, may recover.

Faulc. Who didit thou leave to tend his Majesty ?
Hub. Why, know you not the lords are all come

back,
And brought Prince Henry in their company ;
At whose request the King hath pardon'd them,
And they are all about his Majesty.

Faulc. With-hold thine indignation, mighty heav'n!
And tempt us not to bear above our power.
I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my pow'rs this night,
Passing these flats, are taken by the tide ;

These Lincoln-washes have devoured them;
Myself, well mounted, hardly have escaped.
Away, before. Conduct me to the King;
I doubt, he will be dead, or e'er I come. [Exeunt.

K Ķ 2

SCENE

TTON

Have

SCENE IX.
Changes to the Orchard in Swinstead Abbey.

Enter Prince Henry, Salisbury and Bigot.
Henry. T is too late; the life of all his blood

Is touch'd corruptibly; and his pure brain, Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house, Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, Fortel the ending of mortality.

Enter Pembroke.
Pemb. His highness yet doth speak, and holds

belief,
That, being brought into the open air,
It would allay the burning quality
Of that fell poison, which affaileth him.

Henry. Let him be brought into the orchard here. Doth he still rage ?

Pemb. He is more patient,
Than when you left him; even now he fung.

Henry. O vanity of sickness! fierce extreams
In their continuance will not feel themselves.
Death having prey'd upon the outward parts,
Leaves them insensible; his fiege is now,
Against the mind; the which he pricks and wounds
With many legions of strange fantasies;
Which + in their throng and press to that last hold,
Confound themselves. 'Tis strange that death should

fing.
I am the cygnet to this pale, faint fwain,
Who chaunts a doleful hymn to his own death;
And, from the organ-pipe of frailty, fings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.

Sal. Be of good comfort, Prince, for you are born
To set a form upon that indigest,
Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.

4 in their throng and press ] In their tumult and hurry of resorting to the last tenable part.

King John brought in. K. John. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow,

room ;

It would not out at windows, nor at doors.
There is fo hot a summer in my bosom,
That all my bowels crumble up to dust,
I am a fcribled form drawn with a pen
Upon a parchment, and against this fire
Do I shrink up.

Henry. How fares your Majesty ?

K. John. Poison'd. Ill fare ! dead, forsook, cast off And none of you will bid the winter come To thrust his icy fingers in my maw; Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course Through my burn'd bosom: nor intreat the north To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips, And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much, I beg cold comfort ; and you are lo strait, And so ungrateful, you deny me that.

Henry. Oh, that there were fome virtue in my tears, That might relieve you!

K. Jobn. The salt of them is hot.
Within me is a hell; and there the poison
Is, as a fiend, confin'd to tyrannize
On unreprievable, condemned blood.

SC E N E X.

Enter Faulconbridge. Faulc. Oh! I am scalded with my violent motion, And spleen of speed to see your Majesty. K. Fobn. Oh! cousin, thou art come to set mine

eye. The tackle of my heart is crackt and burnt; And all the shrowds, wherewith my life should fail,

Are

Are turn'd to one thread, one little hair ;
My heart hath one poor Atring to stay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered ;
And then all this thou seeft, is but a clod,
And module of confounded royalty.

Faulc. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,
Where, heav'n he knows, how we shall answer him,
For, in a night, the best part of my power,
As I upon advantage did remove,
Were in the washes, all unwarily,
Devoured by the unexpected food. [The King dies,

Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear: My Liege! my Lord!

- but now a King now thus. Henry. Ev'n fo must I run on, and ev'n so flop. What furety of the world, what hope, what stay, When this was now a King, and now is clay?

Faulc. Art thou gone fo? I do but stay behind, To do the office for thee of revenge, And then my soul shall wait on thee to heav'n, As it on earth hath been thy servant ftill. Now, now, you stars, that move in your bright

spheres, Where be your pow'rs? shew now your mended faiths, And instantly return with me again, To push destruction and perpetual shame Out of the weak door of our fainting land : Strait let us seek, or strait we shall be sought; The Dauphin rages at our very

heels. Sal. It seems you know not then so much as we ::: The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest, Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin; And brings from him fuch offers of our peace, As we with honour and respect may take, With purpose presently to leave this war.

Faulc. He will the rather do it, when he sees Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.

Sal

For many as he hath dispatch'd

Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already;
To the sea-side, and put his Cause and Quarrel
To the disposing of
With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,

* Cardinal,
If you think meet, this afternoon will post
To consummate this business happily.

Faulc. Let it be so; and you, my noble Prince,
With other Princes that may belt be spar'd,
Shall wait upon your father's Funeral.

Henry. At Worcester must his body be inter'd.
For so he will'd it.

Faulc. Thither shall it then.
And happily may your sweet felf put on
The lineal State and Glory of the Land !
To whom, with all Submission on my knee,
I do bequeath my faithful services,
And true subjection everlastingly,

Sal. And the like tender of our love we make,
To rest without a Spot for evermore.
Henry. I have a kind soul, that would give you

thanks,
And knows not how to do it, but with tears.

Faulo. Oh, let us pay the time but needful woe,
Since it hath been before-hand with our griefs.
This England never did, nor never shall,
Lye at the proud foot of a Conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her Princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them !-Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true. [Exeunt omnes.

1 1

THE tragedy of King John, ters. The Lady's grief is very though not written with the ut- affecting, and the character of most power of Shakespeare, is va- the Baffard contains that mixture ried with a very pleasing inter- of greainess and lenity which this change of incidents and charac. authour delighted to exhibit.

There citus