ANNOTATIONS UPON KING JOHN. ACT I. Line 3. IN my behaviour,] The word behaviour seems here to have a signification that I have never found in any other author. The king of France, says the envoy, thus speaks in my behaviour to the majesty of England; that is, the king of France speaks in the character which I here assume. JOHNSON. control,-] Opposition, from controller. JOHNSON. 19. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood, 17. Controlment for controlment, &c.] King John's reception of Chatillon not a little resembles that which Andrea meets with from the king of Portugal in the first part of Jeronimo, &c. 1605: د "And. Thou shalt pay tribute, Portugal, with blood. "Bal. Tribute for tribute then; and foes for foes. "And. -I bid you sudden wars." STEEVENS. -] The simile does not 1 24. Be thou as lightning— suit well the lightning indeed appears before the thunder is heard, but the lightning is destructive, and the thunder innocent. JOHNSON. The allusion may, notwithstanding, be very proper so far as Shakspere has applied it, i. e. merely to the swiftness of the lightning, and its preceding and foretelling the thunder. But there is some reason to believe that thunder was not thought to be innocent in our author's time, as we elsewhere learn from himself. See King Lear, act iii. scene 2. Antony and Cleopatra, act ii. scene 5. Julius Cæsar, act i. scene 3. and still more decisively in Measure for Measure, act ii. scene 2. This old superstition is still prevalent in many parts of the country. REMARKS. 37. -the manage] i. e. conduct, administration. So, in King Kichard II. -for the rebels Expedient manage must be made, my liege." 44. Enter the sheriff of Northamptonshire, &c.] This stage direction I have taken from the old quarto. STEEVENS. 49. -and Philip, his brother.] Though Shakspere adopted this character of Philip Faulconbridge from the old play, it is not improper to mention, that it is compounded of two distinct personages. Matthew Paris says:-" Sub illius temporis curriculo, Falcasius de Brente, Neusteriensis, et spurius ex parte matris, atque Bastardus, qui in vili jumento manticato ad Regis paulo ante clientelam descenderat," &c. Matthew Paris, in his History of the Monks of St. Albans, calls him Falco; but in his General History, Falcasius de Brente, as above. Holinshed says, "that Richard I. had a natural son named Philip, who in the year following killed the viscount De Limoges to revenge the death of his father." STEEVENS. I rather imagine that our author's bastard is compounded of the natural son of Richard I. above noticed, and of a personage mentioned by the Continuator of Harding's Chronicle, 1543, fol. 24. b. ad an. 1472,-" one Falconbridge, therle of Kent his bastarde, a stoute-harted manne." MALONE. 61. But, for the certain knowledge of that truth, I put you o'er to heaven, and to my mother; Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.] The resemblance between this sentiment, and that of Telemachus in the first book of the Odyssey, is apparent. The passage is thus translated by Chapman : My mother, certaine, sayes I am his sonne; "I know not; nor was ever simply knowne, 66 By any child, the sure truth of his sire." Mr. Mr. Pope has observed that the like sentiment is found in Euripides, Menander, and Aristotle. Shakspere expresses the same doubt in several of his other plays. STEEVENS. Perhaps, Shakspere looked no further than the old adage: "He's a wise son that knows his own father.” HENLEY. 85. He hath a trick of Caur-de-lion's face,] The trick, or tricking, is the same as the tracing of a draw. ing, meaning that peculiarity of face which may be sufficiently shewn by the slightest outline. This expression is used by Heywood and Rowley in their comedy called Fortune by Land and Sea :-" Her face, the trick of her eye, her leer." The following passages may more evidently prove the expression to be bor. rowed from delineation. Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour : 66 -You can blazon the rest, Signior? "O ay, I have it in writing here o'purpose; it cost me two shillings the tricking." So again, in Cynthia's Revels: trick'd -the parish-buckets with his name at length upon them." STEEVENS. 93. With half that face-] But why with half that face? There is no question but the poet wrote, as I have restored the text: With that half-face-Mr. Pope, perhaps, will be angry with me for discovering an anachronism of our poet's in the next line, where he alludes to a coin not struck till the year 1504, in the reign of king Henry VII. viz. a groat, which, as well |