France, thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue,
A chafed liona by the mortal paw,

A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,

Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.
K. PHI. I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith.
PAND. So mak'st thou faith an enemy to faith;

And, like a civil war, sett'st oath to oath,

Thy tongue against thy tongue.

O, let thy vow

First made to heaven, first be to heaven perform'd;

That is, to be the champion of our church!

What since thou swor'st is sworn against thyself,

And may not be performed by thyself:

For that which thou hast sworn to do amiss,

Is not amiss when it is truly done;

And being not done, where doing tends to ill,
The truth is then most done not doing it:
The better act of purposes mistook
Is, to mistake again; though indirect,
Yet indirection thereby grows direct,

And falsehood falsehood cures; as fire cools fire,
Within the scorched veins of one new burn'd.

It is religion that doth make vows kept;

But thou hast sworn against religion

By what thou swear'st against the thing thou swear'st;
And mak'st an oath the surety for thy truth
Against an oath: The truth thou art unsure
To swear, swears only not to be forsworn;
Else, what a mockery should it be to swear!
But thou dost swear only to be forsworn;

And most forsworn, to keep what thou dost swear.
Therefore, thy later vows, against thy first,

Is in thyself rebellion to thyself:

a A chafed lion. The original reads, “a cased lion,” which is supposed to mean a lion in a cage. The image is, strictly taken, weakened, if not destroyed, by this epithet; for the paw of a confined lion is often held with impunity. Some would read "chafed." We were, in former editions, led to read chased, upon the principle that the very pardonable insertion of an h presents us a noble picture of a hunted lion at bay. But in 'Henry VIII.' Shakspere has "the chafed lion." Swears only. The entire speech of Pandulph is full of verbal subtleties, which render the intricate reasoning more intricate. The poet unquestionably meant to produce this effect. We have restored the reading of one of the most difficult passages:

"The truth thou art unsure

To swear, swears only not to be forsworn."

All the modern editions read swear. The meaning seems to be this:-The truth-that is, the troth, for which you have made an oath the surety, against thy former oath to heaven-this troth, which it was unsure to swear-which you violate your surety in swearing-has only been sworn-swears only-not to be forsworn; but it is sworn against a former oath, which is more binding, because it was an oath to religion-to the principle upon which all oaths are made.

Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee,
Thou virtuous Dauphin, alter not the doom
Fore-thought by heaven.

BLANCH. Now shall I see thy love. What motive may
Be stronger with thee than the name of wife?
CONST. That which upholdeth him that thee upholds,
His honour: O, thine honour, Lewis, thine honour!

LEW. I muse your majesty doth seem so cold,

When such profound respects do pull you on.

PAND. I will denounce a curse upon his head.

K. PHI. Thou shalt not need :-England, I will fall from thee. CONST. O fair return of banish'd majesty!

ELI. O foul revolt of French inconstancy!

K. JOHN. France, thou shalt rue this hour within this hour.
BAST. Old Time the clock-setter, that bald sexton, Time,
Is it as he will? well then, France shall rue.

BLANCH. The sun 's o'ercast with blood: Fair day adieu!
Which is the side that I must go withal?

I am with both: each army hath a hand;
And, in their rage, I having hold of both,

A Measures-solemn dances.

They whirl asunder, and dismember me.
Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win;
Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose;
Father, I may not wish the fortune thine;
Grandame, I will not wish thy wishes thrive:
Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose;
Assured loss, before the match be play'd.
LEW. Lady, with me; with me thy fortune lies.
BLANCH. There where my fortune lives, there
my
K. JOHN. Cousin, go draw our puissance together.-
France, I am burn'd up with inflaming wrath;
A rage whose heat hath this condition,
That nothing can allay, nothing but blood,

The blood, and dearest-valued blood, of France.

life dies.

[Exit Bastard.

K. PHI. Thy rage shall burn thee up, and thou shalt turn
To ashes, ere our blood shall quench that fire:
Look to thyself, thou art in jeopardy.

K. JOHN. No more than he that threats.-To arms let 's hie!

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The same. Plains near Angiers.

Alarums; Excursions.

Enter the Bastard with AUSTRIA's Head.

BAST. Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;

Some airy devil hovers in the sky,

And pours down mischief.

While Philip breathes.

Austria's head, lie there;

Enter KING JOHN, ARTHUR, and HUBERT.

K. JOHN. Hubert, keep this boy :-Philip, make up:
My mother is assailed in our tent,

And ta'en, I fear.

BAST.

My lord, I rescued her; Her highness is in safety, fear you not: But on, my liege; for very little pains

Will bring this labour to a happy end.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.-The same.

Alarums; Excursions; Retreat. Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, ARTHUR, the

Bastard, HUBERT, and Lords.

K. JOHN. So shall it be; your grace shall stay behind,

[TO ELINOR.

So strongly guarded.-Cousin, look not sad:
Thy grandame loves thee; and thy uncle will
As dear be to thee as thy father was.

ARTH. O, this will make my mother die with grief.

K. JOHN. Cousin [to the Bastard], away for England; haste before :

And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags

Of hoarding abbots; imprisoned angels

Set thou at liberty: the fat ribs of peace
Must by the hungry now be fed upon :

Use our commission in his utmost force.

BAST. Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back 15,

When gold and silver becks me to come on.

I leave your highness :-Grandame, I will pray (If ever I remember to be holy)

For your fair safety; so I kiss your hand. ELI. Farewell, gentle cousin.

Coz, farewell.

K. JOHN.
ELI. Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word.

K. JOHN. Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert,
We owe thee much; within this wall of flesh
There is a soul counts thee her creditor,
And with advantage means to pay thy love:
And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath
Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.
Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say,—
But I will fit it with some better tune".
By heaven, Hubert, I am almost asham'd
To say what good respect I have of thee.
HUB. I am much bounden to your majesty.

[To ARTHUR.

[Exit Bastard.

[She takes ARTHUR aside.

K. JOHN. Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet:
But thou shalt have: and creep time ne'er so slow,
Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.

I had a thing to say,-but let it go:

The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,
Attended with the pleasures of the world,
Is all too wanton, and too full of gawds,
To give me audience:-If the midnight bell
Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth,
Sound on into the drowsy race of night;

a Thou is not in the original.

Better tune. The old copy reads tune. Pope corrected this to time. We are by no means sure that the change was called for. The "tune" with which John expresses his willingness "to fit" the thing he had to say is a bribe;-he now only gives flattery and a promise. "The time" for saying "the thing" is discussed in the subsequent portion of John's speech.

• Sound on.

So the original. But on and one were often spelt alike; and therefore the passage

If this same were a churchyard where we stand,
And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;
Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,

Had bak'd thy blood, and made it heavy-thick",
(Which, else, runs tickling up and down the veins,
Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes,
And strain their cheeks to idle merriment,
A passion hateful to my purposes;)

Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,
Hear me without thine ears, and make reply
Without a tongue, using conceit alone,
Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words;
Then, in despite of brooded watchful day,
I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts:
But ah, I will not:-Yet I love thee well;
And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st me well.
HUB. So well, that what you bid me undertake,
Though that my death were adjunct to my act,
By heaven, I would do it.

K. JOHN.

Do not I know thou wouldst ?
Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye
On yon young boy: I'll tell thee what, my friend,

He is a very serpent in my way;

And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread

He lies before me: Dost thou understand me?

must be determined by other principles than that of fidelity to the text. Which is the more poetical,

"Sound on into the drowsy race of night,"

or "sound one?" "The midnight bell" sounding "on, into" (or unto, for the words were used convertibly) the drowsy march, race, of night, seems to us far more poetical than precisely determining the hour, which was already determined by the word "midnight." It must, however, be noticed, that when Bernardo describes the appearance of the Ghost, in 'Hamlet,' he marks the time by "the bell then beating one."

a Heavy-thick. The late eminent scholar, Mr. Sidney Walker, who has left a mass of notes upon Shakspere which we should earnestly desire to see published, holds that our poet has a much more frequent use of compound epithets than the ordinary text would exhibit. This appears to us one of the many examples.