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THE troublesome Reign of King John was written in two parts, by W. Shakspeare and W. Rowley, and printed 1611. But the present play is entirely different, and infinitely superior to it.

Pope.

The edition of 1611 has no mention of Rowley, nor in the account of Rowley's works is any mention made of his conjunction with Shakspeare in any play. King John was reprinted, in two parts, in 1622. The first edition that I have found of this play, in its present form, is that of 1623, in folio. The edition of 1591 I have not seen. Johnson.

Dr. Johnson mistakes, when he says there is no mention, in Rowley's works, of any conjunction with Shakspeare. The Birth of Merlin is ascribed to them jointly, though I cannot believe Shakspeare had any thing to do with it. Mr. Capell is equally mistaken, when he says (Pref. p. 15) that Rowley is called his partner in the title-page of The Merry Devil of Edmonton.

There must have been some tradition, however erroneous, upon which Mr. Pope's account was founded. I make no doubt that Rowley wrote the first King John; and, when Shakspeare's play was called for, and could not be procured from the players, a piratical bookseller reprinted the old one, with W. Sh. in the title-page. Farmer.

The elder play of King John was first published in 1591. Shakspeare has preserved the greatest part of the conduct of it, as well as some of the lines. A few of those I have pointed out, and others I have omitted as undeserving notice. The number of quotations from Horace, and similar scraps of learning scattered over this motley piece, ascertain it to have been the work of a scholar. It contains likewise a quantity of rhyming Latin, and ballad-metre; and in a scene where the Bastard is represented as plundering a monastery, there are strokes of humour, which seem, from their particular turn, to have been most evidently produced by another hand than that of our author.

Of this historical drama there is a subsequent edition in 1611, printed for John Helme, whose name appears before none of the genuine pieces of Shakspeare. I admitted this play some years ago as our author's own, among the twenty which I published from the old editions; but a more careful perusal of it, and a further conviction of his custom of borrowing plots, sentiments, &c. disposes me to recede from that opinion. Steevens.

A play entitled The troublesome Raigne of John King of England, in two parts, was printed in 1591, without the writer's name. It was written, I believe, either by Robert Greene, or George Peele; and certainly preceded this of our author. Mr. Pope, who is very inaccurate in matters of this kind, says that the former was printed in 1611, as written by W. Shakspeare and w. Rowley. But this is not true. In the second edition of this old play, in 1611, the letters W. Sh. were put into the title-page to deceive the purchaser, and to lead him to suppose the piece was Shakspeare's play, which, at that time, was not published.

Malone.

Though this play have the title of The Life and Death of King John, yet the action of it begins at the thirty-fourth year of his life, and takes in only some transactions of his reign to the time of his demise, being an interval of about seventeen years. Theobald.

Hall, Holinshed, Stowe, &c. are closely followed, not only in the conduct, but sometimes in the very expressions, throughout the following historical dramas, viz. Macbeth, this play, Richard II, Henry IV, two parts, Henry V, Henry VI, three parts, Richard III, and Henry VIII.

"A booke called The Historie of Lord Faulconbridge, bastard Son to Richard Cordelion," was entered at Stationers Hall, Nov. 29, 1614; but I have never met with it, and therefore know not whether it was the old black letter history, or a play upon the same subject. For the original King John, see Six old Plays on which Shakspeare founded, &c. published by S. Leacroft, Charing

cross. Steevens.

The Historie of Lord Faulconbridge, &c. is a prose narrative, in bl. 1. The earliest edition that I have seen of it was printed in 1616.

A book entitled Richard Cur de Lion was entered on the Stationer' Books in 1558.

A play called The Funeral of Richard Cordelion, was written by Robert Wilson, Henry Chettle, Anthony Mundy, and Michael Drayton, and first exhibited in the year 1598. Malone.

Aa2

King John:

Prince Henry, his son; afterwards king Henry III. Arthur, duke of Bretagne, son of Geffrey, late duke of Bretagne, the elder brother of king John.

William Maresball, earl of Pembroke.

Geffrey Fitz-Peter, earl of Essex, chief justiciary of Eng

land.

William Longsword, earl of Salisbury.*

Robert Bigot, earl of Norfolk.

Hubert de Burgh, chamberlain to the king.

Robert Faulconbridge, son of sir Robert Faulconbridge:

Philip Faulconbridge, his half-brother, bastard son to king

Richard the First.

James Gurney, servant to lady Faulconbridge.

Peter of Pomfret, a prophet.

Philip, king of France.

Lewis, the dauphin.

Arch-duke of Austria.

Cardinal Pandulph, the pope's legate.

Melun, a French lord.

Chatillon, ambassador from France to king John.

Elinor, the widow of king Henry II, and mother of king

John.

Constance, mother to Arthur.

Blanch, daughter to Alphonso, king of Castile, and niece

to king John.

Lady Faulconbridge, mother to the bastard, and Robert

Faulconbridge.

Lords, ladies, citizens of Angiers, sheriff, heralds, officers, soldiers, messengers, and other Attendants.

*

SCENE,

Sometimes in England, and sometimes in France.

Salisbury.] Son to King Henry II, by Rosamond Clif

ford. Steerens.

KING JOHN.

ACT I.....SCENE I.

Northampton. A Room of State in the Palace.

Enter King JOHN, Queen ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and Others, with CHATILLON.

K. John. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?

Chat. Thus, after greeting, speaks the king of France, In my behaviour,1 to the majesty,

The borrow'd majesty of England here.

Eli. A strange beginning;-borrow'd majesty!

K. John. Silence, good mother; hear the embassy.
Chat. Philip of France, in right and true behalf

Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,
Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
To this fair island, and the territories;

To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine:

1 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. I once thought that these two lines, in my behaviour, &c. had been uttered by the ambassador, as a part of his master's message, and that behaviour had meant the conduct of the King of France towards the King of England; but the ambassador's speech, as continued after the interruption, will not admit this meaning. Johnson.

In my behaviour means, in the manner that I now do.

M. Mason.

In my behaviour means, I think, in the words and action that I am now going to use. So, in the fifth Act of this play, the

Bastard says to the French king

66

Now hear our English king,

"For thus his royalty doth speak in me." Malone.

Desiring thee to lay aside the sword,
Which sways usurpingly these several titles;
And put the same into young Arthur's hand,
Thy nephew, and right royal sovereign.

K. John. What follows, if we disallow of this? Chat. The proud control of fierce and bloody war, To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.

K. John. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,

Controlment for controlment: so answer France.3
Chat. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth,
The furthest limit of my embassy.

K. John. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace: Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;

2-control-] Opposition, from controller. Johnson.

I think it rather means constraint or compulsion. So, in the second Act of King Henry V, when Exeter demands of the King of France the surrender of his crown, and the King answers-" Or else what follows?" Exeter replies:

"Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
"Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it."

The passages are exactly similar. M. Mason.
3 Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,

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 Feronimo, &c. 1605: "And. Thou shalt pay tribute, Portugal, with blood."Bal. Tribute for tribute then; and foes for foes. "And. I bid you sudden wars." Steevens.

4 Be thou as lightning -) The similie does not 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 Shakspeare had applied it, i. e. merely 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, sc. ii, Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, sc. v, Julius Cæsar, Act I, sc. iii, and still more decisively in Measure for Measure, Act II, sc. ii. This old superstition is still prevalent in many parts of the country. Ritson.

King John does not allude to the destructive powers either of thunder or lightning; he only means to say that Chatillon shall appear to the eyes of the French like lightning, which shows that thunder is approaching: and the thunder he alludes to is that of his cannon. Johnson also forgets, that though, philoso

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