Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends a Like true, inseparable, faithful loves, Const. To England, if you will. Bind up your hairs. Const. Yes, that I will; And wherefore will I do it? I tore them from their bonds; and cried aloud, And, father cardinal, I have heard you say, That we shall see and know our friends in heaven: If that be true, I shall see my boy again; For, since the birth of Cain, the first male child, There was not such a gracious creature born. When I shall meet him in the court of heaven Pand. You hold too heinous a respect of grief. a Friends. In the original, fiends. I will not keep this form upon my head, [Tearing off her head-dress. When there is such disorder in my wit. K. Phi. I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her. [Exit. [Exit. Lew. There's nothing in this world can make me joy : Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man; And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste,a Even in the instant of repair and health, Lew. All days of glory, joy, and happiness. Are not you griev'd that Arthur is his prisoner? A sceptre, snatch'd with an unruly hand, • Sweet world's taste. Pope made this correction from the "sweet word's taste' of the original. And he that stands upon a slippery place That John may stand then Arthur needs must fall; Lew. But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall? Lew. And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did. Pand. How green you are, and fresh in this old world! John lays you plots; the times conspire with you: For he that steeps his safety in true blood. Shall find but bloody safety, and untrue. This act, so evilly born, shall cool the hearts Of all his people, and freeze up their zeal, That none so small advantage shall step forth To check his reign, but they will cherish it; No natural exhalation in the sky, No scope of nature,a no distemper'd day, Lew. May be, he will not touch young Arthur's life, Pand. O, sir, when he shall hear of your approach, Of all his people shall revolt from him, you, a No scope of nature. The modern editions all read, contrary to the original, scape (escape) of nature. The scope of nature-the ordinary course of natureappears to us to convey the poet's meaning much better. An escape of nature is a prodigy;-Shakspere says, the commonest things will be called " abortives." A scope is what is seen-according to its derivation-as a phenomenon is what appears. They are the same thing. Than I have nam'd!-The bastard Faulconbridge If Lew. Strong reasons make strange b actions: Let us go; you say ay, the king will not say no. [Exeunt. a A call. The caged birds which lure the wild ones to the net are termed by fowlers" call-birds." The image in the text is more probably derived from a term of falconry. b Strange. So the reading of the first folio. It has been generally altered into strong. The old reading restored gives us a deep observation instead of an epigrammatic one. Strong reasons make-that is, justify-a large deviation from common courses. ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT III. 1 SCENE III." Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back." THE form of excommunication in the Romish church was familiar to Chaucer : "For clerkes say we shallin be fain For their livelod to sweve and swinke, With candles queint and bellis clinke." In another passage of the same poem, 'The Manciple's Tale,' we have the "clerkes," who "Christis people proudly curse With brode boke and braying bell." But the most minute and altogether curious description of the ceremony of excommunication is in Bishop Bale's Kynge Johan,' which we have described in our Introductory Notice. In that "pageant" Pandulph denounces John in the following fashion : "For as moch as kyng Johan doth holy church so handle, I wyll God to close uppe from hym his benefyttes all. I take hym from Crist, and after the sownd of this bell, I take from hym baptym, with the other sacramentes And sufferages of the churche, bothe amber days and lentes. Here I take from hym bothe penonce and confessyon, Masse of the wondes, with sensyng and processyon. Here I take from hym holy water and holy brede, And never wyll them to stande hym in any sted." In Fox we have the ceremony of excommunication minutely detailed ;—the bishop, and clergy, and all the several sorts of friars in the cathedral,-the cross borne before them with three wax tapers lighted, and the eager populace assembled. A priest, all in white, mounts the pulpit, and then begins the denunciation. Those who are curious as to this formula may consult Fox or Strype; and they will agree with Corporal Trim that the "soldiers in Flanders" swore nothing like this. The climax of the cursing was when each taper was extinguished, with the pious prayer that the souls of the "malefactors and schismatics" might be given over utterly to the power of the fiend, as this candle is now quenched and put out." Henry VIII., in 1533, abolished the General Sentence or Curse which was read in the churches four times a year. |