ACT V. SCENE V.

Malicious Men.

(12)Men that make

Envy and crooked malice nourishment,

Dare bite the best..

A Church-Man.

Love and meeknefs, Lord,

Become a church-man better than ambition:
Win ftraying fouls with modefly again;

Caft none away.

Inhumanity.

(13)-Tis a cruelty

To load a falling man.

SCENE VIII. Archbishop Cranmer's Prophecy.

-Let me fpeak, Sir;

(For heav'n now bids me) and the words I utter,

Let

(12) Men, &c.] In Paftor Fido, there is a fine fentiment not unlike this. Act 5. Sc. I.

Who now can boast of earth's felicity.
When envy treads on virtue's heel?

S. R. Fanshaw.

(13) 'Tis, &c.] The poet, in the former part of the play, gives us the fame humane and tender fentiment.

-O my lord,

Prefs not a falling man too far; 'tis virtue.

Act. 3. S. 6.

Nothing can afford us a better idea of the author's excellent mind; and we are affured, from the account we have of his character, he was remarkable for his humanity, benevolence, and many virtues.

Look

Let none think flatt'ry, for they'll find 'em truth.
This royal infant, (heav'n ftill move about her)
Tho' in a cradle, yet now promifes

Upon this land a thousand, thousand bleffings,
Which time fhall bring to ripenefs. She shall be

(But few now living can behold that goodness)
A pattern to all princes living with her,
And all that fhall fucceed. Sheba was never
More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue,
Than this blest soul fhall be. All princely graces,
That mould up fuch a mighty piece as this,
With all the virtues that attend the good,

Shall still be doubled on her. Truth fhall nurse her: Holy and heav'nly thoughts ftill counsel her :

She fhall be lov'd and fear'd. Her own fhall blefs

her:

Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn,

And hang their heads with forrow. Good grows with

her.

(14) In her days, ev'ry man fhall eat in fafety,
Under his own vine, what he plants; and fing
The merry fongs of peace to all his neighbours.
God fhall be truly known, and those about her,
From her fhall read the perfect ways of honour,
And claim by thofe their goodness, not by blood.

Look how the father's face, (fays Ben Johnsond
Lives in his iffue, even fo the race

Of Shakespear's mind and manners brightly shines,
In his well-torned, and true filed lines.

Nor

(14) In, &c.] The poet's excellence in fo beautifully keeping up the propriety of his characters, can never be fufficiently admired; no expreffions could have fo well become the mouth of an archbishop as fcripture ones; and we may obferve, what graces this elegant compliment to his princefs gains from thence; the bleffings of Solomon's reign are fet forth in the first of Kings Ch. iv. where particularly 'tis faid, "Every man dwelt fafely under his vine;" and fo in the prophet Micah, "They fhall fit every man under his vine, and under his fig-tree: and none half make them afraid; for all people will walk every one in the name of his God, &c. See Ch. iv. Ver. 4.

Nor fhall this peace fleep with her; but as when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,
Her afhes new create another heir,

As great in admiration as herself;

So fhall the leave her bleffedness to one,

(15) (When heav'n fhall call her from this cloud of darkness)

Who from the facred ashes of her honour
Shall ftar-like rife, as great in fame as the was,
And fo ftand fix'd. Peace, plenty, love, truth, terror,
That were the fervants to this chosen infant,
Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him:
Wherever the bright fun of heav'n shall shine,
His honour and the greatness of his name

Shall be, and make new nations. He fhall flourish,
And like a mountain`cedar, reach his branches
To all the plains about him; children's children
Shall fee this, and bless heav'n.

(15) This cloud of darkness.] Milton in his Comus, at the begin ning, thus fpeaks in contempt of the earth:

Above the fmoak and ftir of this dim fpot,
Which men call earth, and with low-thoughted care
Confin'd, and pefter'd in this pinfold here,
Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,
Unmindful of the crown that virtue gives.

General Obfervations.

The hiftorical facts (fays Mrs. Lenox) upon which this play is founded, are all extracted from Holing bed; the characters generally drawn clofely after this hiftorian, and many of the fpeeches copied almoft literally from him.

The accufation, trial, and death of the Duke of Buckingham, makes a very affecting incident in this play.

Shakespear has been exactly juft to hiftorical truth, in making Cardinal Holley the fole contriver of this nobleman's fall; whose character as it is fummed up by King Henry, is perfectly agreeable to that given him by Holing fbed.

Tho'

Tho' the character of King Henry is drawn after this historian, yet Shakespear has placed it in the most advantageous light; in this play he reprefents him as greatly displeased with the grievances of his fubjects and ordering them to be relieved, tender and obliging to his queen, grateful to the Cardinal, and in the cafe of Cranmer, capable of diftinguishing and rewarding true merit. If, in the latter part of the play, he endeavours to caft the disagreeable parts of this Prince's character as much into fhade as poffible, it is not to be wondered at. Shakespear wrote in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a princess who inherited more of the ambition of her father Henry, than of the tenderness and delicacy of her mother Anne Bullen: and however fenfible fhe might be of the injuries her mother endured, would not have fuffered her father's character to have been drawn in the worft colours, either by an hiftorian or a poet. Shakespear has exerted an equal degree of complaifance towards Queen Elizabeth, by the amiable lights he fhews her mother in, in this play.

Anne Bullen is reprefented as affected with the most tender concern for the fuffering of her mistress, Queen Catharine; receiving the honour the King confers on her, by making her Marchionefs of Pembroke, with a graceful humility; and more anxious to conceal her advancement from the Queen, left it fhould aggravate her forrows, than folicitous to penetrate into the meaning of fo extraordinary a favour, or of indulging herfelf in the flattering profpect of future royalty.

The

The Life and Death of King JOHN (1).

G

ACT, I.

SCENE III.

New Titles.

1OOD-den, Sir Richard-God a mercy, fellow, And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter: For new-made honour doth forget men's names: 'Tis too refpective and unfociable

For your converfing. Now your traveller,
He and his tooth-pick at my worship's mets:
And when my knightly ftomach is fuffic'd,
Why then, I fuck my teeth, and catechife

(2) My

(1) King John.] The ftyle all thro' this excellent play is grand and equal, and it abounds with a great variety of fine topics and affecting paffages: Shakespear feems to have had a particular refpect for Faulconbridge, whose character is well maintained, aš is that of the king, than whom none could have been a more proper perfon for tragedy; I know not by what fingular good fortune too it has happened, that the text is remarkably correct, and free from that multitude of mistakes, wherewith most of our author's works fo unhappily abound.