Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

Now I go, and now I fly,

Malkin, my sweet spirit, and I.
O, what a dainty pleasure's this,
To sail i'the air,

While the moon shines fair;

To sing, to toy, to dance, and kiss!
Over woods, high rocks, and mountains;
Over hills, and misty fountains;
Over steeples, towers, and turrets,

We fly by night 'mongst troops of spirits.

No ring of bells to our ears sounds,

No howls of wolves, nor yelps of hounds;

No, not the noise of water's breach,

Nor cannons' throat our height can reach.

[Hecate ascends.

1 Witch. Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again. 2 Witch. But whilst she moves through the foggy air,

Let's to the cave, and our dire charms prepare.

[Exeunt.

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]

KING JOHN.*

VOL. IV.

* KING JOHN.] 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 Ed

monton.

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. 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.

It

A play entitled The troublesome Raigne of John King of England, in two parts, was printed in 1591, without the writer's name. 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.

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »