OBSERVATIONS

ON THE Fable AND Composition or

KING JOHN.

THE Troublesome Reign of King John was written in two parts, by W. Shakspere and W. Rowley, and printed 1611. But the present play is entirely different, and infinitely supePOPE

rior to it.

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 Shakspere 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 fol. 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 Shakspere: the Birth of Merlin is ascribed to them jointly; though I cannot believe Shakspere had any thing to do with it. Mr. Capel 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

Shakspere'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 first edition of The Troublesome Raigne of John King of England, with the Discoverie of King Richard Cordelion's base Son, vulgarly named the Bastard Fawconbridge: also the Death of King John at Swinstead-Abbey — As it was (sundry Times) publikely afted by the Queen's Majesties Players in the honourable Citie of London.-Imprinted at London for Sampson Clarke, 1591-has no author's name in the title. On the republication in 1611, the printer who inserted the letters W. Sh. in order to conceal his fraud, omitted the words-publikely in the honourable Citie of London, which he was aware would proclaim this play not to be Shakspere's King John; the company to which he belonged, having no publick theatre in London: that in Black-Friars being a private play-house, and the Globe, which was a publick theatre, being situated in Southwark. He also, probably, with the same view, omitted the following lines addressed to the Gentlemen Readers, which are prefixed to the first edition of the old play:

"You that with friendly grace of smoothed brow
"Have entertain'd the Scythian Tamburlaine,
"And given applause unto an infidel;
"Vouchsafe to welcome, with like curtesie,
"A warlike Christian and your countryman.
"For Christ's true faith indur'd he many a storme,
"And set himselfe against the man of Rome,
"Until base treason by a damned wight
"Did all his former triumphs put to flight.

"Accept

"Accept of it, sweete gentles, in good sort,
"And thinke it was prepar'd for your disport."

From the mention of Tamburlaine, I conjecture that Marlowe was the author of the old King John. If it was written by a person of the name of Rowley, it probably was the composition of that "Maister Rowley," whom Meres mentions in his Wits Treasury, 1598, as "once a rare scholar of learned Pembroke-Hall, in Cambridge." W. Rowley was a player in the King's Company, so late as the year 1625, and can hardly be supposed to have introduced a play thirtyfour years before. MALONE.

Hall, Holinshed, Stowe, &c. are closely followed not only in the conduct, but sometimes in the expressions throughout the following historical dramas; viz. Macbeth, this play, Richard 11. Henry IV. 2 parts, Henry V. Henry VI. 3 parts, Richard III. and Henry VIII.

“A booke called The Hystorie of Lord Faulconbridge, bas tard 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 on the same subject. For the original K. Johri, see Six old Plays, on which Shakspere founded, &c. published by S. Leacroft, Charing-Cross. STEEVENS.

Though this play hath 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 at the time of his demise, being an interval of about seventeen years. THEOBALD.

The tragedy of King John, though not written with the utmost power of Shakspere, is varied with a very pleasing interchange of incidents and characters. The lady's grief is

very affecting; and the character of the bastard contains that mixture of greatness and levity which this author delighted to exhibit. JOHNSON.

There is extant another play of King John, published in 1611. Shakspere has preserved the greatest part of the conduct of it, as well as some of the lines. A few of these I have pointed out in the notes, and others I have omitted as undeserving notice. What most inclines me to believe it was the work of some contemporary writer, is the number of quotations from Horace, and similar scraps of learning, scattered over it. There is likewise a quantity of rhiming Latin, and ballad-metre, in a scene where the Bastard is represented as plundering a monastery; and some strokes of humour, which seem, from their particular turn, to have been most evidently produced by another hand than that of Shakspere.

Of this historical drama there is said to have been an edi. tion in 1591 for Sampson Clark, but I have never seen it; and the copy in 1611, which is the oldest I could find, was printed for John Helme, whose name appears before no other of the pieces of Shakspere, 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.