Thou art stained as black-nay, nothing so black
As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill the child.

Hub. Upon my soul-
Faul.

If thou didst but consent

To this most cruel act, do but despair;

And, if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread
That ever spider twisted from her womb

Will serve to 'strangle thee; a rush will be

A beam to hang thee on: or wouldst thou drown thyself,
Put but a little water in a spoon,
And it shall be as all the ocean,
Enough to stifle such a villain up.-
I do suspect thee very grievously.
Hub. I left him well.

Faul.

Go, bear him in thine arms.—

I am amazed, methinks; and lose my way
Among the thorns and dangers of this world.—
How easy dost thou take all England up
From forth this morsel of dead royalty,
The life, the right and truth of all this realm,
Is fled to heaven; and England now is left
To tug and scamble, and to part by the teeth
The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.
Now, for the bare-picked bone of majesty,
Doth dogged War bristle his angry crest,
And snarleth in the gentle eyes of Peace:
Now powers from home, and discontents at home,
Meet in one line; and vast 'confusion waits
(As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast)
The 'imminent decay of wrested pomp.
Now happy he whose cloak and cincture 12 can
Hold out this tempest.-Bear away that child,
And follow me with speed; I'll to the king:
A thousand businesses are brief in hand,
And Heaven itself doth frown upon the land.

[Exeunt.

The Dauphin, aided by the disaffected nobles of England, gives battle to John at St. Edmund's-Bury. The king's troops are repulsed, and John is conveyed to Swinstead Abbey, sick of a fever. There the King dies.

SCENE.-Swinstead Abbey.13

Enter BIGOT and Attendants, who bring in KING JOHN in a chair.

K. John. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room;

It would not out at windows, nor at doors.
There is so hot a summer in my bosom,
That all my bowels crumble up to dust:
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen

Upon a parchment, and against this fire
Do I shrink up.

P. Henry. How fares your majesty?

K. John. Poisoned-ill fare;-dead, forsook, cast off:
And none of you will bid the Winter come,
To thrust his icy fingers in my maw;14

Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course
Through my burned bosom, nor entreat the North
To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips,

And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much,
I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,
And so ungrateful, you deny me that.

P. Henry. O that there were some virtue in my tears,
That might relieve you!

K. John.

The salt in them is hot.

Within me is a hell; and there the poison

Is, as a fiend, confined to tyrannize

On 'unreprievable condemned blood.

Enter FAULCONBridge.

Faul. O, I am scalded with my violent motion, And spleen of speed to see your majesty!

K. John. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye: 15
The tackle of my heart is cracked and burned;

And all the shrouds, wherewith my life should sail,
Are turned to one thread, one little hair:

My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
And then all this thou seest is but a clod,

And module 16 of 'confounded royalty.

Faul. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward;

Where Heaven He knows how we shall answer him:

For, in a night, the best part of my power,

As I upon advantage did remove,

.

Were in the Washes 17 all unwarily

Devoured by the unexpected flood.

[The KING dies.

Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.

My liege! my lord! but now a king, now thus!

P. Henry. Even so must I run on, and even so stop.
What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
When this was now a king, and now is clay?—
At Worcester must his body be interred,

For so he willed it.

Faul.
Thither shall it then.
And happily may your sweet self put on
The lineal state and glory of the land!
To whom, with all submission, on my knee
I do bequeath my faithful services

And true subjection everlastingly.

Sal. And the like tender of our love we make,

To rest without a spot for evermore.

P. Henry. I have a kind soul, that would give you thanks,
And knows not how to do it, but with tears.

Faul. O let us pay the time but needful woe,
Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.-
This England never did, (nor never shall,)
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them! Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.

abhorred', hat'ed.
advised', inten'tional.
artif'icer, work'man.
avaunt', begone'.
bus'inesses, affairs'.
com'ment, criticism.
confound ́ed, baffled.
confu'sion, tu'mult.
con'sequently, there'fore.
devour'ed, swallowed up.
discontent'ed, dissatisfied.
endear'ed, made a favourite

expe'dient, prompt.
griev'ously, painfully.
hon'oured, revered'.
hostility, war.
hu'mours, whims.

im'minent, threat'ening.
incen'sed, infuriated.
in'finite, bound'less.
inhab'it, dwell.

intelligence, informa'tion.
nobility, rank.
parchment, scroll.

'From France to England. That is, All in France goes from France to England.

The copy of your speed.-Referring to the remarkable speed which had at'tended King John's invasion of France in the earlier part of the play, and of which the Dauphin had said,

"So hot a speed, with such advice disposed,
Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,
Doth want example."
"If, whether.

'Bel'dams, old women; lit. fine-lady; but belle is used as a prefix in French (much as grand is used in English); for example, belle-mère, mother-in-law.

[Exeunt. prepara'tion, equipment. prophesy, predict'. provoke, incite'. remorse, regret'.

renown'ed, illustrious.

sa'vours, o'dours.
scam'ble, struggle.
sem'blance, disguise'.
slan'dered, defamed'.
stran'gle, suffocate.
unrepriev'able, not to be
respit'ed.

boast, is from the same root; the primary
meaning of which is to crack, and so to at-
tract notice. Hence, also, Sc. braw, showy;
Fr. brave, gay, gallant; O. E. brave, hand-
some; and modern brave, courageous.

Rheum, tears; lit. any fluid. It comes from a Greek word meaning to flow.

12 Cinc'ture, belt, or girdle; lit. anything which binds or surrounds.

14 Maw, mouth.

13 Swinstead Abbey.-The historical "A many thousand, many a thousand. account gives Newark Castle in NottingA is used before many, or a word express-hamshire as the scene of King John's death. ing number, when the whole of the things are to be regarded as one mass; for example, 'An eight days." (Luke, ix. 28.) Embat'tailed, marshalled in order of

6

battle.

7 Quoted, marked; noted.

15 To set mine eye To close mine eyes after I am dead.

16 Mod'ule, a model or image.

17 The Washes, between Norfolk and Lincoln, where King John lost his baggage

Braved, set at defiance. To brag, to and regalia in 1216.

THE DOMINION OF CANADA.

PART I.

LOOKING back over the vast breadth of the Dominion, when our journeyings were ended, it rolled out before us like a panorama, varied and magnificent enough to stir the dullest spirit into patriotic emotion. For nearly 1,000 miles by railway between different points east of Lake Huron; 2,185 miles by horses, including coaches, waggons, pack and saddle horses; 1,687 miles in steamers in the basin of the St. Lawrence and on Pacific waters; and 485 miles in canoes and row-boats;-we had travelled in all 5,300 miles between Halifax and Victoria,1 over a country with features and resources more varied than even our modes of locomotion.

From the sea-pastures and coal-fields of Nova Scotia and the forests of New Brunswick, almost from historic Louisburg,2 up the St. Lawrence, to historic Quebec;3 through the great province of Ontario, and on lakes that are really seas; by copper and silver mines so rich as to recall stories of the Arabian Nights," though only the rim of the land has been explored; on the chain of lakes where the Ojibbeway is at home in his canoe, to the great plains where the Cree1 is equally at home on his horse; through the prairie province of Manitoba,5 and rolling meadows and park-like country, equally fertile, out of which a dozen Manitobas shall be carved in the next quarter of a century; along the banks of

A full-fed river winding slow

By herds upon an endless plain,—

full-fed from the exhaustless glaciers of the Rocky Mountains, and watering "the great lone land;" over illimitable coal-measures and deep woods; on to the mountains, which open their gates more widely than to our wealthier neighbours, to lead us to the Pacific; down deep gorges filled with mighty timber, and rivers whose ancient deposits are gold beds, sands like those of Pactolus, and channels choked with fish; on to the many har.bours of mainland and island that look right across to the old Eastern Thule,s" with its rosy pearls and golden-roofed palaces," and open their arms to welcome the swarming millions of Cathay;9-over all this we had travelled, and it was all our own.

"Where's the coward that would not dare"

To fight for such a land?"

Thank God, we have a country. It is not our poverty of land

or sea, of wood or mine, that shall ever urge us to be traitors. But the destiny of a country depends not on its material resources; it depends on the character of its people. Here, too, is full ground for confidence. We in everything "are sprung of earth's first blood, have titles manifold." We come of a race that never counted the number of its foes, nor the number of its friends, when freedom, loyalty, or God was concerned.

'Victoria.-Sea-port and chief town of Vancouver Island, which forms part of the province of British Columbia in the Dominion of Canada.

2 Historic Louisburg.-A sea-port on the eastern coast of Cape Breton Island, which forms part of the province of Nova Scotia in the Dominion of Canada. Louisburg was captured by General Amherst, after a severe bombardment, in 1758. With it Cape Breton Island and St. John's (now Prince Edward Island) fell into the hands of the English. Wolfe, killed next year at Quebec, was the hero of the siege.

'Historic Quebec.-Its famous siege took place in 1759. (See Royal Reader No. V., p. 189.)

Ojibbeway....Cree.-Tribes of native

North Americans, or Red Indians.

'Manitoba.-A part of the old Hudson Bay Territory, which was ceded to the Dominion in 1870. In the same year Manitoba (which is south of Lake Winnipeg) was organized as a province.

Its

earlier names were Selkirk Settlement (after the Earl of Selkirk, who, in 1811, purchased it as a home for Scottish emigrants), Assiniboia, and Red River Settlement. Population, 15,000; chief town, Winnipeg.

* Open their gates more widely.-That is, the passes in the Rocky Mountains in the Dominion are wider than those in the United States.

7 Pacto'lus.-A river in Lydia (Asia Minor), which was said to bring down in its waters golden sands.

• Eastern Thu'le.-The extreme part of the Eastern Hemisphere-the islands of Japan. Thule was the name given by the Romans to an island in the extreme north of Europe (whether Iceland or one of the Shetlands is uncertain), and is thence ap plied to any remote island.

Cathay. An old name for China. 10 Where's the coward, &c.-The exclamation of Fitz-Eustace (in Marmion) on viewing Edinburgh from the brow of Blackford Hill.

QUESTIONS. To the author, looking back on the breadth of the Dominion, like what did it appear? What was its character? How far had he travelled in all? Between what two towns? How far had he travelled by rail? How far by horses? How far in steamers? How far in canoes and row-boats? Mention the leading features of the country which he traversed. What can never urge us to be traitors? On what does the destiny of a country depend? Why in this respect have we full ground for confidence?

THE DOMINION OF CANADA.

PART II.

THE Abbé Sièyes1 had a cabinet filled with pigeon-holes, in each of which was a cut-and-dried Constitution for France. Doctrinaires fancy that at any time they can say, "Go to, let us make a Constitution;" and that they can fit it on a nation as readily as new coats on their backs. There never was a profounder mistake. A nation grows, and its Constitution must grow with it. The nation cannot be pulled up by the roots