NOTE ON THE FRONTISPIECE

This portrait, which is painted on a panel of elm, bears the inscription “Willm Shakespeare, 1609, in the upper left-hand corner. Nothing is known of its history beyond the fact that about 1840 it was purchased from an obscure dealer by Mr. H. C. Clements, a private gentleman, who believed it to be the original from which the authentic 'Droeshout engraving' (the frontispiece of vol. i.) was produced. On Mr. Clements' death in 1895 the painting was purchased by Mrs. Charles Flower and by her presented to the Trustees of Shakespeare's Birthplace, with whose permission it is here reproduced. “Connoisseurs, including Mr. Sidney Colvin of the British Museum, and Mr. Lionel Cust, have almost unreservedly pronounced the picture to be anterior in date to the engraving, and they have reached the conclusion that in all probability Martin Droeshout directly based his work upon the painting. Influences of an early seventeenthcentury Flemish school are plainly discernible in the picture, and it is just possible that it is the production of an uncle of the young engraver Martin Droeshout, who bore the same name as his nephew, and was naturalised in this country on January 25, 1608, when he was described as a “painter of Brabant.” Although the history of the portrait rests on critical conjecture and on no external contemporary evidence, there seems good ground for regarding it as a portrait of Shakespeare painted in his lifetime—in the forty-fifth year of his age. No other pictorial representation of the poet has equally serious claims to be treated as contemporary with himself, and it therefore presents features of unique interest.'

MR. SIDNEY LEE'S LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE.'

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF

KING JOHN

IV : A

PERSONS REPRESENTED

KING JOHN.

PRINCE HENRY: SON TO THE KING.
ARTHUR: DUKE OF BRETAGNE, NEPHEW TO THE KING.

PEMBROKE.

ESSEX.
SALISBURY.
THE LORD BIGOT.

HUBERT DE BURGH.

DGE : {

SON TO SIR ROBERT ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE :

FAULCONBRIDGE. PHILIP THE BASTARD, AFTERWARDS

HIS HALF-BROTHER. RICHARD PLANTAGENET:

JAMES GURNEY: SERVANT TO LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. PETER OF POMFRET: A PROPHET.

PHILIP: KING OF FRANCE.
LEWIS : THE DOLPHIN.
LYMOGES : DUKE OF AUSTRIA.
CARDINAL PANDULPH : THE POPE'S LEGATE.
MELUN: A FRENCH LORD.
CHATILLON : AMBASSADOR FROM FRANCE.

ELINOR: MOTHER TO KING John.
CONSTANCE: MOTHER TO ARTHUR.
BLANCH OF SPAIN: NIECE TO KING John.

LADY FAULCONBRIDGE.

LORDS, CITIZENS OF ANGIERS, SHERIFF, HERALDS, OFFICERS,

SOLDIERS, MESSENGERS, ATTENDANTS.

SCENE-England and France.

THE LIFE AND DEATH

OF KING JOHN

ACT I

SCENE I. A Palace in England.

IO

Enter King JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX,

SALISBURY, and others, with CHATILLON.
K. JOHN. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?
CHAT. Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France,

In my behaviour, to the Majesty,

The borrow'd majesty, of England here.
Eli. A strange beginning: borrow'd majesty!
K. John. Silence, good Mother; hear the Embassy.
Chat. Philip of France, in right and true behalf

Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,
Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
To this fair island and the territories,
To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine ;
Desiring thee to lay aside the sword
Which sways usurpingly these several titles,
And put the same into young Arthur's hand,

Thy nephew and right royal Sovereign.
K. John. What follows if we disallow of this?
Chat. The proud control of fierce and bloody war

To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.
K. JOHN. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,

Controlment for controlment: so answer France.
Chat. Then take my King's defiance from my mouth,

The farthest limit of my embassy.
K. JOHN. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace :

Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
For, ere thou canst report I will be there,
i dependencies.

? compulsion.

20

1