Page:William Hazlitt - Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817).djvu/275

Rh of the object of it, as well as by the frantic and heart-rending pleadings of maternal despair. We do not forgive him the death of Arthur because he had too late revoked his doom and tried to prevent it, and perhaps because he has himself repented of his black design, our moral sense gains courage to hate him the more for it. We take him at his word, and think his purposes must be odious indeed, when he himself shrinks back from them. The scene in which King John suggests to Hubert the design of murdering his nephew is a master-piece of dramatic skill, but it is still inferior, very inferior to the scene between Hubert and Arthur, when the latter learns the orders to put out his eyes. If any thing ever was penned, heart-piercing, mixing the extremes of terror and pity, of that which shocks and that which soothes the mind, it is this scene. We will give it entire, though perhaps it is tasking the reader's sympathy too much.

"Enter and Executioner. Hubert. Heat me these irons hot, and look you stand Within the arras; when I strike my foot Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth And bind the boy, which you shall find with me, Fast to the chair: be heedful: hence, and watch. Executioner. I hope your warrant will bear out the deed. Hubert. Uncleanly scruples! fear not you; look to't.— Young lad, come forth; I have to say with you.