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HENRY IV.

ACT I. SCENE I.

The court in London.

Enter king Henry, lord John of Lancaster, earl of Westmorland, and others.

S

KING HENRY.

O fhaken as we are, fo wan with care,

2 Find we a time for frighted peace to pant, And breathe fhort-winded accents of new broils To be commenc'd in ftronds a-far remote.

The Firft Part of Henry IV.] The tranfactions contained in this hiftorical drama are comprised within the period of about ten months; for the action commences with the news brought of Hotfpur having defeated the Scots under Archibald earl Douglas at Holmedon (or Halidown-hill) which battle was fought on Holyrood-day (the 14th of September) 1402; and it closes with the defeat and death of Hotspur at Shrewsbury; which engagement happened on Saturday the 21ft of July (the eve of Saint Mary Magdalen) in the year 1403. THEOBALD.

Shakespeare has apparently defigned a regular connection of thefe dramatic hiftories from Richard the Second to Henry the Fifth. King Henry, at the end of Richard the Second, declares his purpofe to vifit the Holy-land, which he refumes in his fpeech. The complaint made by king Henry in the last act of Richard the Second, of the wildness of his fon, prepares the reader for the frolicks which are here to be recounted, and the characters which are now to be exhibited. JOHNSON.

Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,

And breathe fhort-winded accents-] That is, Let us foften peace to reft a while without disturbance, that he may recover breath to propofe new wars. JOHNSON.

No

3 No more the thirsty entrance of this foil
Shall daub her lips with her own childrens' blood;

3 No more the thirsty entrance of this foil

Shall damp her lips with her own children's blood;] This nonfenfe fhould be read, Shall TREMPE, i. e. moisten, and refers to thirsty in the preceding line: trempe, from the French, tremper, properly fignifies the moiftnefs made by rain. WARB.

That thefe lines are abfurd is foon difcovered, but how this nonfenfe will be made fenfe is not fo eafily told; furely not by reading trempe, for what means he, that fays, the thirsty entrance of this foil shall no more trempe her lips with her childrens' blood, more than he that fays it shall not damp her lips? To fuppofe the entrance of the foil to mean the entrance of a king upon dominion, and king Henry to predict that kings shall enter bereafter without bloodshed, is to give words fuch a latitude of meaning, that no nonfenfe can want a congruous interpretation. The antient copies neither have trempe nor damp; the first 4to of 1599, that of 1622, the folio of 1623, and the 4to of 1639, all read,

No more the thirfty entrance of this foil

Shall daube her lips with her own children's blood.

The folios of 1662 and 1634 read, by an apparent error of the prefs, Shall damb her lips, from which the later editors have idly adopted damp. The old reading helps the editor no better than the new, nor can I fatisfactorily reform the paffage. I think that thirty entrance must be wrong, yet know not what to offer. We may read, but not very elegantly,

No more the thirfly entrails of this foil

Shall daubed be with her own childrens' blood.

The relative ber is inaccurately used in both readings; but to regard fenfe more than grammar is familiar to our author. We may fuppofe a verfe or two loft between thefe two lines. This is a cheap way of palliating an editor's inability; but I believe fuch omiffions are more frequent in Shakespeare than is commonly imagined. JOHNSON.

Perhaps the following conjecture may be thought very far fetch'd, and yet I am willing to venture it, because it often happens that a wrong reading has affinity to the right.

I would read,

the thirfy entrants of this foil;

i. e. thofe who fet foot on this kingdom through the thirst of power or conqueft.

Whoever is accustomed to the old copies of this author, will generally find the words confequents, occurrents, ingredients, fpelt confequence, occurrence, ingredience; and thus, perhaps, the French word entrants, anglicized by Shakespeare, might have been corrupted into entrance, which affords no very apparent meaning. STELVENS.

Νο

No more fhall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruife her flowrets with the armed hoofs
Of hoftile paces.
4 Those oppofed eyes,
Which-like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one fubftance bred-
Did lately meet in the inteftine fhock
And furious clofe of civil butchery,

Shall now, in mutual, well-befeeming ranks
March all one way; and be no more oppos'd
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-fheathed knife,
No more fhall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
5 As far as to the fepulchre of Chrift,

(Whofe foldiers now, under whofe bleffed cross We are impreffed, and engag'd to fight) Forthwith a power of English fhall we levy; "Whofe arms were moulded in their mothers' wombs

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Thofe oppofed eyes,] The fimilitude is beautiful; but what are" eyes meeting in inteftine fhocks, and marching "all one way?" The true reading is, FILES; which appears not only from the integrity of the metaphor, "well-befeeming ranks march all one way;" but from the nature of thofe meteors to which they are compared; namely, long ftreaks of red, which reprefent the lines of armies; the appearance of which, and their likeness to fuch lines, gave occafion to all the fuperftition of the common people concerning armies in the air, &c. Out of mere contradiction, the Oxford Editor would improve my alteration of files to arms, and fo lofes both the integrity of the metaphor and the likenefs of the comparison.

WARBURTON.

This paffage is not very accurate in the expreffion, but I think nothing can be changed. JOHNSON.

5 As far as to the fepulchre, &c.] The lawfulness and justice of the holy wars have been much difputed; but perhaps there is a principle on which the queftion may be eafily determined. If it be part of the religion of the Mahometans to extirpate by the fword all other religions, it is, by the law of felf-defence, lawful for men of every other religion, and for Chriftians among others, to make war upon Mahometans, fimply as Mahometans, as men obliged by their own principles to make war upon Chriftians, and only lying in wait till opportunity shall promife them fuccefs. JOHNSON.

VOL. V.

P

To

To chafe these pagans in thofe holy fields,
Over whofe acres walk'd thofe bleffed feet,
Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nail'd,
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose is a twelve-month old,
And bootlefs 'tis to tell you we will go;
Therefore, we meet not now-then let me hear
Of you, my gentle coufin Weftmorland,
What yefternight our council did decree,
In forwarding this dear expedience.

West. My liege, this hafte was hot in question,
7 And many limits of the charge set down
But yefternight: when, all athwart, there came
A poft from Wales, loaden with heavy news;
Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
And a thousand of his people butchered:
Upon whofe dead corpfes there was fuch misuse,
Such beastly, shameless transformation,

By thofe Welshwomen done, as may not be,
Without much fhame, retold or spoken of.

K. Henry. It feems then, that the tidings of this broil

Brake off our bufinefs for the Holy-land.

Weft. This, match'd with others, did, my gracious lord;

For more uneven and unwelcome news

Came from the north, and thus it did import.
On Holy-rood-day, the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,

6

this dear expedience.] For expedition. WARBURTON. And many limits- -] Limits for eftimates. WARBURT, By thofe Welsh-women done-] Thus Holinfhed: "The "fhameful viliainy ufed by the Welfhwomen toward the dead carcaffes, was fuch as honeft ears would be afhamed to hear."

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STEEVENS.

That

That ever-valiant and approved Scot,
At Holmedon spent a fad and bloody hour;
As by discharge of their artillery,

And shape of likelihood, the news was told;
For he that brought it, in the very heat
And pride of their contention, did take horse,
Uncertain of the iffue any way.

K. Henry. Here is a dear and true-induftrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stain'd with the variation of each foil

Betwixt that Holmedon and this feat of ours;
And he hath brought us fmooth and welcome news:
The earl of Douglas is discomfited

Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights,
9 Balk'd in their own blood, did Sir Walter fee
On Holmedon's plain. Of prifoners, Hotspur took
Mordake the earl of Fife, and eldest fon

To beaten Douglas, and the earls
Athol, Murray, Angus, and Menteith.
And is not this an honourable spoil?
A gallant prize? ha, coufin, is it not?

9 Balk'd in their own blood,] I fhould fuppofe, that the author might have written either bath'd, or bak'd, i. e. encrusted over with blood dried upon them.

I have fince met with this paffage in Carew's Survey of Cornwall, p. 33. of which the reader may try if he can make any use.

"Fish are faved three manner of ways, but for every of "which they are firft falted, and piled up, row by row, in "fquare heaps, which they term bulking, where they fo remain "for fome days, until the fuperfluous matter of the blood and "falt be foaked from them."

Bulk is likewife apparently used for a dead body in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1615.

"Had I the heart to tread upon the bulk

"Of my dead father?"

And again, in The Love of King David and fair Bethfabe,

1599,

"And in fome ditch amidft this darkfome wood

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Bury his bulk beneath a heap of tones." STEEVENS.

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