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Enter Sir Richard Vernon.

Hot. My coufin Vernon! welcome, by my foul!
Ver. Pray God, my news be worth a welcome, lord,
The earl of Westmorland, seven thousand strong,
Is marching hitherwards; with him prince John.
Hot. No harm: what more?

Ver. And further, I have learn'd,
The king himself in perfon hath fet forth,
Or hitherwards intended fpeedily,
With strong and mighty preparation.

Hot. He fhall be welcome too.

Where is his fon,

4 The nimble-footed mad-cap prince of Wales, And his comrades, that daft the world aside, And bid it pafs?

Ver. All furnish'd, all in arms,

All

The nimble-footed mad-cap prince of Wales,] Shakespeare rarely beft ws his epithets at random. Stowe fays of the prince, "he was paling fwift in running, infomuch that he with two "other of his lords, without hounds, bow, or other engine, "would take a wild-duck, or doe, in a large park." STEEVENS,

$ All furnish'd, all in arms,

All plum'd like cftridges, that with the wind

Baited like eagles,] To bait with the wind appears to me an improper expreffion. To bait is, in the ftyle of falconry, to beat the aving, from the French battre, that is, to flutter in preparation for flight.

Befides, what is the meaning of eftridges, that baited with the wind like eagles? for the relative that, in the ufual conftruction, muft relate to eftridges.

Sir Thomas Hanmer reads,

All plum'd like eftridges, and with the wind
Baiting like eagles.

By which he has efcaped part of the difficulty, but has yet left impropriety fufficient to make his reading queftionable."

I read,

All furnif'd, all in arms,

All plum'd like ridges that wing the wind
Baited like eagles.

This gives a frong image. They were not only plum'd like etridges, but their plumes fiuttered like thofe of an eftridge

beating

All plum'd like eftridges, that with the wind
Baited like eagles, having lately bath'd:
7 Glittering in golden coats like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the fun at Midfummer;
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
$ I faw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuiffes on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,

Rife

beating the wind with his wings. A more lively representation of young men ardent for enterprize, perhaps no writer has ever given. JOHNSON.

I believe eftridges never mount at all, but only run before the wind, opening their wings to receive its affiftance in urging them forward. They are generally hunted on horfeback, and the art of the hunter is to turn them from the wind, by the help of which they are too fleet for the fwifteft horfe to keep up with them. I should have fufpected a line to have been omitted, had not all the copies concurred in the fame reading. STEEVENS. I have little doubt that inftead of with, fome verb ought to be fubftituted here. Perhaps it should be whisk. The word is ufed by a writer of Shakespeare's age. England's Helicon, fign. 2.

"This faid, he whisk'd his particolour'd wings."

T. T.

All plum'd like eftridges, &c.] All dreffed like the prince himself, the oftrich-feather being the cognizance of the prince of Wales. GRAY.

7 Glittering in golden coats like images ;] This alludes to the manner of dreffing up images in the Romish churches on holydays; where they are bedecked in gilt robes richly laced and embroidered. STEEVENS.

8

I faw young Harry, with his beaver on,] We fhould read beaver up. It is an impropriety to fay on: for the beaver is only the vifiere of the helmet, which, let down, covers the face. When the foldier was not upon action he wore it up, fo that his face might be feen, (hence Vernon fays he faw young Harry.) But when upon action, it was let down to cover and fecure the face. Hence in The Second Part of Henry IV. it is faid,

Their armed flaves in charge, their beavers down.

WARBURTON.

There is no need of all this note; for beaver may be a helmet; or the prince, trying his armour, might wear his beaver down. JOHNSON.

9 His cuiffes on his thighs,

the thighs, POPE,

Cuiffes, French, armour for

The

Rife from the ground like feather'd Mercury;
And vaulted with fuch ease into his feat,
As if an angel dropt down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegafus,

And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
Hot. No more, no more; worfe than the fun in
March,

This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come.
They come like facrifices in their trimm,
And to the fire-ey'd maid of fmoaky war,
All hot, and bleeding, will we offer them.
The mailed Mars fhall on his altar fit
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprifal is fo nigh,
And yet not ours. Come, let me take
Who is to bear me, like a thunder-bolt,
Against the bofom of the prince of Wales.
2 Harry to Harry fhall, hot horse to horfe
Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a corse.-
O, that Glendower were come!

Ver. There is more news:

my

horse,

I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,
He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.

The reason why his cuiffes are fo particularly mentioned, I conceive to be, that his horfemanfhip is here praifed, and the cuiffes are that part of armour which moft hinders a horfeman's activity. JOHNSON.

And witch the world-] For bewitch, charm. POPE. 2 Harry to Harry fhall, het horse to horse,

Meat and ne'er part,-] This reading I have reftored from the first edition. The edition in 1623, reads

Harry to Harry fall, not horfe to borse,

Meet, and ne'er part.

Which has been followed by all the critics except Sir Thomas Hanmer, who, juftly remarking the impertinence of the negative, reads,

Harry to Harry fhall, and horfe to borse,
Meet, and ne'er part.

But the unexampled expreffion of meeting to for meeting with, or fimply meeting, is yet left. The ancient reading is furely right.

JOHNSON.

Doug.

yet.

Doug. That's the worst tidings that I hear of
Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frofty found.
Hot. What may the king's whole battle reach unto?
Ver. To thirty thousand.

Hot. Forty let it be;

My father and Glendower being both away,
The powers of us may ferve fo great a day.
Come, let us take a mufter fpeedily:
Dooms-day is near; die all, die merrily.
Doug. Talk not of dying; I am out of fear
Of death, or death's hand, for this one half year.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Changes to a public road near Coventry.

Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.

Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of fack. Our foldiers fhall march through we'll to Sutton-Colfield to-night.

Bard. Will you give me money, captain?
Fal. Lay out, lay out.

Bard. This bottle makes an angel.

Fal. And if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it make twenty, take them all, I'll answer the coinage. Bid my 3 lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. Bard. I will, captain: farewell. [Exit. Fal. If I be not afham'd of my foldiers, I am a 4 fouc'd gurnet. I have mif-us'd the king's press

3

damnably.

lieutenant Peta-] This paffage proves that Peto

did not go with the prince. JoHNSON.

4

-fouc'd gurnet.] This is a difh mentioned in that very laughable poem call'd The Counter-fcuffie, 1658,

"Stuck thick with cloves upon the back,

"Well ftuff'd with fage, and for the fmack

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Daintily ftrew'd with pepper black,

"Souc'd gurnet."

Souc'd

damnably. I have got, in exchange of an hundred and fifty foldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I prefs me none but good houfholders, yeomens fons: enquire me out contracted batchelors, fuch as had been afk'd twice on the bans; fuch a commodity of warm flaves, as had as lief hear the devil as a drum; fuch as fear the report of a caliver, 5 worse than a ftruck fowl, or a hurt wild-duck. I preft me none but fuch toasts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out their fervices. And now my whole charge confifts of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, flaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his fores: and fuch as indeed were never foldiers; but difcarded unjuft fervingmen, younger fons to younger brothers, revolted tapfters, and oftlers trade-fallen; the cankers

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Souc'd gurnet is an appellation of contempt very frequently employed in the old comedies. So in Decker's Honeft Whore, 1635,

"Punk! you fouc'd gurnet!" STEEVENS.

5 worfe than a firuck fowl, or a burt wild duck.] The repetition of the fame image difpofed Sir Thomas Hanmer, and after him Dr. Warburton, to read, in oppofition to all the copies, a ftruck deer, which is indeed a proper expreffion, but not likely to have been corrupted. Shakespeare, perhaps, wrote a ftruck forel, which, being negligently read by a man not skilled in hunter's language, was eafily changed to ftruck fowl. Sorel is ufed in Love's Labour loft for a young deer; and the terms of the chafe were, in our author's time, familiar to the ears of every gentleman. JOHNSON.

Both the quarto's and folio's read ftruck fool. This may mean a fool who had been hurt by the recoil of an over-loaded gun which he had inadvertently difcharged. Fowl, however, feems to have been the word defigned by the poet, who might have thought an oppofition between fowl, i. e. domeftic birds, and wild-fowl, fufficient on this occafion. STEEVENS.

6

-younger fons to younger brothers,-] Raleigh, in his Difcourfe on War, ufes this very expreffion for men of desperate fortune and wild adventure. Which borrowed it from the other I know not, but I think the play was printed before the difcourfe. JOHNSON.

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