And follows fo the ever-running year With profitable labour, to his grave: And, but for ceremony, fuch a wretch, Winding up days with toil, and nights with fleep, What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, Enter ERPINGHAM. Erp. My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence, Seek through your camp to find you. K. Hen. Good old knight, Collect them all together at my tent: Erp. I fhall do't, my lord. [Exit. K. Hen. O God of battles! fteel my foldiers' hearts! Poffefs them not with fear; take from them now The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers Pluck their hearts from them!-Not to-day, O Lord, O not to-day, think not upon the fault My father made in compassing the crown! 6-if the oppofed numbers I Richard's Pluck their bearts from them!] The folio reads-of the oppofed numbers. The very happy emendation now adopted, is Mr. Tyr. whitt's. In King John, edit. 1632, these words have again been confounded: "Lord of our prefence, Angiers, and if you," inftead of of you. The same mistake has, I think, happened also in Twelfth Night folio, 1623: "For, fuch as we are made if fuch we be." where we should certainly read "For, fuch as we are made of, such we be.” In the fubfequent scene we have again the fame thought. The Conftable of France after exhorting his countrymen to take horse, adds, "Do but behold yon poor and starved band, "And your fair fhew fhall fuck away their fouls, In Hall's Chronicle, HENRY IV. fol. 23, we find a kindred expreffion to that in the text: "Henry encouraged his part fo, that they took their hearts to them, and manly fought with their enemies." A paffage in the speech which the fame chronicler has put into Henry's mouth, before the battle of Agincourt, may also throw fome light on Na 3 that I Richard's body have interred new ; And on it have beftow'd more contrite tears, Enter that before us, and ferve to fupport the emendation that has been made "Therefore putting your only truft in him, let not their multitude fear your beartes, nor their great number abate your courage.” The paffage ftands thus in the quarto, 1600: Take from them now the fenfe of reckoning, "That the oppofed numbers which stand before them, This fully refutes the notion of an anonymous remarker, who underftands the word pluck as optative, and fuppofes that Henry calls on the God of battles to deprive his foldiers of their hearts; that is, of their courage, for fuch is evidently the meaning of the expreffion;(fo in the common phrase, " have a good beart," and in the paffage juft quoted from Hall;) though this commentator chooses to understand by the word-fenfe and paffions, Mr. Theobald reads left the oppofed numbers, &c. He and fome other commentators feem indeed to think that any word may be fubftituted for another, if thereby sense may be obtained; but a word ought rarely to be fubftituted in the room of another, unless either the emendation bears fuch an affinity to the corrupted reading, as that the error might have arisen from the mistake of the eye or the ear of the compofitor of tranfcriber; or a word has been caught inadvertently by the compofitor from a preceding or fubfequent line. MALONE. Theobald's alteration certainly makes a very good fenfe; but, I think, we might read, with less deviation from the present text,-if the oppofed numbers, &c, In conjectural criticifm, as in mechanics, the perfection of the art, I apprehend, confifts in producing a given effect with the leaft poffible force. TYRWHITT. 7 Two chantries,] One of these monafteries was for Carthufian monks, and was called Betblebem; the other was for religious men and women of the order of Saint Bridget, and was named Sion. They were on oppofite fides of the Thames, and adjoined the royal manor of Sheene, now called Richmond. MALONE. 5 Since that my penitence comes after all, Imploring pardon.] I do all this, fays the king, though all that I Glo. My liege! Enter GLOSTER. K. Hen. My brother Glofter's voice ?—Ay; I know thy errand, I will go with thee: The day, my friends, and all things stay for me. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The French Camp. Enter Dauphin, ORLEANS, RAMBURES, and Others. Dau. Via!-les eaux et la terre 9 Orl. Rien puis? l'air et le feu Dau. Ciel! coufin Orleans. can do is nothing worth, is so far from being an adequate expiation of the crime, that penitence comes after all, imploring pardon both for the crime and the expiation. JOHNSON. Mr. Heath's explication appears to me more correct. "I am fenfible that every thing of this kind, (works of piety and charity,) which I have done or can do, will avail nothing towards the remiffion of this fin; fince I well know that after all this is done, true penitence, and imploring pardon, are previously and indispensably neceflary towards my obtaining it." MALONE, 9 Via!-les eaux et la terre-] Via is an old hortatory exclamation, as allons! JOHNSON. Dr. Johnfon is right. So, in King Edward III. 1596: "Then Via! for the fpacious bounds of France!" Again, in Marston's What you Will, 1607: "Tut, Via! let all run glib and fquare!" STEEVENS. See Vol. I. p. 273, n. 3. This dialogue will be beft explained by referring to the feventh scene of the preceding act, in which the Dauphin, fpeaking in admiration of his horfe, fays, "When I beftride him, I foar, I am a hawk: he trots the air: It is a beaft for Perfeus; he is pure air and fire, and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him." He now, feeing his horse at a distance, attempts to fay the fame thing in French: "Les eaux et la terre," the waters and the earth-bave no fpare in my borse's compofition, he was going to have faid; but is prevented by the duke of Orleans, who replies,-Can you add nothing more? Is he not air and fire? Yes, fays the Dauphin, and even heaven itfelf. He had in the former fcene called his horse Wonder of nature. The words, however, may admit of a different interpretation. He may mean to boaft, that, when on horseback, he can bound over all the elements, and even foar to beaven itself. MALONE. Enter VOL. V. Nn4 Enter Conftable. Now, my lord Conflable! Con. Hark, how our steeds for prefent fervice neigh. Dau. Mount them, and make incifion in their hides; That their hot blood may spin in English eyes, And dout them with fuperfluous courage: Ha! Ram. What, will you have them weep our horfes' blood? How fhall we then behold their natural tears? Enter a Meffenger. Me. The English are embattled, you French peers. Con. To horfe, you gallant princes! ftraight to horse! Do but behold yon poor and starved band, And your fair fhew fhall fuck away their fouls, 'Tis politive 'gainst all exceptions, lords, That our fuperfluous lacqueys, and our peasants,- About our fquares of battle,-were enough 8 And dout them] In the folio, where alone this paffage is found, the word is written doubt. To dout, for to do our, is a common phrase at this day in Devonshire and the other western counties; where they often fay, dout the fire, that is, put out the fire. Many other words of the fame ftructure are used by our author; as, to don, i. e. to do on, to doff, i. e. to do off, &c. InHamlet he has ufed the fame phrafe : ་་ the dram of base "Doth all the noble fubftance of worth dout," &c. The word being provincial, the fame mistake has happened in both places; doubt being printed in Hamlet instead of dout. Mr. Pope for doubt fubftituted daunt, which was adopted in the subfequent editions. For the emendation now made I imagined I should have been anfwerable; but on looking into Mr. Rowe's edition I find he has anticipated me, and has printed the word as it is now exhibited in MALONE. the text. 9 -0 hilding for ;] See Vol. III. p. 279, n. I. MALONE. upon this mountain's bafis by-] See Henry's fpeech, fc. vii: Take a trumpet, herald; "Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon bill." MALONE. But But that our honours muft not. What's to say? And all is done. Then let the trumpets found Grand. Why do you ftay fo long, my lords of France? Yon ifland carrions 3, defperate of their bones, Ill-favour'dly become the morning field: Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose, And our air fhakes them paffing fcornfully. Big Mars feems bankrupt in their beggar'd hoft, And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps. Their horfemen fit like fixed candlesticks, With torch-ftaves in their hands: and their poor jades 2 The tucket-fonuance, &c.] He ufes terms of the field, as if they were going out only to the chafe for fport. To dare the field is a phrafe in falconry. Birds are dared when by the falcon in the air they are terri fied from rifing, fo that they will be fometimes taken by the hand. Such an eafy capture the lords expected to make of the English. JOHNSON. The tucket-fonuance was, I believe, the name of an introductory flourish on the trumpet, as toccata in Italian is the prelude of a fonata on the harpsichord, and toccar la tromba, is to blow the trumpet. Sonance is a word used by Heywood, in his Rape of Lucrece, 1630: Or, if he chance to endure our tongues fo much "As but to hear their fonance,-." STEEVENS. 3 Yon island carrions, &c.] This and the preceding defcription of the English is founded on the melancholy account given by our historians, of Henry's army, immediately before the battle of Agincourt: "The Englishmen were brought into great mifery in this journey [from Harfleur to Agincourt]; their victual was in manner fpent, and new could they get none :-reft could they none take, for their enemies were ever at hand to give them alarmes: daily it rained, and nightly it freezed; of fewel there was great fcarcity, but of fluxes great plenty; money they had enough, but wares to bestowe it upon, for their relief or comforte, had they little or none." Holinfhed. MALONE. 4 Their ragged curtains-] That is, their colours. MASON. 5 Their bor femen fit like fixed candlesticks, With torch-ftaves in their band;] Grandpré alludes to the form of the ancient candlesticks, which frequently reprefented human figures holding the fockets for the lights in their extended hands.-A fimilar image occurs in Vittoria Corombona, 1612: "-he fhew'd like a pewter candlestick, fafhioned like a man in armour, holding a tilting faff in his hand little bigger than a candle." STEEVENS, Lob |