Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth 10,
Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,

Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorain :
By the which marriage, the line of Charles the Great
Was reunited to the crown of France.

So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim,
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female:
So do the kings of France unto this day;
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law,
To bar your highness claiming from the female;
And rather choose to hide them in a net,
Than amply to imbare 11 their crooked titles
Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.

K. Hen. May I, with right and conscience, make
this claim?

Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign! For in the book of Numbers is it writ,

When the son dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;
Look back unto your mighty ancestors;
Go, my dread lord, to your great grandsire's tomb,
From whom you claim: invoke his warlike spirit,
And your great uncle's, Edward the Black Prince;
Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,

10 Lewis the Tenth.' This should be Lewis the Ninth, as it stands in Hall's Chronicle. Shakspeare has been led into the error by Holinshed, whose chronicle he followed.

11 Than amply to imbare their crooked titles.' The folio reads imbarre; the quarto imbace. As there is no other example of such a word, I cannot but think that this is an error of the press for unbare.

Making defeat on the full power of France;
Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling; to behold his lion's whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility 12.
O noble English, that could entertain
With half their forces the full pride of France;
And let another half stand laughing by,
All out of work, and cold for action 13!

Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead,
And with your puissant arm renew their feats:
You are their heir, you sit upon their throne;
The blood and courage that renowned them,
Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege
Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.

Exe. Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth
Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former lions of your blood.

West. They know, your grace hath cause,
means, and might;

and

So hath your highness 14; never king of England Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects; Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England, And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.

Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege, With blood, and sword, and fire, to win your right: In aid whereof, we of the spiritualty

Will raise your highness such a mighty sum,

12 'Whiles his most mighty father on a hill

Stood smiling,' &c.

This alludes to the battle of Cressy; as described by Holinshed, vol. ii. p. 372.

13 Cold for action,' want of action being the cause of their being cold. So many mistakes have been made in the explanation of this simple word for by the editors of Shakspeare, and other of our old English writers, that the reader will do well to consult Tooke's Diversions of Purley, vol. i. p. 371 et seq. 14 i. e. your highness hath indeed what they think and know you have.

As never did the clergy at one time

Bring in to

any of your ancestors.

K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the French;

But lay down our proportions to defend

Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages.

Cant. They of those marches 15, gracious sovereign, Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,

But fear the main intendment 16 of the Scot,
Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
For you shall read, that my great grandfather
Never went with his forces into France,
But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brimfulness of his force;
Galling the gleaned land with hot essays;
Girding with grievous siege, castles and towns;
That England, being empty of defence,

Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighbourhood 17.
Cant. She hath been then more fear'd 18 than

harm'd, my liege:

For hear her but exampled by herself,

16

15They of those marches. The marches are the borders. 'But fear the main intendment of the Scot, Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us.' The main intendment is the principal purpose, that he will bend his whole force against us: the Bellum in aliquem intendere, of Livy. A giddy neighbour is an unstable, inconstant one. What opinion the Scots entertained of the defenceless state of England appears from Wyntown's Cronykil, b. viii. ch. xl. ver. 96; and from the old poem of Flodden Field.

17 The quarto reads 'at the bruit thereof.'

18 Fear'd here means frightened. We have it again in the same sense in other places, as in King Henry VI. Act v. Sc. 2, Part III.:

'Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all.'

When all her chivalry hath been in France,
And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
She hath herself not only well defended,
But taken, and impounded as a stray,

The king of Scots; whom she did send to France,
To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings;
And make your chronicle as rich with praise,
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.
West. But there's a saying, very old and true,—
If that you will France win,

Then with Scotland first begin:

For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs;
Playing the mouse, in absence of the cat,
To spoil and havock more than she can eat.

Exe. It follows then, the cat must stay at home: Yet that is but a crush'd necessity 19;

Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
The advised head defends itself at home:
For government, though high, and low, and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one concent 20;

19 Yet that is but a crush'd necessity.' This is the reading of the folio. The editors of late editions have adopted the reading of the quarto copy, 'curs'd necessity,' and by so doing have certainly not rendered the passage more intelligible; indeed none of the attempts at explanation are satisfactory. A crush'd necessity may signify a necessity partly overcome, one which did exist, but which, from the prudent precautions taken, is now less urgent. To crush is to bruise, not to exterminate.

20 Concent is connected harmony in general, and not confined to any specific consonance. Concentio and concentus are both used by Cicero for the union of voices or instruments, in what we should now call a chorus or concert. There is a striking resemblance to a passage from Cicero's Second Book de Republicâ, quoted by St. Augustin: - Sic ex summis et mediis et infimis interjectis ordinibus, ut sonis, moderatam ratione civitatem,

Congruing in a full and natural close,
Like musick.

Cant.

True: therefore doth heaven divide

The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for so work the honey bees;
Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach
The act 21 of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts 22:
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor:
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys

The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil 23 citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanick porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to éxecutors 24 pale

The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,—

consensu dissimillimorum concinere; et quæ harmonia a musicis dicitur in cantu, eam esse in civitate concordia.'—De Republicâ, 1. ii.

21 The act of order' is the statute or law of order; as appears from the reading of the quarto. Creatures that by awe ordain an act of order to a peopled kingdom.'

22 i. e. of different degrees: if it be not an error of the press for sort, i. e. rank.

grave.

23 The civil citizens kneading up the honey.' Civil is See Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 4. Johnson observes, to knead the honey is not physically true. The bees do, in fact, knead the wax more than the honey.

24 Executors' for executioners. Thus also Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 38, ed. 1632:- Tremble at an executor, and yet not feare hell-fire.'