you ought to use me, look you; being as goot a man as yourself, both in the disciplines of wars, and in the derivation of my birth, and in other particularities.

Mac. I do not know you so good a man as myself: so Chrish save me, I will cut off your head.

Gow. Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other. Jamy. Au! that's a foul fault. [A Parley sounded.

Gow. The town sounds a parley.

Flu. Captain Macmorris, when there is more better opportunity to be required, look you, I will be so bold as to tell you, I know the disciplines of war; and there is an end.

SCENE III.

The same. Before the Gates of Harfleur.

[Exeunt.

The Governour and some Citizens on the Walls; the Eng-
lish Forces below. Enter King HENRY, and his Train.
K. Hen. How yet resolves the governour of the town?
This is the latest parle we will admit:

Therefore, to our best mercy give yourselves;

Or, like to men proud of destruction,

Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,"

(A name, that, in my thoughts, becomes me best,), If I begin the battery once again,

I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur,

Till in her ashes she lie buried.

The gates of mercy shall be all shut up;

there is an end.] It were to be wished, that the poor merriment of this dialogue had not been purchased with so much profaneness. Johnson.

5 Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,] The three words in Roman, are, I suppose, an interpolation. They have little value, and spoil the metre. Steevens.

6 The gates of mercy shall be all shut up;] Mr. Gray has borrowed this thought in his inimitable Elegy:

"And shut the gates of mercy on mankind." Steevens. We again meet with this significant expression in King Henry VI, Part III:

"Open thy gate of mercy, gracious Lord!"

Sir Francis Bacon uses the same expression in a letter to King James, written a few days after the death of Shakspeare: " And VOL. IX.

ла

And the flesh'd soldier,-rough and hard of heart,-
In liberty of bloody hand, shall range

With conscience wide as hell; mowing like grass
Your fresh-fair virgins, and your flowering infants.
What is it then to me, if impious war,-

Array'd in flames, like to the prince of fiends,-
Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
Enlink'd to waste and desolation?7

What is 't to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
Of hot and forcing violation?

What rein can hold licentious wickedness,
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil,
As send precépts to the Leviathan

To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town, and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds

9

Of deadly murder, spoil, and villainy.
If not, why, in a moment, look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand

Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;1

therefore, in conclusion, we wished him [the earl of Somerset] not to shut the gate of your majesties mercy against himself, by being obdurate any longer." Malone.

7- fell feats

Enlink'd to waste and desolation?] All the savage practices naturally concomitant to the sack of cities. Johnson.

8 Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace

O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds-] This is a very harsh metaphor. To overblow is to drive away or to keep off. Johnson. 9 of deadly murder,] The folio has headly. The passage is not in the quarto. The emendation was made by the editor of the second folio. Malone.

Perhaps we should read,-heady murder. So, in King Henry IV, P. I:

"And all the currents of a heady fight." 1 Defile the locks &c.] The folio reads:

Desire the locks &c. Steevens.

The emendation is Mr. Pope's. Malone.

Steevens.

Your fathers taken by the silver beards,

And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls;
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes;

Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confus'd
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid?
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?

Gov. Our expectation hath this day an end:
The Dauphin, whom of succour we entreated,2
Returns us-that his powers are not yet ready
To raise so great a siege. Therefore, dread king,
We yield our town, and lives, to thy soft mercy:
Enter our gates; dispose of us, and ours;
For we no longer are defensible.

K. Hen. Open your gates.-Come, uncle Exeter,
Go you and enter Harfleur: there remain,
And fortify it strongly 'gainst the French:
Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle,-
The winter coming on, and sickness growing
Upon our soldiers, we 'll retire to Calais.
To-night in Harfleur will we be your guest;
To-morrow for the march are we addrest.3

[Flourish. The King, &c. enter the Town.

SCENE IV.4

Rouen. A Room in the Palace.

Enter KATHARINE and ALICE.

Kath. Alice, tu às esté5 en Angleterre, et tu parles bien te language.

2

•whom of succour we entreated,] Many instances of similar phraseology are already given in a note on the following passage in A Midsummer Night's Dream: " shall desire you of more acquaintance." See Act III, sc. i. Steevens.

3 are we addrest.] i. e. prepared. So, in Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613:

66 clamours from afar,

"Tell us these champions are addrest for war."

Steevens.

4 Scene IV.] I have left this ridiculous scene as I found it; and am sorry to have no colour left, from any of the editions, to imagine it interpolated. Warburton.

Sir T. Hanmer has rejected it. The scene is indeed mean

Alice. Un peu madame.

enough, when it is read; but the grimaces of two French women and the old accent with which they uttered the English, made it divert upon the stage. It may be observed, that there is in it not only the French language, but the French spirit. Alice compliments the princess upon her knowledge of four words, and tells her that she pronounces like the English themselves. The princess suspects no deficiency in her instructress, nor the instructress in herself. Throughout the whole scene there may be found French servility, and French vanity.

I cannot forbear to transcribe the first sentence of this dialogue from the edition of 1608, that the reader, who has not looked into the old copies, may judge of the strange negligence with which they are printed.

"Kate. Alice venecia, vous aves cates en, vou parte fort bon Angloys englatara, coman sae palla vou la main en francoy." Johnson. We may observe, in general, that the early editions have not half the quantity; and every sentence, or rather every word, most ridiculously blundered. These, for several reasons, could not possibly be published by the author; and it is extremely probable that the French ribaldry was at first inserted by a different hand, as the many additions most certainly were after he had left the stage. Indeed, every friend to his memory will not easily believe, that he was acquainted with the scene between Katharine and the old Gentlewoman: or surely he would not have admitted such obscenity and nonsense. Farmer.

It is very certain, that authors, in the time of Shakspeare, did not correct the press for themselves. I hardly ever saw, in one of the old plays, a sentence of either Latin, Italian, or French, without the most ridiculous blunders. In The History of Clyomon, Knight of the Golden Shield, 1599, a tragedy which I have often quoted, a warrior asks a lady, disguised like a page, what her name is. She answers, "Cur Daceer," i. e. Cœur d'Acier, Heart of Steel. Steevens.

5 Kath. Alice, tu as esté —] I have regulated several speeches in this French scene; some whereof are given to Alice, and yet evidently belonged to Katharine; and so vice versa. It is not material to distinguish the particular transpositions I have made. Mr. Gildon has left no bad remark, I think, with regard to our poet's conduct in the character of this princess: "For why he should not allow her," says h "to speak in English as well as all the other French, I cannot imagine; since it adds no beauty, but gives a patched and pye-bald dialogue of no beauty or force." Theobald.

In the collection of Chester Whitsun Mysteries, among the Harleian MSS. No. 1013, I find French speeches introduced. In the Vintner's Play, p. 65, the three kings, who come to worship our infant Saviour, address themselves to Herod in that language, and Herod very politely answers them in the same. At first, I supposed the author to have appropriated a foreign tongue to

Kath. Je te prie, m'enseignez; il faut que j'apprenne à parler. Comment appellez vous la main, en Anglois? Alice. La main? elle est appellée, de hand.

Kath. De hand. Et les doigts?

6

Alice. Les doigts? may foy, je oublie les doigts; mais je me souviendray. Les doigts? je pense, qu'ils sont appellé de fingres; ouy, de fingres.

Kath. La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense, que je suis le bon escolier. J'ay gagné deux mots d'Anglois vistement. Comment appellez vous les ongles?

Alice. Les ongles? les appellons, de nails.

Kath. De nails. Escoutez; dites moy, si je parle bien: de hand, de fingres, de nails.

Alice. C'est bien dit, madame; il est fort bon Anglois. Kath. Dites moy en Anglois, le bras.

Alice. De arm, madame.

Kath. Et le coude.

Alice. De elbow.

Kath. De elbow. Je m'en faitz la repetition de tous les mots, que vous m'avez appris dès a present.

Alice. Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.

Kath. Excusez moy, Alice; escoutez: De hand, de fingre, de nails, de arm, de bilbow.

Alice. De elbow, madame.

Kath. O Seigneur Dieu! je m'en oublie; De elbow. . Comment appellez vous le col?

Alice. De neck, madame.

Kath. De neck: Et le menton?

Alice. De chin.

Kath. De sin. Le col, de neck: le menton, de sin. Alice. Ouy. Sauf vostre honneur; en verité, vous prononces les mots aussi droict que les natifs d'Angleterre.

Kath. Je ne doute point d'apprendre par la grace de Dieu; et en peu de temps.

them, because they were strangers; but in the Skinner's Play, p. 144, I found Pilate talking French, when no such reason could be offered to justify a change of language. These mysteries are said to have been written in 1328. It is hardly necessary to mention that in this MS. the French is as much corrupted as in the passage quoted by Dr. Johnson from the quarto edition of King Henry V. Steevens.

6

may foy,] Thus the old copies; but I suspect we should read-ma foy. Steevens.