Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;
No more fhall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs
Of hoftile paces: thofe 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 close 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 mafter. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the fepulchre of Chrift,

(Whofe

i. c. those who set 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 Shakefpeare, might have been corrupted into entrance, which affords no very apparent meaning.

By her lips Shakespeare may mean the lips of peace, who is mentioned in the fecond line; or may use the thirsty entrance of the foil, for the porous furface of the earth, through which all moisture enters, and is thirftily drank, or foaked up. STEEVENS.

5

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 streaks of red, which represent 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 likeness of the comparison. WARBURTON.

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

As far as to the fepulchre &c.] The lawfulness and justice of the holy wars have been much difputed; but perhaps there is a

(Whofe foldier now, under whofe bleffed crofs
We are impreffed and engag'd to fight)
Forthwith a power of English fhall we levy7;
Whose arms were moulded in their mothers' wombs
To chase 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 crofs.

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 Weftmoreland,
What yefternight our council did decree,
In forwarding this dear expedience.

8

Weft. My liege, this hafte was hot in question,
9 And many limits of the charge fet down
But yefternight: when, all athwart, there came
A poft from Wales, loaden with heavy news;
Whose worft 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 corps there was such misuse,

principle on which the question 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 laws 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 fhall promise them fuccefs. JOHNSON.

7 Shall we levy;] To levy a power of English as far as to the fepulchre of Chrift, is an expreffion quite unexampled, if not corrupt. We might propofe lead, without violence to the fenfe, or too wide a deviation from the traces of the letters. STEEVENS. this dear expedience.] For expedition. WARBUrton, And many limits-] Limits for estimates. WARBURTON. Limits, as the author of the Revifal obferves, may mean, lines, rough sketches or calculations, STEEVENS.

8

out

Such

Such beaftly, fhameless transformation,
By thofe Welfhwomen 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 business for the Holy land.

Weft. This, match'd with other, 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 Hotfpur there,
Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,
That ever-valiant and approved Scot,

At Holmedon met,

Where they did fpend a fad and bloody hour;
As by discharge of their artillery,

And fhape 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 horfe,
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 difcomfited;

3

By thofe Welfwomen done,] Thus Holinfhed, p. 528 : fuch flameful villanie executed upon the carcaffes of the dead men by the Welch-women; as the like (I doo believe) hath never or fildome been practifed." p. 528. STEEVENS.

2

the gallant Hotspur there,
-}

Young Harry Percy,Holinfhed's Hift. of Scotland, p. 249, fays: "This Harry Percy was furnamed, for his often pricking, Henry Hotfpur, as one that feldom times rested, if there were anie fervice to be done abroad." TOLLET.

3 Archibald,] Archibald Douglas, earl Douglas.

STEEVENS.

Ten

Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights, 4 Balk'd in their own blood, did fir Walter fee On Holmedon's plains: Of prifoners, Hotspur took

+ Balk'd in their own blood,] I fhould fuppofe, that the author might have written either bath'd, or bak'd, i. e. encrufted over with blood dried upon them. A paffage in Heywood's Iron Age, 1632, may countenance the latter of these conjectures : "Troilus lies embak'd

"In his cold blood.".

Again, in Hamlet:

66

horridly trick'd

"With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, fons,
"Bak'd and impafted &c."

Again, in Heywood's Iron Age:

bak'd in blood and duft."

Balk'd—] Balk is a ridge; and particularly, a ridge of land: here is therefore a metaphor; and perhaps the poet means, in his bold and careless manner of expreffion :

"Ten thoufand bloody carcaffes piled up together in a long heap." "A ridge of dead bodies piled up in blood." If this be the meaning of balked, for the greater exactness of construction, we might add to the pointing, viz.

Balk'd, in their own blood, &c.

"Piled up into a ridge, and in their own blood, &c." But without this punctuation, as at prefent, the context is more poetical, and prefents a stronger image. I once conjectured:

Bak'd in their own blood..

Of which the fenfe is obvious. But I prefer the common reading. A balk, in the fense here mentioned, is a common expreffion in Warwickshire, and the northern counties. It is used in the fame fignification in Chaucer's Plowman's Tale, p. 182. edit. Urr. Y. 2428. WARTON.

Balk'd in their own blood, I believe, means, lay in heaps or billocks, in their own blood. Blithe's England's Improvement, p. 118. obferves: "The mole raifeth balks in meads and paftures." In Leland's Itinerary, vol. V. p. 16. and 118. vol. VII. p. 10. a balk fignifies a bank or hill. Mr. Pope, in the Iliad, has the same thought:

On heaps the Greeks, on heaps the Trojans bled, "And thick'ning round them rife the bills of dead."

TOLLET.

Mor

Mordake the earl of Fife, and eldest fon
To beaten Douglas; and the earls

Of Athol, Murray, Angus, and Menteith".
And is not this an honourable spoil?

A gallant prize? ha, coufin, is it not?

Weft. 'Faith, 'tis a conqueft for a prince to boast of. K. Henry. Yea, there thou mak'ft me fad, and mak'ft me fin

In envy

that my lord Northumberland

Should be the father of fo bleft a fon :

A fon, who is the theme of honour's tongue;
Amongst a grove, the very ftraiteft plant;
Who is sweet fortune's minion, and her pride:
Whilft I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and difhonour stain the brow

Of my young Harry. O, that it could be prov'd,
That fome night-tripping fairy had exchang'd
In cradle-cloths our children where they lay,
And call'd mine-Percy, his-Plantagenet!
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.
But let him from my thoughts :-What think you,
coz',

5 Mordake the earl of Fife, and eldeft fon

To beaten Douglas ;·

-]

Mordake earl of Fife, who was fon to the duke of Albany, regent of Scotland, is here called the son of earl Douglas, through a mistake into which the poet was led by the omiffion of a comma in the paffage of Holinfhed from whence he took this account of the Scottish prisoners. It stands thus in the historian: "—and of prifoners, Mordacke earle of Fife, fon to the gouvernour Archembald earle Dowglas, &c." The want of a comma after gouvernour, makes these words appear to be the description of one and the fame perfon, and fo the poet understood them; but by putting the stop in the proper place, it will then be manifest that in this lift Mordake, who was fon to the governour of Scotland, was the first pri foner, and that Archibald earl of Douglas was the fecond, and fo on. STEEVENS.

6

and Menteith.] This is a mistake of Holinfhed in his English Hiftory, for in that of Scotland, p. 259, 262, and 419, he fpeaks of the earl of Fife and Menteith as one and the fame perfon, STEEVENS,

VOL. V.

S

Of