P. Hen. Then, brother John of Lancaster, to you This honourable bounty shall belong. Go to the Douglas, and deliver him Up to his pleasure, ransomless, and free: His valour, shown upon our crests to-day, Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds, Even in the bosom of our adversaries.

P. John. I thank your grace for this high cour tesy,

Which I shall give away immediately.

K. Hen. Then this remains, that we divide our power.

You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland, Towards York shall bend you, with your dearest speed,

To meet Northumberland, and the prelate Scroop,
Who, as we hear, are busily in arms:
Myself, and you, son Harry, will towards Wales,
To fight with Glendower and the earl of March.
Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway,
Meeting the check of such another day:
And since this business so fair is done,
Let us not leave till all our own be won. [Exeunt.

ACT I.-SCENE I.

"No more the thirsty ENTRANCE of this soil," etc. "When Shakespeare wrote this line, he had (Malone suggests) a personification of England in his mind. By thirsty entrance' he meant thirsty mouth, and forgetting that he had given no more of the personification than the allusion to the mouth, he added the next line

Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood. This seems the natural explanation of a passage that has excited much dispute. Stevens first recommended entrants, and subsequently adopted a conjecture by M. Mason, that it was a misprint for Erinnys, than which few things could be more unlikely. Coleridge thought Theobald's interpretation right, that 'thirsty entrance' meant the dry penetrability of the soil; and he added, the obscurity of this passage is of the Shakespearean sort.'"-COLLIER.

"In the Variorum editions of Shakespeare, except Malone's, of 1821, we have this correction of the text:No more the thirsty Erinnys of this soil. 'Erinnys,' according to Monck Mason, is the Fury of Discord. He gives examples of the use of the name from Virgil, Lucan, and Statius. But such a change is beside the proper duty of an editor, whose business is not to attempt the improvement of his author, but to explain what he has written. Entrance' could not be a misprint for Erinnys; the words could not be confounded by a transcriber;-nor could the ear mistake the one for the other. The first conjecture of Stevens, that the word was entrants, came within the proper line of editorial emendation;-the suggestion of Douce, (entrails,) is not far beyond it. But why is the original text to be disturbed at all?

No more the thirsty entrance of this soil

Shall daub her lips with her own children's bloodis somewhat obscure; but the obscurity is perfectly in the manner of Shakespeare, and in great part arises from the boldness of the metaphor. Entrance' is put for mouth; and if we were to read, 'No more the thirsty mouth of this earth shall daub her lips with the blood of her own children,' we should find little more difficulty than with the passage in Genesis,' which was probably in Shakespeare's mind when he wrote the

"Or, suppose the word surface stood in the place of entrance-for as the surface is the outward part so is the entrance-the difficulty is lessened. No more this soil shall daub her lips' is clear:-'No more the thirsty surface of this soil shall daub her lips,' is equally clear. The only difficulty, then, is in taking 'entrance' to mean surface. If we look at the whole passage as an impersonation of soil,' (earth, mother earth,) little remains to be explained or guessed at."-KNIGHT.

Thy brother's blood, the thirsty earth has drunkis a parallel passage of HENRY VI. (Part III.,) confirming this sense.

"-a power of English shall we LEVY"-Stevens says, "To levy a power as far as to the sepulchre of Christ,' is an expression quite unexampled, if not corrupt;" and he proposes to read lead. To this, Gifford ("Notes on Ben Jonson ") replies:-"The expression is neither unexampled nor corrupt, but good authorized English. One instance of it is before me:-Scipio, before he levied his forces to the walles of Carthage, gave his soldiers the print of the citie in a cake to be devoured.'-(GosSON's School of Abuse, 1587.")

"-forwarding this dear EXPEDIENCE"-i. e. Expedition. Shakespeare often uses "expedient" for expeditious; and, in ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, we have "expedience" in the same sense as above. Afterwards, in this play, (act i. scene 3,) we have expedition instead of "expedience."

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LIMITS of the charge"-To "limit" is to define; and therefore the "limits of the charge" may be the calculations, the estimates.

"BALK'D in their own blood"-Some commentators would read bak'd; but "balk'd," which means laid up in a ridge, or hillock, is correct; and all the old editions concur in so printing it. "Balk" is the old English of Chaucer, and still locally in use, for a ridge or range of hillocks, like that made by the plough.

"the prisoners,

Which he in this adventure hath surpriz'd,

To his own use he keeps," etc. "Percy had an exclusive right to these prisoners, except the Earl of Fife. By the law of arms, every man who had taken any captive, whose redemption did not exceed ten thousand crowns, had him clearly to himself to acquit or ransom at his pleasure. But Percy could not refuse the Earl of Fife to the king; for, being a prince of the royal blood, (son to the Duke of Albany, brother to King Robert III.,) Henry might justly claim him by his acknowledged military prerogative."STEVENS.

"-in all ASPECTS"-" Aspects" was generally accented, in the age of Elizabeth, as here, on the last syllable. The allusion is to the familiar false science of astrology. The uncle is spoken of as the star that shed its evil aspects on Hotspur's conduct.

"PRUNE himself"-The metaphor is borrowed from falconry. A hawk is said to "prune" herself when she picks off the loose feathers, and smooths the rest: it is applied to other birds, and is perhaps so familiar as hardly to require a note. It is thus found in Greene's "Metamorphosis," (1613:)—

Pride makes the fowl to prune his feathers so. Milton uses to plume in the same sense:

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings. "For more is to be said, and to be done, Than out of anger can be uttered." That is, It is out of anger, (in consequence of anger,) that I cannot now speak of much which should be said and done in this matter.

SCENE II.

"that wandering knight so fair"-These words seem to be a fragment of some popular ballad, or poem, founded on the romance of the Knight of the Sun, who, when Don Quixote disputed with the Curate which was the better knight, Palmerin of England or Amadis de Gaul, was maintained by master Nicolas, the barbersurgeon, to be that knight to whom "none ever came up." The adventures of the Knight of the Sun were translated into English, in 1585; and the renowned worthy is described not only as a wanderer," but as "most excellently fair." Falstaff's allusion would be understood by Shakespeare's audience; nor would they object to the sun being represented as a wanderer, according to the long-received theory which the discoveries of Copernik had scarcely then shaken. Douce thinks the allusion was to a spiritual romance, translated from the French, by the name of the " Wandering Knight;" and which may have suggested to Bunyan the idea of his "Pilgrim's Progress."

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- squires of the NIGHT's body"-i e. Let not us, who are body squires to the night, (i. e. adorn the night,) be called a disgrace to the day. To take away the beauty of the day may probably mean to disgrace it. A "squire of the body" originally signified the attendant of a knight. It became afterwards the cant term for a pimp. Falstaff puns on the words knight, "night," and beauty, (quasi booty.)

" — 'lay by' "—i. e. Stop, stand, be quiet: apparently known as the highwayman's phrase of the time.

"—"bring in'"-The call to the drawers for more

wine.

"As the honey of Hybla, my OLD lad of the CASTLE"These words have been the text for many pages of learned controversy. We are indebted to Mr. Singer for the following clear and brief summary of the question, as it stood twenty years ago:—

"This passage has been supposed to have a reference to the name of Sir John Oldcastle. Rowe says that there was a tradition that the part of Falstaff was origi

nally written by Shakespeare under that name. Fuller, in his Church History,' (book iv. page 168,) mentions this change in the following manner:-Stage poets have themselves been very bold with, and others very merry at, the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, whom they have fancied a boon companion, a jovial royster, and a coward to boot. The best is, Sir John Falstaff hath relieved the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, and of late is substituted buffoon in his place.' In confirmation of this, it may be remarked that one of Falstaff's speeches, in the first edition, has Old. instead of Falst. prefixed to it; and in the epilogue to the second part of KING HENRY IV. the Poet makes a kind of retractation for having made too free with Sir John Oldcastle's name Where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.' Add to this, that Nathaniel Field, in his Amends for Ladies,' (1618,) alludes to Falstaff's definition of honour, in the following words, which he attributes to Oldcastle:

It is

Field, who was a player, was hardly likely to have been mistaken, or to have confounded characters. true that in the old play of King Henry V.,' which had been exhibited before 1589, Sir John Oldcastle is a character, and fills the place of Falstaff as companion to the prince in his revels and his robberies. But as Shakespeare took the hint from the old play, why might he not take the name also? and change it when he found that he was injuring a worthy person; or at the instance of the queen, (as it has been said,) out of respect to the memory of Lord Cobham. Weaver describes Oldcastle, as Shakespeare does Falstaff, to have been the page of Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk; and Oldcastle is alluded to as the fat knight, in other old books. Against the weight of all this evidence Stevens and Malone have contended; but, as Reed justly observes, 'they have opposed conjecture and inference aloneconjecture very ingeniously suggested, and inference very subtilly extracted; but weighing nothing against what is equivalent to positive evidence.' The reader will find the whole voluminous controversy at the end of the first part of KING HENRY IV., in Boswell's edition."-SINGER.

But the controversy was not thus closed. Nares (Glossary) and Knight still maintain that “old lad of the castle" was a familiar appellation, perhaps (as Farmer thought) "lad of Castile," (Castilian;) but taken in a convivial sense, as we should now say old buck. Shakespeare's contemporary, Gabriel Harvey, has a passage which confirms this opinion, in which he speaks of "old lads of the castle with their rapping bable, roaring boys." The controversy has been recently renewed by Mr. Halliwell, in a curious and learned pamphlet, (London, 1841.) Mr. Collier thus sums up the latest conclusions of himself and his Shakespearian associates, on this obstinately contested question :

"The folio (1623) merely reads, As is the honey. my old lad of the castle.' The words 'old lad of the castle' are conjectured to be an allusion to the name of Oldcastle, by which Falstaff was originally known in this play there could otherwise be no joke in the expression. Mr. Halliwell, in his Essay on the Character of Sir John Falstaff,' goes far to establish the three following propositions:- 1. That the stage was in possession of a rude outline of Falstaff before Shakespeare wrote either part of HENRY IV., under the name of Sir John Oldcastle. 2. That the name of Oldcastle was retained for a time in Shakespeare's HENRY IV., but changed to Falstaff before the play was printed. 3. That in all probability some of the theatres, in acting HENRY IV., retained the name of Oldcastle, after the author had made the alteration.' Mr. Halliwell also maintains, that Shakespeare probably made the change before the year 1593.' I am disposed to fix the composition of HENRY IV. (Part I.) in 1596."

Mr. Hackett, whose minute study and perfect mastery of the character gives high authority to all his opinions on the subject, thinks that, in adopting this new name, Shakespeare intended to designate the moral and other peculiarities, etc., of the personage, in the same way as he named Shallow, Slender, Pistol, etc. In a manuscript note, he says "I regard the name as a compound index to the moral of his character. Falstaff depended upon his wit and humour to make and keep him friends with the Prince, etc.-a reliance which in the end proved to him a false staff indeed."

robe of durance"-The buff-jerkin, the coat of ox-skin, (bœuf,) was worn by sheriff's officers. It was a "robe of durance," an "everlasting garment," as in the COMEDY OF ERRORS;-but it was also a robe of "durance" in a sense that would not furnish an agreeable association to one who was always in debt and danger, as Falstaff' was.

"I am as melancholy as a GIB cat"-" Gib" and Tib were old English names for a male cat. We have Tybalt called "king of cats" in ROMEO AND JULIET. Tybert is the cat in "Reynard the Fox." Chaucer, in the "Romaunt of the Rose," gives "Gibbe" as the translation of "Thibert," the cat. The name appears to have been applied to an old male cat, whose gravity approaches to the character of melancholy.

"-a Lincolnshire bagpipe"-Lincolnshire bagpipes are often spoken of by old writers, and this phrase seems used proverbially, though the allusion has not been explained. Thus we find, in the "Three Lords and Three Ladies of London," (1590)-a play partaking of the character of a morality and a historical drama"the sweet ballad of the Lincolnshire bagpipes." Douce suggests that it means the dull, long croak of frogs, who are the native musicians of the marshy county of Lincoln

shire.

"What sayest thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moor-ditch"-The melancholy of a hare seems to have been proverbial; and Taylor, in his Penniless Pilgrimage," (1618,) speaks of "Moor-ditch melancholy," in reference to the filthy, stagnant condition of the water in it formerly. According to Stowe's "Survey," it "separated Bedlam Hospital from the fields," another reason for associating it with melancholy.

"Moor-ditch, a part of the ditch surrounding the city of London, between Bishopsgate and Cripplegate, was not only stinking, poisonous, muddy, black, as described by Thomas Decker, in 1606, but it was bounded by an unwholesome and impassable morass; so that the citizens, who had many beautiful suburban fields, regarded this quarter as amongst the melancholy places in which pestilence continually lurked, and which they naturally shunned."-KNIGHT.

thou hast damnable ITERATION"-i. e. Repetition; not recitation, as Malone thought. Falstaff does not complain only of Hal's quoting a scriptural text, but that he has been retorting and distorting the meaning of his words throughout the scene. For example, Falstaff talks of the sun and moon-the Prince retorts with the sea and moon. Falstaff uses hanging in one sensethe Prince in another:-so of judging; and so in the passage which at last provokes Falstaff's complaint-the speaking of the "old lord" talking wisely in the street, and the Prince rejoining by an allusion to an often-quoted scriptural expression::-"Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets.-I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded."—(Proverbs, chap. i., vers. 20 and 24.)

"if Gadshill have set a MATCH"--So every quarto edition. The folio has "set a watch," which was a very easy misprint; and it seems, by the quotation pointed ont by Farmer in "Ratsey's Ghost," (1606,) that "to set a match" was technical among thieves:-"I have been many times beholding to tapsters and chamberlains for directions and setting of matches." In addition, we have the phrase "setting a match," for making an

appointment, in Ben Jonson's" Bartholomew Fair." To "set a watch" would, therefore, seem to be directly contrary to what Shakespeare intended. See also what Gadshill says (in act ii. scene 1) to the chamberlain.

- Sir John SACK-AND-SUGAR"-"The favourite potation of Falstaff-'a good sherris-sack-which, with the genial knight, ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish, and dull, and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes,'-has had a different effect upon certain expounders of its virtues. The solemn disputations which the world has seen upon the nature of sherris-sack'-whether it was wet or dry-whether it was Sherry or Malaga-whether the name 'sack' was derived from sec, because it was dry, or from secco, because it was sold in a bag-why Falstaff drunk it with sugar, and why he eschewed lime in it-have wasted much learned ink; and, like many other controversies, the questions which have agitated the disputants seem to be left pretty much in their original obscurity. It may be sufficient to refer to Dr. Drake, (Shakespeare and his Times,' vol. ii. p. 130,) for the main argument, on one side, that sherris-sack' was not our Sherry, but was a sweet wine; and to Archdeacon Nares (Glossary, art. 'Sack') on the other hand, that sherris-sack' was undoubtedly the same wine which we now call Sherry-a wine of the dry or rough kind. There appears only one thing quite certain in the controversy-that the English, in the time of Elizabeth, were accustomed to put sugar in their wines; and this fact rests upon the authority of Paul Hentzner and Fynes Moryson."-KNIGHT.

Mr. Knight has not done justice to the erudite argument of the learned and acute archdeacon, who we think has settled the question, and shown the cause of the obscurity which hung over it. He proves, by the following (among other) authorities, "Falstaff's favourite beverage to have been the Spanish wine which we now call sherry. Falstaff expressly calls it sherris-sack— that is, sack from Xeres. 'Sherry sack; so called from Xeres, a sea-town of Corduba, in Spain, where that kind of sack is made.'-(BLOUNT'S Glossographia.) It may derive its name of sack from being a dry wine, (vin sec;) and was anciently written seck. Your best sacke (says Gervase Markham) are of Seres in Spaine.'(English Housewife.) The difficulty about it has arisen from the later importation of sweet wines from Malaga, the Canaries, etc., which were at first called Malaga or Canary sacks; sack being, by that time, considered as a name applicable to all white wines. I read in the reign of Henry VII. that no sweet wines were brought in to this reign but Malmsyes,' (says Howell, in his 'Londinopolis:') and soon after, Moreover no sacks were sold but Rumney, and that for medicine more than for drink, but now many kinds of sacks are known and used.' One of the sweet wines, still retaining the name of sack, has thrown an obscurity over the original dry sack; but if further proof were wanting, the following passage affords it abundantly:- But what I have spokeu of mixing sugar with sack, must be understood of Sherrie sack; for to mix sugar with other wines, that in a common appellation are called sack, and are sweeter in taste, makes it unpleasant to the pallat, and fulsome to the taste.'-(VENNER'S Via Recta ad Vitam longam, 1637.) Venner afterwards carefully distinguishes Canarie wine, of some termed a sacke,' with this adjunct 'sweete,' from the genuine sack; for it differeth (he adds) not only from sacke in sweetness, but also in colour and consistency.'

Ben Jonson, also, records in a manuscript memorandum, quoted by Nares, his receiving "a present of ten dozen of Palm sack;" and old Herrick, the jovial clerical poet of the next generation, chaunts the virtues of "Canary sack." These examples prove Nares's conclusion, that sack had become a general name for the stronger white wines, which were distinguished by the prefix of their several kinds-much as we now say Sicily Madeira, Marseilles Madeira, etc.

"-ALL-HALLOWN summer"-i. e. Summer in November, on the first of which month is the feast of AllHallows, or All-Saints-a phrase answering to our "Indian summer," and applied here, as that epithet might be metaphorically, to "an old man with youthful passions and habits."

"Falstaff, BARDOLPH, PETO, and Gadshill"—" In all the old copies, Harvey and Rossill are put for Bardolph and Peto: perhaps these were the names of the actors of the parts, though we do not meet with them in any list of the company. It is possible that Harvey and Rossill were names by which Peto and Bardolph were called in the play, as it originally stood, before Oldcastle was changed to Falstaff. At all events, the robbery was committed by Bardolph and Peto, and their names ought to be inserted in the text."-COLLIER.

"and, SIRRAH"-This word, here and in other passages, is used familiarly, and even sharply, but not contemptuously. It is supposed to have meant, originally, Sir, ha! which etymology agrees with Shakespeare's general application of the term.

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"for the NONCE"-Gifford's explanation of this phrase (which is also the interpretation of Lord Hailes) is the true one. For the nonce is simply for the oncefor the one thing in question, whatever it be. The progress of this expression is distinctly marked in our early writers-a ones,' an anes,' for the ones,' for the nanes,'' for the nones,' ' for the nonce.'"-(BEN JONSON's Works, vol. iii. p. 218.)

"-than my CONDITION"-" Condition" is used, by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, for nature, disposi tion, as well as estate or fortune. It is so interpreted by Philips, in his " World of Words."

"The moody FRONTIER of a servant brow." "Frontier" is said anciently to have meant forehead, to prove which, Stevens adduces this quotation, from Stubbes's "Anatomy of Abuses: "Then on the edges of their bolster'd hair, which standeth ousted round their frontiers, and hangeth over their brow." Nares observes, that this does not explain the passage: "The noody forehead of a servant brow" is not sense. Surely it may be better interpreted "the moody or threatening outwork;" in which sense frontier" is used, in act ii. scene 3:

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Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets.

My liege, I did deny no prisoners," etc. "The character of Hotspur is drawn with the boldest pencil. Nothing can be more free and vigorous than this remarkable portrait. Of the likeness we are as certain as when we look at the Charles V. of Titian, or the Lord Stafford of Vandyke. But it is too young, say the critics. The Poet, in the first scene, (say they.) ought not to have called him 'young Harry Percy,' for he was some thirty-five years old at the battle of Holmedon; and the wish of the king

that it could be prov'd
That some night-tripping fairy had exchang'd,
In cradle-clothes, our children where they lay,
And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet-

was a very absurd wish, and such a change was quite beyond the power of a 'night-tripping fairy;' for Percy was born about 1366, and Henry of Monmouth some twenty years later. Every thing in its place. We desire the utmost exactness in matters where exactness is required. Let History proper give us her dates to the very day and hour; but let Poetry be allowed to break the bands by which she would be earth-bound. When Shakespeare shows us the ambitious, irascible, self willed, sarcastic, but high-minded and noble Hotspur, and places in contrast with him the thoughtless, goodtempered, yielding, witty, but brave and chivalrous Henry, we have no desire to be constantly reminded that characters so alike in the energy of youth have been incorrectly approximated in their ages by the Poet. Fluellen had, no doubt, very correct notions as touching the direction of the military discipline;' but when he bestowed upon Captain Macmorris' a few disputations,' in the way (f argument and friendly com munication, when the town was besieged and the trum pet called to the breach, we think the captain was perfectly justified in telling the worthy Welshman that it was no time to discourse.'

"Sir Henry Percy received his soubriquet of Hotspur from the Scots, with whom he was engaged in perpetual forays and battles. The old ballad of the Battle of Otterbourne' tells us

He had byn a march-man all hys dayes,
And kepte Barwyke upon Twede.

He was first armed when the castle of Berwick was taken by the Scots', in 1378, when he was twelve years old; and from that time till the battle of Holmedon, his spur was never cold. Nothing can be more historically true than the prince's description of Hotspur- he that kills me some six or seven dozen Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, 'Fye upon this quiet life! I want work.' 'O my sweet Harry, (says she,) how many hast thou killed to-day?' 'Give my roan horse a drench,' (says he,) and answers, Some fourteen,' an hour after; a trifle, a trifle.' The abstraction of Hotspur-the 'some fourteen,-an hour after,'has been repeated by our Poet in the beautiful scene between Hotspur and his lady, in this act :

Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, And I must know it, else he loves me not. The servant has been called and dismissed; the lady has uttered her reproof; a battle has been fought in Hotspur's imagination, before he answers

Away,

Away, you trifler!-Love?—I love thee not. This little trait in Hotspur's character might be traditionary; and so might be the

speaking thick, which Nature made his blemish.

At any rate, these circumstances are singularly characteristic. So also is Hotspur's contempt of poetry, in opposition to Glendower, whose mind is essentially poetical. Such are the magical touches by which Shakespeare created the imperishable likenesses of his historical personages. He seized upon a general truth, and made it more striking and permanent by investing it with the ideal."-KNIGHT.

his chin, new reap'd,

Show'd like a stubble-land," etc.

In the varying changes of the fashion of the beard and chin, it may be necessary to explain to the reader, that the allusion is not to a close-shaved chin, which is as far as may be from the bristly appearance of a "stubbleland;" but to a cherished and cultivated beard, of the Poet's age, newly shorn and clipped, more closely than was the use of plain men, who suffered their beards to grow long, with rare recurrence to tonsorial art.

"A POUNCET-BOX"-i. e. "A small box (says Warburton) for musk, or other perfumes, then in fashion; the lid of which, being cut with open work, gave it its name-from poinsoner; to prick, pierce, or engrave. Various aromatic powders were thus used in snuff, long before tobacco was thus employed."