Doth rise, and help Hyperion 19 to his horse;
And follows so the ever-running year
With profitable labour, to his grave:

And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep,
Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
The slave, a member of the country's peace,
Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots,

What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,
Whose hours the peasant best advantages 20.

Enter ERPINGHAM.

Erp. My lord, your nobles, jealous of your ab

sence,

Seek through your camp to find you.

K. Hen. Good old knight, Collect them all together at my tent: I'll be before thee.

Erp.

I shall do't, my lord. [Exit. K. Hen. O God of battles! steel my soldiers'

hearts!

Possess them not with fear: take from them now

What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,

Whose hours the peasant best advantages.'

21

He little knows at the expense of how much royal vigilance that peace, which brings most advantage to the peasant, is maintained. To advantage is a verb used by Shakspeare in other places. It was formerly in general use.

216

take from them now

The sense of reckoning of the opposed numbers:
Pluck their hearts from them not to-day, O Lord!

O not to-day! Think not upon,' &c.

The folio points the last two lines thus:

Pluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord!
O not to-day, think not upon,' &c.

Theobald proposed lest the opposed numbers.' And Mr. Tyrwhitt, if the opposed numbers:' which last reading has been

The sense of reckoning of 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!
I Richard's body have interred new;
And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears,
Than from it issued forced drops of blood.
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
Two chantries 22, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do:
Though all that I can do, is nothing worth;
Since that my penitence comes after all,
Imploring pardon.

Enter GLOSTER.

Glo. My liege!

K. Hen. My brother Gloster's voice?-Ay; I know thy errand, I will go with thee:

The day, my friends, and all things stay for me.

[Exeunt.

adopted by Malone, and accompanied with very wordy but unsatisfactory reasons. For the present arrangement of the text I am answerable. The quarto reads:

'Take from them now the sense of reckoning,

That the opposed multitudes which stand before them
May not appal their courage.'

The late editions exhibit the passage thus :—

22

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,' &c.

Two chantries.' One of these was for Carthusian monks, and was called Bethlehem; the other was for religious men and women of the order of Saint Bridget, and was named Sion. They were on opposite sides of the Thames, and adjoined the royal manor of Sheen, now called Richmond.

SCENE II. The French Camp.

Enter Dauphin, ORLEANS, RAMBURES, and Others.

Orl. The sun doth gild our armour; up, my lords. Dau. Montez à cheval:-My horse! valet! lacquay? ha!

Orl. O brave spirit!

Dau. Via1!-les eaux et la terre

Orl. Rien puis? l'air et le feu-
Dau. Ciel! cousin Orleans.-

Enter Constable.

Now, my lord Constable.

Con. Hark,how our steeds for present service neigh. Dau. Mount them, and make incision in their hides; That their hot blood may spin in English eyes, And doubt them with superfluous courage: Ha! Ram. What, will you have them weep our horses' blood?

How shall we then behold their natural tears?

Enter a Messenger.

Mess.The English are embattled, you French peers. Con. To horse, you gallant princes! straight to

horse!

1 Via, an exclamation of encouragement, on away; of Italian origin. See Merry Wives of Windsor, Act ii. Sc. 2. 2That their hot blood may spin in English eyes,

And doubt them with superfluous courage.'

This is the reading of the folio, which Malone has altered to dout, i. e. do out in provincial language. It appears to me that there is no reason for the substitution. To doubt, in former times, signified to redoubt, to awe, to fear, or make afraid; as well as to suspect or mistrust. Mr. Tyrwhitt suggested that the word might have such a meaning. The reader may satisfy himself by reference to Cotgrave's French Dictionary in v. Douter. Vide note on Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 4.

Do but behold yon poor and starved band,
And your fair show shall suck away their souls,
Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.
There is not work enough for all our hands;
Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins,
To give each naked curtle-ax a stain,

That our French gallants shall to-day draw out,
And sheath for lack of sport: let us but blow on them,
The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them.
'Tis positive 'gainst all exceptions, lords,
That our superfluous lackeys, and our peasants,
Who, in unnecessary action, swarm

4

What's to say?

About our squares of battle3, -were enough
To purge this field of such a hilding foe;
Though we, upon this mountain's basis by
Took stand for idle speculation:
But that our honours must not.
A very little little let us do,
And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound
The tucket-sonuance 5, and the note to mount:
For our approach shall so much dare the field,
That England shall couch down in fear, and yield.

3 About our squares of battle.' Thus in Antony and Cleopatra:

4A hilding foe' is a paltry, cowardly, base foe. Thus in All's Well that Ends Well, the French lords call Bertram 'a hilding.'

5 The tucket sonuance,' &c. He uses the terms of the field as if they were going out only to chase for sport. To dare the field is a phrase in falconry. Birds are dared when by the falcon in the air they are terrified from rising so as to be taken by hand. Such an easy capture the lords expected to make of the English. The tucket-sonuance was a flourish on the trumpet as a signal to prepare to march. The phrase is derived from the Italian toccata, a prelude or flourish, and suonanza, a sound, a resounding. Thus in the Devil's Law Case, 1623, two tuckets by two several trumpets.

Enter GRANDPRE.

Grand. Why do you stay so long, my lords of
France?

Yon island carrions 6, desperate of their bones,
Ill-favour'dly become the morning field:
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
And our air shakes them passing scornfully.
Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host,
And faintly through a rusty-beaver peeps.
Their horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks,
With torch-staves in their hand: and their poor jades
Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips;
The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes;
And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal 9 bit
Lies foul with chew'd grass, still and motionless;
And their executors, the knavish crows,

6 Yon island carrions.' The description of the English is founded on Holinshed's melancholy account, speaking of the march from Harfleur to Agincourt:- The Englishmen were brought into great misery in this journey; their victual was in a manner all spent, and now could they get none:-rest none could they take, for their enemies were ever at hand to give them allarmes daily it rained, and nightly it freezed; of fewel there was great scarcity, but of fluxes great plenty; money they had enough, but wares to bestow it upon, for their releife or comforte, had they little or none.'

7 Their ragged curtains are their colours.

8

Their horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks,
With torch-staves in their hand,' &c.

Ancient candlesticks were often in the form of human figures holding the socket, for the lights, in their extended hands. They are mentioned in Vittoria Corombana, 1612: He showed like a pewter candlestick, fashioned like a man in armour, holding a tilting staff in his hand little bigger than a candle.' One of these candlesticks, representing a man in armour, is in the possession of my friend Mr. Douce. A wood cut of it is in the variorum edition of Shakspeare.

9 The gimmal bit was probably a bit in which two parts or links were united, as in the gimmal ring, so called because they were double linked, from gemellus, Lat.