Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly ;7
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
That shall first spring, and be most delicate.
Dau. Well, 'tis not so, my lord high constable,
But though we think it so, it is no matter:
In cases of defence, 'tis best to weigh
The enemy more mighty than he seems,
So the proportions of defence are fill'd ;
Which, of a weak and niggardly projection,
Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat, with scanting
A little cloth.

Fr. King. Think we king Harry strong;

And, princes, look, you strongly arm to meet him.
'The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us;
And he is bred out of that bloody strain,
That haunted us in our familiar paths:
Witness our too much memorable shame,
When Cressy battle fatally was struck,

8

And all our princes captiv'd, by the hand

Of that black name, Edward black prince of Wales ; Whiles that his mountain sire, 9— -on mountain standing, Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun,

Saw his heroical seed, and smil'd to see him

[7] Shakspeare not having given us, in the First or Second part of Henry IV. or in any other place but this, the remotest hint of the circumstances here alluded to, the comparison must needs be a little obscure to those who do not know or reflect what some historians have told us, that Henry IV. had entertained a deep jealousy of his son's aspiring superior genius. Therefore,to prevent all umbrage the prince withdrew from public affairs, and amused himself with consorting with a dissolute crew of robbers. It seems to me, that Shakspeare was ignorant of this circumstance when he wrote the two parts of Henry IV. for it might have been so managed as to have given new beauties to the character of Hal, and great improvements to the plot. And with regard to these matters, Shakspeare generally tells us all he knew, and as soon as he knew it. WARB. Thomas Otterbourne, and the translator of Titus Livius, indeed, says, that Henry the Fourth, in his latter days, was jealous of his son, and apprehended that he would attempt to depose him; to remove which suspicion, the prince is said (from the relation of an earl of Ormond, who was an eye witness of the fact,) to have gone with a great party of his friends to his father, in the twelfth year of his reign, and to have presented him with a dagger, which he desired the king to plunge into his breast, if he still entertained any doubts of his loyalty: but, I be lieve it is no where said, that he threw himself into the company of dissolute perons to avoid giving umbrage to his father, or betook himself to irregular courses with a political view of quieting his suspicions. MAL. [8] To haunt is a word of the utmost horror, which shows that they dreaded the English as goblins and spirits. JOHNS.

[9] Mr. Theobald would read-miunting; that is, high minded, aspiring. The emendation may be right, and yet I believe the poet meant to give an idea of more than human proportion in the figure of the king:

Quantus Athos, aut quantus Eryx, &c. Virg
"Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremov'd." Milton.

STEEV.

Mangle the work of nature, and deface

The patterns that by God, and by French fathers
Had twenty years been made. This is a stem
Of that victorious stock; and let us fear
The native mightiness and fate of him.'

Enter a Messenger.

Mes. Ambassadors from Henry king of England Do crave admittance to your majesty.

Fr. King. We'll give them present audience.

Go,

and bring them. [Ex. Mess. and certain lords.

-You see, this chace is hotly follow'd, friends.

Dau. Turn head, and stop pursuit: for coward dogs Most spend their mouths, 2 when what they seem to threaten

Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,

Take up the English short; and let them know,

Of what a monarchy you are the head:

Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin,

As self-neglecting.

Re-enter Lords, with EXETER and train." Fr.King. From our brother England ?

Exe. From him; and thus he greets your majesty.

He wills you, in the name of God Almighty,

That you divest yourself, and lay apart

The borrow'd glories, that, by gift of heaven,

By law of nature, and of nations, 'long

To him, and to his heirs ; namely, the crown,
And all wide-stretched honours that pertain,
By custom and the ordinance of times,

Unto the crown of France. That you may know,
'Tis no sinister, nor no aukward claim,
Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,
Nor from the dust of old oblivion rak'd,
He sends you this most memorable line, 3
In every branch truly demonstrative;

[Gives a paper.

Willing you, overlook this pedigree:
And, when you find him evenly deriv'd
From his most fam'd of famous ancestors,
Edward the third, he bids you then resign

[1] His fate is what is allotted him by destiny, or what he is fated to perform. So Virgil, speaking of the future deeds of the descendants of Æneas: "Attollens humeris famamque et fata nepotum. STEEV.

[2] That is, bark; the sportsman's term. JOHNS.
[3] This genealogy; this deduction of his lineage. JOHNS.

Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
From him the native and true challenger.
Fr.King. Or else what follows?

Exe. Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown.
Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it:
And therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder, and in earthquake, like a Jove ;
(That, if requiring fail, he will compel ;)
And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
Deliver up the crown; and to take mercy
On the poor souls, for whom this hungry war
Opens his vasty jaws and on your head
Turns he the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,
The dead men's blood, the pining maidens' groans,
For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers,
That shall be swallow'd in this controversy.
This is his claim, his threat'ning, and my message;
Unless the dauphin be in presence here,

To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

Fr. King. For us, we will consider of this further; To-morrow shall you bear our full intent Back to our brother England.

Dau. For the dauphin,

I stand here for him: What to him from England? Exe. Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt, And any thing that may not misbecome

The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.

Thus says my king and, if your father's highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large,

Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,
He'll call you to so hot an answer for it,
That caves and womby vaultages of France

Shall chide your trespass, 4 and return your mock
In second accent of his ordnance.

Dau. Say, if my father render fair reply,

It is against my will: for I desire

Nothing but odds with England; to that end,.

As matching to his youth and vanity,

I did present him with those Paris balls.

Exe. He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it, Were it the mistress court of mighty Europe :

And, be assur'd, you'll find a difference,
(As we, his subjects, have in wonder found,)
Between the promise of his greener days,

[4] To chide is to resound, to echo.

STEEV.

And these he masters now; now he weighs time,
Even to the utmost grain; which you shall read
In your own losses, if he stay in France.

Fr. King. To-morrow shall you know our mind at full. Exe. Despatch us with all speed, lest that our king Come here himself to question our delay;

For he is footed in this land already.

Fr.King. You shall be soon despatch'd, with fair conditions:

A night is but small breath, and little pause,
To answer matters of this consequence.

ACT III.

Enter CHORUS.

[Exeunt.

Chor. THUS with imagin'd wing our swift scene flies, In motion of no less celerity

Than that of thought. Suppose, that you have seen
The well-appointed king at Hampton-pier
Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet

With silken streamers the young Phœbus fanning..
Play with your fancies; and in them behold,
Upon the hempen tackle, ship-boys climbing:
Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give
To sounds confus'd: behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,
Breasting the lofty surge: O, do but think,
You stand upon the rivage, and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical,

Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!
Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy ;9
And leave your England, as dead midnight, still,
Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women,
Either past, or not arriv'd to, pith and puissance :
For who is he, whose chin is but enrich'd
With one appearing hair, that will not follow
These cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
Work, work, your thoughts, and therein see a siege ;

[5] Rivage-the bank or shore.

JOHNS.

[6] The stern being the hinder part of the ship, the meaning is let your minds follow close after the navy. Stern, however, seems to have been anciently synonymous to rudder..

Behold the ordnance on their carriages,

With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.

Suppose, the ambassador from the French comes back;
Tells Harry-that the king doth offer him

Katharine his daughter; and with her, to dowry,
Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.

The offer likes not and the nimble gunner

With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,
[Alarum, and chambers go off."
And down goes all before them. Still be kind,
And eke out our performance with your mind.

SCENE I.

The same. Before Harfleur. Alarums.

[Exit.

Enter King HENRY,

EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOSTER, and Soldiers, with scaling ladders.

K.Henry. Once more unto the breach, dear friends,

once more ;

Or close the wall up with our English dead!

In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man,
As modest stillness, and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage:
Then lend the eye a terrible aspéct :
Let it pry through the portage of the head, '
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it,
As fearfully, as doth a galled rock

O'erhand, and jutty, his confounded base, 3
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height !—On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war proof!
Fathers, that, like so many Alexanders,

[8] The staff to which the match is fixed when ordnance is fired. JOHN. 19] Chambers-small pieces of ordnance. STEEV.

[1] Portage-open space, from port,a gate. Let the eye appear in the head as cannon through the battlement, or embrasures, of a fortification. JOHN. [2] The force of the word jutty, when applied to a rock projecting into the sea, is not felt by those who are unaware that this word anciently signified a mole raised to withstand the encroachment of the tide. WHITE. Futty-heads,in sea-langu ge,are platforms standing on piles,near the docks, and projecting without the wharves, for the more convenient docking and andocking ships. STEEV.

[3] His worn or wasted base. [4] A metaphor from the bow. JOHNS.