And breathe fhort-winded accents of new broils
To be commenc'd in ftronds afar remote.

• No more the thirsty entrance of this foil

3 Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe fort-winded accents]

Shall

That is, let us foften peace to rest a while without disturbance, that he may recover breath to propofe new wars. JOHNSON.

4 No more the thirfly entrance of this foil

Shall damp her lips with her own childrens' blood ;]

This nonfenfe fhould be read: Shall trempe, i. e. moisten, and refers to thirsty in the preceding line: trempe, from the French, tremper, properly fignifies the moiftnefs made by rain.

WARBURTON.

That these lines are abfurd is foon difcovered, but how this nonfenfe will be made fenfe is not fo eafily told; furely not by reading trempe, for what means he, that fays, the thirfly entrance of this foil fhall no more trempe her lips with her childrens' blood, more than he that fays it shall not damp her lips? To suppose the entrance of the foil to mean the entrance of a king upon dominion, and king Henry to predict that kings shall enter hereafter without bloodfhed, is to give words fuch a latitude of meaning, that no nonsense can want a congruous interpretation.

The ancient copies neither have trempe nor damp: the first quarto of 1599, that of 1622, the folio of 1623, and the quarto of 16.9, all read:

No more the thirty entrance of this foil

Shall daube her lips with her own childrens' blood.

The folios of 1632 and 1664 read, by an apparent error of the prefs, all damb her lips, from which the later editors have idly adopted damp. The old reading helps the editor no better than the new, nor can I fatisfactorily reform the paffage. I think that thirfly entrance must be wrong, yet know not what to offer. We may read, but not very elegantly:

No more the thirfly entrails of this foil

Shall daubed be with her own childrens' blood.

The relative her is inaccurately used in both readings; but to regard fenfe more than grammar, is familiar to our author.

We may fuppofe a verfe or two loft between these two lines. This is a cheap way of palliating an editor's inability; but I believe fuch omiffions are more frequent in Shakespeare than is commonly imagined. JOHNSON.

Perhaps the following conjecture may be thought very far fetch'd, and yet I am willing to venture it, because it often hapthat a wrong reading has affinity to the right. I would read: -the thirty entrants of this foil;

pens

í. c.

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 clofe 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. e. those who set foot on this kingdom through the thirst of power or conquest.

ge

Whoever is accustomed to the old copies of this author, will nerally find the words confequents, occurrents, ingredients, fpelt confequence, occurrence, ingredience; and thus, perhaps, the French word entrants, anglicized by Shakespeare, 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 thirty entrance of the foil, for the porous furface of the earth, through which all moisture STEEVENS. up. enters, and is thirftily drank, or soaked

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 those meteors to which they are compared; namely, long ftreaks 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 Jofes 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

prin.

(Whose foldier now, under whofe bleffed cross
We are impreffed and engag'd to fight)
Forthwith a power of English fhall we levy7;
Whofe arms were moulded in their mothers' wombs
To chase these pagans, in thofe holy fields,
Over whofe acres walk'd those bleffed feet,
Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nail'd,
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.
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.

Weft. My liege, this hafte was hot in question,
? And many limits of the charge set down
But yefternight: when, all athwart, there came
A poft from Wales, loaden with heavy news;
Whose worst 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 Welfhman taken,
And a thoufand 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 fuc cefs. JOHNSON.

7hall 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. 9 And many limits-] Limits for estimates. WARBURTON. Limits, as the author of the Revifal obferves, may mean, outlines, rough sketches or calculations. STEEVENS.

8

Such

Such beaftly, fhameless transformation,
By thofe Welshwomen 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 bufinefs 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 Hotspur 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 shape 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 horse, 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;

By thofe Welfwomen done, Thus Holinfhed, p. 528: fuch fhameful 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 refted, if there were anie fervice to be done abroad.", TOLLET.

2 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. encrusted 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 impasted &c."

Again, in Heywood's Iron Age:

66

bak'd in blood and duft."

as bak'd in blood." STEEVENS.

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 thousand 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 presents 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. V. 2428. Warton.

Balk'd in their own blood, I believe, means, lay in heaps or hillocks, in their own blood. Blithe's England's Improvement, p. 118. obferves: "The mole raiseth balks in meads and pastures." 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 fame thought:

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

TOLLET,

Mor