The Porter at the gate; Enter lord Bardolph.

Bard. Who keeps the gate here, ho?-Where is the earl?

Port. What fhall I fay you are?

Bard. Tell thou the earl,

That the lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

1 Second Part of Henry IV.] The tranfactions comprized in this history take up about nine years. The action commences with the account of Hotfpur's being defeated and killed; and closes with the death of king Henry IV. and the coronation of king Henry V. THEOBALD.

This play was enter'd at Stationers' Hall, August 23. 1600. STEEVENS.

Mr. Upton thinks these two plays improperly called The First and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth. The first play ends, he fays, with the peaceful fettlement of Henry in the kingdom by the defeat of the rebels. This is hardly true; for the rebels are not yet finally fuppreffed. The fecond, he tells us, fhews Henry the Fifth in the various lights of a good-natured rake, till, on his father's death, he affumes a more manly character. This is true; but this representation gives us no idea of a dramatic action. These two plays will appear to every reader, who fhall peruse them without ambition of critical difcoveries, to be fo connected, that the second is merely a fequel to the first; to be two only because they are too long to be one. JOHNSON.

Port.

Port. His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard; Please it your honour, knock but at the gate, And he himself will answer.

Enter Northumberland.

Bard. Here comes the earl.

North. What news, lord Bardolph ? every minute

now

Should be the father of some stratagem:

The times are wild; contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.

Bard. Noble earl,

I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.
North. Good, an heaven will!

Bard. As good as heart can wish :-
The king is almost wounded to the death;
And, in the fortune of my lord your fon,
Prince Harry flain outright; and both the Blunts
Kill'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince John,
And Weftmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field;
And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk fir John,
Is prifoner to your fon: O, fuch a day,

So fought, fo follow'd, and fo fairly won,
Came not, 'till now, to dignify the times,
Since Cæfar's fortunes!

North. How is this deriv'd?

Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury? Bard. I fpake with one, my lord, that came from thence;

A gentleman well bred, and of good name,
That freely render'd me these news for true.
North. Here comes my fervant Travers, whom I

fent

On Tuesday laft to listen after news.

Bard. My lord, I over-rode him on the way;
And he is furnifh'd with no certainties,
More than he haply may retail from me.

Enter

Enter Travers.

North. Now, Travers, what good tidings come with you?

Tra. My lord, fir John Umfrevile turn'd me back With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd, Out-rode me. After him, came, fpurring hard, A gentleman almost forspent with speed,

2

That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloody'd horse:
He afk'd the way to Chefter; and of him
I did demand, what news from Shrewsbury.
He told me, that rebellion had bad luck,
And that young Harry Percy's fpur was cold:
With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And, bending forward, ftruck his 3 armed heels
Against the panting fides of his 4 poor jade
Up to the rowel-head; and, ftarting fo,
He seem'd in running to devour the way,

2

forfpent with speed,] To forfpend is to waste, to exhaust. So, in fir A. Gorges' tranflation of Lucan, b. vii :

3

66

crabbed fires forfpent with age." STEEVENS. -armed hecls] Thus the quarto 1600. The folio 1623, reads able beels; the modern editors, without authority, agile heels. STEEVENS.

4 -poor jade] Poor jade is used not in contempt, but in compaffion. Poor jade means the horse wearied with his journey. Fade, however, feems anciently to have fignify'd what we now call a backney; a beast employed in drudgery, oppofed to a horse kept for fhow, or to be rid by its master. So, in a comedy called A Knack to know a Knave, 1594:

"Befides, I'll give you the keeping of a dozen jades,
"And now and then meat for you and your horse."

This is faid by a farmer to a courtier. STEEVENS.

5

-rowel-head; -] I think that I have observed in old prints the rowel of those times to have been only a single spike. JOHNSON.

"He feem'd in running to devour the way,] So, in The Book of Job, chap. xxxix: "He swalloweth the ground in fierceness and rage." The fame expreffion occurs in Ben Jonfon's Sejanus:

"But with that speed and heat of appetite
"With which they greedily devour the way
"To fome great sports.'
92 STEEVENS.

Staying

Staying no longer question.

North. Ha!Again.

Said he, young Harry Percy's fpur was cold?
Of Hotspur, coldfpur? that rebellion
Had met ill luck?

Bard. My lord, I'll tell you what;

If my young lord your fon have not the day,
Upon mine honour, for a 'filken point
I'll give my barony: never talk of it.

North. Why fhould the gentleman, that rode by
Travers,

Give then fuch inftances of lofs?
Bard. Who, he?

He was fome hilding fellow, that had ftol'n
The horse he rode on; and, upon my life,
Spoke at adventure. Look, here comes more news.

Enter Morton.

North. Yea, this man's brow, 'like to a title-leaf, Foretells the nature of a tragick volume: So looks the ftrond, whereon the imperious flood Hath left a witnefs'd ufurpation.

Say, Morton, did'st thou come from Shrewsbury? Mort. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;

3

7 Of Hotspur, coldfpur?] Hotspur feems to have been a very common term for a man of vehemence and precipitation, Stanyhurft, who tranflated four books of Virgil, in 1584, renders the following line:

8

Nec victoris beri tetigit captiva cubile. "To couch not mounting of mayfter vanquisher boatpur."

STEEVENS.

filken point] A point is a string tagged, or lace. JOHNSON.

9 fome bilding fellow,] For hilderling, i. e. base, degenerate. POPE.

1

like to a title-leaf,] It may not be amifs to obferve, that in the time of our poet, the title-page to an elegy as well as every intermediate leaf, was totally black. I have feveral in my poffeffion, written by Chapman the tranflator of Homer, and or

namented in this manner. STEEVENS.

Where

Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask,
To fright our party.

North. How doth my fon, and brother? Thou trembleft; and the whiteness in thy cheek Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand. Even fuch a man, fo faint, fo fpiritless, So dull, fo dead in look, fo woe-begone, Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night, And would have told him, half his Troy was burn'd: But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue, And I my Percy's death, ere thou report'ft it. This would'ft thou fay,-Your fon did thus, and thus; Your brother, thus; fo fought the noble Douglas; Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds: But in the end, to ftop mine ear indeed, Thou haft a figh to blow away this praise, Ending with-brother, fon, and all are dead. Mort. Douglas is living, and your brother, yet: But for my lord your fon,

North. Why, he is dead.

See, what a ready tongue fufpicion hath!
He, that but fears the thing he would not know,

2 so woe-begone,] This word was common enough amongst the old Scottish and English poets, as G. Douglas, Chaucer, lord Buckhurst, Fairfax; and fignifies, far gone in woe.

So, in the Spanish Tragedy:

WARBURTON.

"Awake, revenge, or we are wo-begone!"

Again, in Jarvis Markham's English Arcadia, 1607: "If there were an end of woe, it were nothing to be woe-begone." Again, in Arden of Feverfbam, 1592:

"So woe-begone, fo inly charg'd with woe."

Again, in a Looking Glafs for London and England, 1617: "Fair Alvida, look not fo woe-begone."

Dr. Bentley is faid to have thought this paffage corrupt, and therefore (with a greater degree of gravity than my readers will probably exprefs) propofed the following emendation:

So dead fo dull in look, Ucalegon

"Drew Priam's curtain &c."

The name of Ucalegon is found in the third book of the Iliad, and the fecond of the Æneid. STEEVENS.

Hath,