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Fr. King. We'll give them prefent audience. Go, and bring them.

-You fee, this chafe is hotly follow'd, friends.
Dau. Turn head, and ftop purfuit; for coward dogs
Moft * spend their mouths, when, what they seem to
threaten,

Runs far before them.. Good, my Sovereign,
Take up the English fhort; and let them know
Of what a monarchy you are the head.
Self-love, my Liege, is not fo vile a fin,
As felf-neglecting.

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Fr. King. From our brother England? Exe. From him; and thus he greets your Majefty. He wills you in the name of God Almighty, That you diveft 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 the wide-ftretch'd honours, that pertain By custom and the ordinance of times,

Unto the Crown of France. That you may know, 'Tis no finifter nor no awkward claim,

Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanifh'd days,
Nor from the duft of old oblivion rak'd,
He fends you this moft memorable Line,

In every branch truly demonftrative,

[Gives the French King a Paper.

Willing you overlook this pedigree;

And when you find him evenly deriv'd
From his moft fam'd of famous ancestors,

Spend their muths.] That nealogy; this deduction of his

is, bark; the fportíman's term.

Lineage.

Memirable Line. ] This ge

Edward

Edward the Third; he bids you then refign
Your Crown and Kingdom, indirectly held
From him the native and true challenger.
Fr. King. Or elfe what follows?

Exe. Bloody constraint; for if you hide the Crown Ev'n in your hearts, there will he rake for it. And therefore in fierce tempeft is he coming, In thunder, and in earthquake, like a Jove, That, if requiring fail, he may compel. He bids you, in the bowels of the Lord, Deliver up the Crown; and to take mercy On the poor fouls, for whom this hungry war Opens his vafty jaws; upon your head Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries, *The dead mens' blood, the pining maidens' groans, For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers, That shall be swallow'd in this controversy. This is his claim, his threatning, and my meffage; Unless the Dauphin be in prefence here,

To whom exprefly I bring Greeting too.

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

Dau. For the Dauphin,

I ftand here for him; what to him from England? Exe. Scorn and defiance, flight regard, contempt, And any thing that may not mif-become

The mighty fender, doth he prize you at.

Thus fays my King; and if your father's Highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
Sweeten the bitter mock you fent his Majefty;
He'll call you to fo hot an answer for it,
That caves and womby vaultages of France

The dead mens' blood.] The difpofition of the images were more regular if we were to read thus:

Turning the dead mens" blood,
the widows' tears,
The orphans' cries, the pining
maidens' groans, &c.

upon your head

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* Shall hide your trefpafs, and return your mock In fecond accent to his ordinance.

Dau. Say, if my father render fair reply
It is against my will, for I defire

Nothing but odds with England; to that end,
As matching to his youth and vanity,

I did present him with thofe Paris balls.

Exe. He'll make your Paris Louvre3 fhake for it,
Were it the mift refs court of mighty Europe.
And, be affur'd, you'll find a difference,
As we his fubjects have in wonder found,
Between the promise of his greener days,

And these he mafters now; now he weighs time
Even to the utmoft grain, which you fhall read
In your own loffes, if he ftay in France,

Fr. King. To morrow you fhall know our mind at full. [Flourish. Exe. Difpatch us with all speed, left that our King Come here himself to question our delay;

For he is footed in this land already.

Fr. King. You fhall be foon dispatch'd with fair conditions.

A night is but small breath, and little paufe,
To answer matters of this confequence.

[Exeunt.

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In motion of no less celerity

Than that of thought. Suppofe, that you have feen

2 Shall HIDE your trafpafs,] Mr. Pope rightly corrected it, Shall CHIDE

WARBURTON. I doubt whether it be rightly corrected. The meaning is, that

the authours of this infult fhall fly to caves for refuge.

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- Paris Louvre] This palace was, I think, not built in thofe times.

The

The well-appointed King at Hampton Peer 4
Embark his royalty, and his brave fleet
With filken ftreamers the young Phabus fanning.
Flay with your fancies; and in them behold,
Upon the hempen tackle, fhip-boys climbing;
Hear the fhrill whiftle, which doth order give
To founds confus'd; behold the threaden fails,
Borne with th' invifible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms thro' the furrow'd sea,
Breafting the lofty furge. O, do but think,
You stand upon the rivage, and behold
A city on th' inconftant billows dancing;
For fo appears this Fleet majestical,

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Holding due courfe to Harfleur. Follow, follow.
Grapple your minds to fternage of this navy,
And leave your England, as dead midnight ftill,
Guarded with grandfires, babies and old women,
Or paft, or not arriv'd, to pith and puissance;
For who is he, whofe 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;
Behold the ordnance on their carriages

With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.
Suppofe, th' ambaffador from France comes back;
Tells Harry, that the King doth offer him.
Catharine his daughter, and with her to dowry
Some petty and unprofitable Dukedoms:

4 The well-appointed King at

Dover peer Embark bis Royalty ;-] Thus all the Editions downwards, implicitly, after the first Folio. But could the Poet poffibly be fo difcordant from himself, (and the Chronicles, which he copied ;) to make the King here embark at Dover; when he has before told us fo precifely, and that fo often over, that he embark'd at

Southampton? I dare acquit the Poet from fo flagrant a Variation. The Indolence of a Tranfcriber, or a Compofitor at Prefs, muft give Rife to fuch an Error. They, feeing Peer at the End of the Verte, unluckily thought of Dover-peer, as the best known to them: and fo unawares corrupted the Text. THEOBALD.

5-rivage] The bank or

fhore. Dd 3

The

The offer likes not; and the nimble gunner

6

With lynftock now the devilish cannon touches,
And down goes all before him. Still be kind,
And eke out our performance with your mind. [Exit.

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Before HARFLEUR.

[Alarm, and Cannon go off.]

Enter King Henry, Exeter, Bedford, and Gloucester; Soldiers, with fcaling ladders.

K. Henry. O
ONC

NCE more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

* Or close the wall up with the English dead.
In peace, there's nothing fo becomes a man
As modeft ftillnefs and humility,

But when the blaft of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the Tyger;
Stiffen the finews, fummon up the blood,
Difguife fair nature with hard favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible afpect;
Let it pry thro' the † portage of the head,
Like the brafs cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it,
As fearfully, as doth a galled rock

O'er-hang and jutty this confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wafteful ocean.

Now fet the teeth, and ftretch the noftril wide;
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every fpirit
To his full height. Now on, you nobleft English,

6 -lynstock] The staff to which the match is fixed when ordnance is fired.

*Or cleft the wall, &c.] Here is apparently a chafm. One line at leaf is loft, which contained the other part of a disjunctive propofition. The King's fpeech is, Dear friends, either win the town, or cle up the wall with dead. The old 4to gives no help.

Portage of the head.] Port

age, open space, from fert, a gate. Let the eye appear in the head, as cannon through the battlements, or embrafures, of a fortification.

His confounded bafe.] His worn or wafted bafe.

7

bend up every Spirit] A metaphor from the bow.

Whole

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