Welt. They know, your grace hath cause, and means and might;

So hath your highness; never king of England
Had nobles richer, and more loyal fubjects ;
Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England,
And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.

Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege2, With blood, and fword, and fire, to win your right: In aid whereof, we of the fpiritualty

Will raise your highnefs fuch a mighty fum,
As never did the clergy at one time

Bring in to any of your ancestors.

K. Henry. We must not only arm to invade the French;

But lay down our proportions to defend

Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages.

Cant. They of thofe marches 3, gracious fovereign, Shall be a wall fufficient to defend

Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

K. Henry. We do not mean the courfing snatchers only,

I

They know your grace hath cause, and means, and might,
So hath your highness ;-

We fhould read:

your race had cause

which is carrying on the fenfe of the concluding words of Exeter :

As did the farmer lions of your blood;

meaning Edward III. and the black prince. WARBURTON.

I do not fee but the present reading may stand as I have pointed it. JOHNSON.

2 Thefe two lines Dr. Warburton gives to Westmoreland, but with fo little reason that I have continued them to Canterbury. The credit of old copies, though not great, is yet more than nothing. JOHNSON.

They of thofe marches,] The marches are the borders, the limits, the confines. Hence the Lords Marchers, i, e. the lords prefidents of the marches, &c. So, in the first canto of Drayton's Barons' Wars:

"When now the marchers well upon their way, &c."

C 3

STEEVENS.

But

But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
Who hath been ftill a + giddy neighbour to us:
For you fhall read, that my great grandfather
5 Never went with his forces into France,
But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brim fulness of his force;
Galling the gleaned land with hot affays;
Girding with grievous fiege caftles, and towns;
That England, being empty of defence,

6

Hath fhook, and trembled at the ill neigbourhood. Cant. She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege:

For hear her but exampled by herself,-
When all her chivalry hath been in France,
And the a mourning widow of her nobles,-
She hath herself not only well defended,
But taken, and impounded as a stray,

giddy neighbour] That is, inconftant, changeable,

JOHNSON.

5 Never went with his forces into France,] Shakespeare wrote

the line thus:

Ne'er went with his full forces into France. The following expreffions of unfurnish'd kingdom, gleaned land and empty of defence, fhew this. WARBURTON, There is no need of alteration. JOHNSON,

The 4tos 1600 and 1608 read:

never my great grandfather

Unmask'd his power for France

What an opinion the Scots entertained of the defenceless state of England, may be known by the following paffage from The Battle of Floddon, an ancient historical

"For England's king you understand

poem:

peers:

"To France is pait with all his
"There is none at home left in the land,

"But joult-head monks, and burften freers.

"Of ragged rufties, without rules,

"Of priests prating for pudding fhives;

"Of milners madder than their mules,

"Or wanton clerks, waking their wives." STEEVENS. at the ill neighbourhood.] The 4tos 1600 and 1608 read : at the bruit thereof. STEEVENS.

The

The king of Scots; whom the did fend to France,
To fill king Edward's fame with prifoner kings;
? And make your chronicle as rich with praife,
As is the ouze and bottom of the fea

8

With funken wreck and fumlefs treafuries.
Exe. But there's a saying, very old and true,-
If that you will France win,

I

Then with Scotland first begin :

For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded neft the weazel Scot
Comes fneaking, and fo fucks her princely eggs;
Playing the moufe, in abfence of the cat,

↑ And make his chronicle as rich with praife,] He is fpeaking of king Edward's prifoners; fo that it appears Shakespeare

wrote:

-as rich with prize,

i.e. captures, booty. Without this there is neither beauty nor likeness in the fimilitude. WARBURTON.

The change of praife to prize, I believe no body will approve; the fimilitude between the chronicle and the fea confifts only in this, that they are both full, and filled with fomething valuable. Befides, Dr. Warburton presupposes a reading which exists in no ancient copy, for his chronicle as the later editions give it, the quarto has your, the folio their chronicle.

Your and their written by contraction y, are just alike, and her in the old hands is not much unlike yr. I believe we should read her chronicle. JOHNSON.

8

read:

and fumlefs treafuries.] The quartos 1600 and 1608

and fhiplefs treafury. STEEVENS.

9 Ely. But there's a faying, &c. This fpeech, which is dif fuafive of war with France, is abfurdly given to one of the churchmen in confederacy to pufh the king upon it, as appears by the first scene of this act. Betides, the poet had here an eye to Hall, who gives this obfervation to the duke of Exeter. But the editors have made Ely and Exeter change fides, and speak one another's speeches; for this, which is given to Ely, is Exeter's; and the following given to Exeter is Ely's. WARBURTON.

1

If that you will France win, &c.] Hall's Chronicle. Hen. V. year 2. fol. 7. p. 2. x. POPE.

It is likewife found in Holinfhed, and in the old anonymous play of K. Henry V. STEEVENS.

To taint and havock more than fhe can eat. Ely. It follows then, the cat muft ftay at home: 3 Yet that is but a curs'd neceffity;

Since we have locks to fafeguard neceffaries,
4 And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
The advised head defends itself at home :

2 To tear and havock more than he can eat. t.] It is not much the quality of the mouse to tear the food it comes at, but to run over and defile it. The old quarto reads, Spoile; and the two first folios, tame: from which laft corrupted word, I think, I have retrieved the poet's genuine reading, taint. THEOBALD.

3 Yet that is but a curs'd neceffity ;] So the old quarto. The folios read crush'd: neither of the words convey any tolerable idea; but give us a counter-reafoning, and not at all pertinent. We should read, 'fcus'd neceffity. It is Ely's business to fhew there is no real neceffity for ftaying at home: he must therefore mean, that though there be a feeming neceffity, yet it is one that may be well excus'd and got over. WARBURTON,

Neither the old readings nor the emendation feem very fatiffactory. A curfed neceffity has no fenfe; a 'fcus'd neceffity is fo harsh that one would not admit it, if any thing elfe can be found. A crufh'd neceffity may mean, a neceffity which is fubdued and over-powered by contrary reasons. We might read a crude. neceffity, a neceffity not complete, or not well confidered and digefted, but it is too harsh.

Sir. T. Hanmer reads;

Yet that is not o'courfe a neceffity. JOHNSON.

A curs'd neceffity means, I believe, only an unfortunate neceffity. Curs'd, in colloquial phrafe, fignifies any thing unfortunate. So we fay, fuch a one leads a curfed life; another has got into a curfed fcrape. It may mean, a neceffity to be execrated.

This vulgarifm is often ufed by fir Arthur Gorges in his tranflation of Lucan, 1614. So, B. vii. p. 293:

"His curfed fortune he condemned."

Again, p. 297:

on the cruel deftinies

"The people pour out curfed cries."

Again, in Chapman's tranflation of the 5th Odyssey:

66

while thus difcourfe he held,

"A curs'd furge 'gainst a cutting rock impell'd
"His naked body." STEEVENS.

4 And pretty traps- ] Thus the old copy; but I believe we fhould read petty. STEEVENS.

For

For government, though high, and low, and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one confent';
Congruing in a full and natural close,
Like mufick.

Cant. True: therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
7 Setting endeavour in continual motion;
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for fo work the honey bees;
Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of forts:
Where fome, like magiftrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like foldiers, armed in their ftings,
Make boot upon the fummer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home

8

5 For government, though high, and low, and lower,] The foundation and expreffion of this thought feems to be borrowed from Cicero de Republica, lib. 2. Sic ex fummis, & mediis, & infimis interjectis ordinibus, ut fonis, moderatam ratione civitatem, Confenfu diffimiliorum concinere; & quæ harmonia à muficis dici tur in cantu, eam effe in civitate concordiam. THEOBald, 6 -in one confent,] Confent is unifon. STEEVENS. 7 Setting endeavour in continual motion;

To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,

Obedience:-] Neither the fenfe nor the construction of this paffage is very obvious. The conftruction is, endeavour-as an aim or butt to which endeavour, obedience is fixed. The fenfe is, that all endeavour is to terminate in obedience, to be fubordinate to the publick good and general defign of government.

JOHNSON. 8 Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;] What is the venturing trade? I am perfuaded we fhould read and point it thus:

Others, like merchant venturers, trade abroad.
WARBURTON.

If the whole difficulty of this paffage confifts in the obfcurity of the phrafe to venture trade it may be eafily cleared. To venture trade is a phrase of the fame import and structure as to hazard battle. Nothing could have raised an objection but the defire of being bufy. JOHNSON.

To