My learned lord, we pray you to proceed:

And justly and religiously unfold,

Why the law Salique, that they have in France,
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim.
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,

That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate *, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth;
For God doth know, how many, now in health,
Shall drop their blood in approbation

Of what your reverence shall incite us to:
Therefore take heed how you impawnb our person,
How you awake our sleeping sword of war:
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed:
For never two such kingdoms did contend

Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops

Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,

'Gainst him whose wrongs give edge unto the swords That make such waste in brief mortality.

Under this conjuration, speak, my lord:

For we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
As pure as sin with baptism.

CANT. Then hear me, gracious sovereign; and you peers,
That owe yourselves, your lives, and services,
To this imperial throne :-There is no bar
To make against your highness' claim to France,
But this, which they produce from Pharamond,-
"In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant,"
“No woman shall succeed in Salique land:'
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze

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Miscreate-spurious.

Impawn. A pawn and a gage are the same. In 'Richard II.' we have "Take up mine honour's pawn." To "impawn our person" is equivalent, therefore, to engage our person.

• Gloze. The verb to gloze, to gloss (whence glossary), is derived from the Anglo-Saxon glesan, to explain. We have this expression in Hall's 'Chronicle:' "This land Salique the deceitful glosers named to be the realm of France." Holinshed, who abridges Hall, simply says, French glossers expound to be the realm of France."

"The

To be the realm of France, and Pharamond

The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
That the land Salique is in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe:

Where Charles the great, having subdued the Saxons,
There left behind and settled certain French;
Who, holding in disdain the German women,
For some dishonest a manners of their life,
Establish'd then this law,-to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land;
Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
Is at this day in Germany called Meisen.
Then doth it well appear, the Salique law
Was not devised for the realm of France;
Nor did the French possess the Salique land
Until four hundred one-and-twenty years
After defunction of king Pharamond,
Idly suppos'd the founder of this law;

Who died within the year of our redemption
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the great
Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year

Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childerick,
Did, as heir general, being descended

Of Blithild, which was daughter to king Clothair,
Make claim and title to the crown of France.
Hugh Capet also,-who usurp'd the crown
Of Charles the duke of Loraine, sole heir male
Of the true line and stock of Charles the great,—
To find his title, with some shows of truth,
(Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,)
Convey'd himself as th' heir to th' lady Lingare,
Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son

To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son

Of Charles the great: Also king Lewis the tenth,

• Dishonest. So the folio and quartos. Capell has introduced the word unhonest into his text, because that word occurs in the original edition of Holinshed, 1577. In the edition of 1586 the word is changed to dishonest. Shakspere used the language nearest his time.

To find his title. The quarto reads to fine his title; which has been adopted by the modern editors. Warburton says, to fine is to refine. Steevens would read to line. The reading of the folio, find, requires little defence. We have an analogous expression, to find a bill. Hugh Capet, to deduce a title, conveyed himself, &c.

• This Lewis was the ninth, as Hall correctly states. Shakspere found the mistake in Holinshed.

Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
That fair queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the lady Ermengare,

Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Loraine :
By the which marriage, the line of Charles the great
Was re-united to the crown of France.

So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim,
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear

To hold in right and title of the female;

So do the kings of France unto this day:
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law,

To bar your highness claiming from the female;

And rather choose to hide them in a net,
Than amply to imbara their crooked titles

Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.

K. HEN. May I, with right and conscience, make this claim?
CANT. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!

For in the book of Numbers is it writ,

b

When the man dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;
Look back into your mighty ancestors :
Go, my dread lord, to your great grandsire's tomb,
From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit.
And your great-uncle's, Edward the black prince;
Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,
Making defeat on the full power of France;
Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling, to behold his lion's whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility.

O noble English, that could entertain

Imbar. The folio gives this word imbarre, which modern editors, upon the authority of Theobald, have changed into imbare. Rowe, somewhat more boldly, reads make bare. Imbar may be taken as placed in opposition to bar. To bar is to obstruct; to imbar is to bar in, to secure. They would hold up the Salique law, "to bar your highness;" hiding "their crooked titles" in a net, rather than amply defending them. But it has been suggested to us that imbar is here used for "to set at the bar"-to place their crooked titles before a proper tribunal. This is ingenious and plausible.

Man. So the folio; the quarto, son. This reading is perhaps the better. The passage in the book of Numbers, as quoted by Hall and Holinshed, is-"When a man dieth without a son, let the inheritance descend to his daughter." Scripture was quoted on the other side of the controversy:-" Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin,”was held to apply to the arms of France, the lilies. Voltaire, with a sly solemnity, proves, with reference to this, that the arms of France never had any affinity with lilies, but were spear-heads.

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With half their forces the full pride of France;
And let another half stand laughing by,
All out of work, and cold for action a!
ELY. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead,
And with your puissant arm renew their feats:
You are their heir, you sit upon their throne;
The blood and courage, that renowned them,
Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege
Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.
EXE. Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth
Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,

As did the former lions of your blood.

WEST. They know your grace hath cause, and means, and might:
So hath your highness b; never king of England

Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects;

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 liege,

With blood, and sword, and fire, to win your right:

In aid whereof, we of the spiritualty

Will raise your highness such a mighty sum,
As never did the clergy at one time

Bring in to any of your ancestors c.

K. HEN. 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 those marches, gracious sovereign,
Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

K. HEN. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,

But fear the main intendment of the Scot,

• Cold for action. Malone says, "cold for want of action." This, we think, is to interpret too literally. The unemployed forces, seeing the work done to their hands, stood laughing by and indifferent for action-unmoved to action. It is the converse of "hot for action."

b They know, &c. Coleridge's emphatic reading of this passage is, we think, the true one; and it involves no change in the original, even of punctuation::

They know your grace hath cause, and means, and might:

So hath your highness-never king of England

Had nobles richer."

What the "monarchs of the earth" know, Westmoreland confirms. This is much better than Monck Mason's interpretation of so for also, making his grace have cause, and his highness means and might. It has been proposed to us by a correspondent to read,

They know your cause hath grace, and means, and might." • The twenty-one lines here ending have no parallel lines in the quartos.

d a Marches-the boundaries of England and Scotland-the borders.

Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
For you shall read, that my great-grandfather
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 essays;
Girding with grievous siege castles and towns:

That England, being empty of defence,

Hath shook and trembled at th' ill neighbourhood *.

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 she a mourning widow of her nobles,
She hath herself not only well defended,

But taken, and impounded as a stray,

The king of Scots; whom she did send to France,
To fill king Edward's fame with prisoner kings;
And make your chronicles as rich with praise
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea

With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries.

WEST. But there's a saying, very old and true,—

"If that you will France win,

Then with Scotland first begin;"

For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs;
Playing the mouse, in absence of the cat,
To taint and havoc more than she can eat.
EXE. It follows, then, the cat must stay at home:
Yet that is but a crush'd necessity ©;

Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,

The advised head defends itself at home:

• Your chronicles. The folio reads their chronicles; the quarto, your chronicle. The folio was, without doubt, printed from a written copy, without reference to the previous quarto;—and in old manuscripts your and their were contracted alike-yr.

Taint. The folio, tame; the quarto, spoil. To tame is to subdue-to subject by fear. But the mouse does not tame, neither does she spoil, in the sense in which that word was formerly used. Theobald suggested that tame was a misprint for taint; so spoil may be for soil.

• Crush'd necessity. So the folio; the quarto, curs'd necessity, which modern editors follow. Warburton would read s'cus'd (excus'd). Coleridge thinks it may be crash, for "crass," from crassus, clumsy; or curt. A friend suggests to us cur's necessity. After all, is the word crush'd so full of difficulty? The necessity alleged by Westmoreland is overpowered, crushed, by the argument that we have "locks" and "pretty traps;" so that it does not follow that "the cat must stay at home."