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ceding page, (fo. 281, b) he makes a quotation from one of Falstaff's speeches," there is nothing but roguery in villainous man,"— though without acknowledging the source from which it was taken. We may be tolerably sure, however, that "Henry IV." Part ii., had then been produced by Shakespeare, but it is not distinguished by Meres, and he also makes no mention of "Henry V.," the events of whose reign, to his marriage with Catherine of France, were included in the old play of "The Famous Victories."

With regard to the text of this play, it is unquestionably found in its purest state in the earliest 4to. of 1598, and to that we have mainly adhered, assigning reasons in our notes when we have varied from it. The editors of the folio, 1623, copied implicitly the 4to. impression nearest to their own day, that of 1613, adopting many of its defects, and, as far as we can judge, resorting to no MS. authority, nor to the previous quartos of 1598, 1599, 1604, and 1608. Several decided errors, made in the reprint of 1599, were repeated and multiplied in the subsequent quarto impressions, and from thence found their way into the folio. Near the end of Act i. we meet with a curious proof of what we have advanced: we there find a line, thus distinctly printed in the 4to, 1598 :

"I'le steale to Glendower and Lo: Mortimer:"

that is, "I'll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer," Lo: being a common abbreviation of "Lord;" but the compositor of the 4to, 1599, strangely misunderstanding it, printed it as follows:

"Ile steale to Glendower and loe Mortimer;"

as if Lo: of the 4to, 1598, were to be taken as the interjection, lo! then usually printed loe, and so the blunder was followed in the subsequent quartos, including that of 1613, from whence it was transferred, literatim, to the folio, 1623. The error is repeated in the folio, 1632; but Norton, the printer of the 4to, 1639, who, as has been remarked, did not adopt the text of either of the folios, saw that there must be a blunder in the line, and although he did not know exactly how to set it right, he at least made sense of it, by giving it,

"I'll steal to Glendower and to Mortimer."

We only adduce this instance as one proof, out of many which might be brought forward, to establish the superiority of the text of the 4to. of 1598, to any of the subsequent re-impressions.

DRAMATIS PERSONE'.

KING HENRY THE FOURTH.

HENRY, Prince of Wales.

PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER.

EARL OF WESTMORELAND.

SIR WALTER BLUNT.

THOMAS PERCY, Earl of Worcester.

HENRY PERCY, Earl of Northumberland :

HENRY PERCY, surnamed HOTSPUR, his Son.
EDMUND MORTIMER, Earl of March.

SCROOP, Archbishop of York.
ARCHIBALD, Earl of Douglas.
OWEN GLENDOWER.

SIR RICHARD VERNON.

SIR JOHN FALSTAFF.

SIR MICHAEL, a friend of the Archbishop of York.
POINS.

GADSHILL.

PETO.

BARDOLPH.

LADY PERCY, Wife to Hotspur.

LADY MORTIMER, Daughter to Glendower.

MRS. QUICKLY, Hostess of a Tavern in Eastcheap.

Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, Carriers, Travellers, and Attendants.

SCENE, England.

1 The old copies have no list of persons: it was first prefixed by Rowe.

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Enter King HENRY, WESTMORELAND, Sir WALTER BLUNT, and Others.

K. Hen. So shaken as we are, so wan with care,

Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenc'd in stronds afar remote.
No more the thirsty entrance of this soil1
Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,

1 No more the thirsty ENTRANCE of this soil] When Shakespeare wrote this line he had, no doubt, as Malone suggests, a personification of England in his mind by "thirsty entrance" he meant thirsty mouth, and forgetting that he had given no more of the personification than the allusion to the mouth, he added the next line, "Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood." This seems the natural explanation of a passage that excited much dispute among the commentators. Steevens first recommended entrants, and subsequently adopted into his text a conjecture by M. Mason, that it was a misprint for Erinnys, than which few things could be more unlikely. Coleridge thought Theobald's interpretation right, that "thirsty entrance' meant the dry penetrability of the soil; and he added, "the obscurity of this passage is of the Shakespearean sort." Lit. Rem. vol. ii. p. 179.

VOL. IV.

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Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,

Shall now, in mutual, well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way, and be no more oppos'd
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,

As far as to the sepulchre of Christ,

Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross,
We are impressed, and engag'd to fight,
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,

Whose arms were moulded in their mother's womb
To chase these pagans, in those holy fields,
Over whose acres walk'd those blessed 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 bootless 'tis to tell you we will go:

Therefore we meet not now. Then, let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree,
In forwarding this dear expedience'.

West. My liege, this haste was hot in question,
And many limits of the charge3 set down
But yesternight; when, all athwart, there came
A post 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 Welchman taken,

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2 In forwarding this dear EXPEDIENCE.] i. e. expedition. Shakespeare constantly uses expedient " for expeditious; see Vol. iii. p. 46, note 6; and in "Antony and Cleopatra," we have "expedience" in exactly the same sense as above. However, afterwards in this play, A. i. sc. 3, we have expedition used instead of "expedience."

3 And many LIMITS of the charge-] i. e. bounds of the expense.

A thousand of his people butchered1;

Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,
Such beastly, shameless transformation,

By those Welch women done, as may not be

Without much shame re-told or spoken of.

K. Hen. It seems, then, that the tidings of this broil Brake off our business for the Holy Land.

West. This, match'd with other, did3, 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 spend a sad and bloody hour,
As by discharge of their artillery,

And shape of likelihood, the news was told;
For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention did take horse,
Uncertain of the issue any way.

K. Hen. Here is a dear, a true-industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stain'd with the variation of each soil

Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours;
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.
The earl of Douglas is discomfited;

Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights,
Balk'd in their own blood', did sir Walter see
On Holmedon's plains: of prisoners, Hotspur took

A thousand of his people butchered :] So every quarto edition: the folio, "And a thousand," &c.

5 This, match'd with other, DID,] So the two earliest quartos: the later editions print like for did.

5 FOR more uneven

-] The folio, following the quarto of 1613, has Far instead of "For," the reading of the quartos, 1598, 1599, 1604, and 1608.

7 BALK'D in their own blood ;] Some of the commentators would read bak'd; but Tollet showed that "balk'd," which means laid up in a ridge or hillock, is correct, and all the old editions concur in so printing it.

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