K. Hen. We would have all such offenders so cut off:-and we give express charge, that, in our marches through the country, there be nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for; none of the French upbraided, or abused in disdainful language; For when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

Tucket sounds. Enter MONTJOY."

Mont. You know me by my habit.

8

K. Hen. Well then, I know thee; What shall I know of thee?

Mont. My master's mind.
K. Hen. Unfold it.

Mont. Thus says my king:-Say thou to Harry of England, Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep; Advantage is a better soldier, than rashness. Tell him, we could have rebuked him at Harfleur: but that we thought not good to bruise an injury, till it were full ripe :-now we speak upon our cue," and our voice is imperial: England shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him, therefore, consider of his ransome; which must proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which, in weight to re-answer, his pettiness would

on any other. The conception is very cold to the solitary reader, though it may be somewhat invigorated by the exhibition on the stage. This poet is always more careful about the present than the future, about his audience than his readers. JOHNSON.

Enter Montjoy.] Mont-joie is the title of the first king at arms in France, as Garter is in our own country.

8 by my habit.] That is, by his herald's coat. The person of a herald being inviolable, was distinguished in those times of formality by a peculiar dress, which is likewise yet worn on particular occasions.

upon our cue,] In our turn. This phrase the author learned among players, and has imparted it to kings.

bow under. For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for the effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person, kneeling at our feet, but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add-defiance and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose condemnation is pronounced. So far my king and master; so much my office.

K. Hen. What is thy name? I know thy quality.
Mont. Montjoy.

K. Hen. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee
back,

And tell thy king,-I do not seek him now;
But could be willing to march on to Calais
Without impeachment: for, to say the sooth,
(Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,)
My people are with sickness much enfeebled;
My numbers lessen'd; and those few I have,
Almost no better than so many French;

Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
I thought, upon one pair of English legs,

Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me,
God,

That I do brag thus!-this your air of France
Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent. ›
Go, therefore, tell thy master, here I am;
My ransome, is this frail and worthless trunk;
My army, but a weak and sickly guard;
Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
Though France himself, and such another neigh-

bour,

F

Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.

1 Without impeachment ] i. e. hindrance. Empechement, French.

Go, bid thy master well advise himself:

If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder'd,
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolour and so, Montjoy, fare you well.
The sum of all our answer is but this :
We would not seek a battle, as we are;
Nor as we are, we say, we will not shun it;
So tell
your master.

Mont. I shall deliver so.

ness.

Thanks to your high[Exit MONTJOY. Glo. I hope, they will not come upon us now. K. Hen. We are in God's hand, brother, not in

theirs.

March to the bridge; it now draws toward night,— Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves;

And on to-morrow bid them march away.

SCENE VII.

[Exeunt.

The French Camp, near Agincourt.

Enter the Constable of France, the Lord RAMBURES, the Duke of ORLEANS, Dauphin, and Others.

Con. Tut! I have the best armour of the world.'Would, it were day!

Orl. You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due.

Con. It is the best horse of Europe.

Orl. Will it never be morning?

Dau. My lord of Orleans, and my lord high constable, you talk of horse and armour,

Orl. You are as well provided of both, as any prince in the world.

Dau. What a long night is this!I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four

pasterns. Ca, ha! He bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus, qui a les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.

Orl. He's of the colour of the nutmeg.

Dau. And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus: he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him but only in patient stillness, while his rider mounts him he is, indeed, a horse; and all other jades you may call-beasts.

Con. Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.

Dau. It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.

Orl. No more, cousin.

Dau. Nay, the man hath no wit, that cannot, from the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as fluent as the sea; turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all: 'tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign's sovereign to ride on and for the world (familiar to us, and unknown,) to lay apart their particular functions, and wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise, and began thus: Wonder of nature,

Orl. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.

Dau. Then did they imitate that which I composed to my courser; for my horse is my mistress.

2 He bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs:] Alluding to the bounding of tennis-balls, which were stuffed with

hair.

Orl. Your mistress bears well.

Dau. Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress.

Con. Ma foy! the other day, methought, your mistress shrewdly shook your back.

Dau. So, perhaps, did yours.

Con. Mine was not bridled.

Dau. O then, belike, she was old and gentle; and you rode, like a Kerne of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your straight trossers."

Con. You have good judgment in horsemanship. Dau. Be warned by me then: they that ride so, and ride not warily, fall into foul bogs; I had rather have my horse to my mistress.

Con. I had as lief have my mistress a jade.

Dau. I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears her own hair,

Con. I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to my mistress.

Dau. Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au bourbier: thou makest use of any thing.

Con. Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress; or any such proverb, so little kin to the purpose. Ram. My lord constable, the armour, that I saw in your tent to-night, are those stars, or suns, upon it?

Con. Stars, my lord.

Dau. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope. Con. And yet my sky shall not want.

Dau. That may be, for you bear a many superfluously; and 'twere more honour, some were

away.

Con. Even as your horse bears your praises; who

3- your straight trossers.] This word very frequently occurs in the old dramatick writers, and seems to mean straight breeches, or trowsers,