Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hourglass; For the which supply,
Admit me chorus to this hiftory;

Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray, Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

your thoughts must give the king his proper greatness; carry therefore your thoughts here and there, jumping over time, and crouding years into an hour. JOHNSON.

I am not sure that Dr. Johnson's obfervation is juft. In this play, the king of France as well as England makes his appearance; and the fenfe may be this:-It must be to your imaginations that our kings are indebted for their royalty. Let the fancy of the spectator furnish out thofe appendages to greatnefs which the poverty of our ftage is unable to fupply. The poet is ftill apologizing for the defects of theatrical reprefentation. STEEVENS.

Johnfon is in my opinion mistaken alfo in his explanation of the remainder of the fentence. Carry them here and there, does not mean, as he fuppofes, Carry your thoughts here and there; for the Chorus not only calls upon the imagination of the audience to adorn his kings, but to carry them alfo from one place to another, though by a common poetical license the copulative be omitted. M. MASON.

5-jumping o'er times;] So, in the prologue to Troilus and Creffida:

Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils-."

STEEVENS.

KING HENRY V.

ACT I. SCENE I.2

London.' An Antechamber in the King's Palace.

Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of Ely.'

CANT. My lord, I'll tell you,-that self bill is urg'd,

Which, in the eleventh year o' the last king's reign
Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,
But that the scambling and unquiet time"

2 This first scene was added fince the edition of 1608, which is much short of the prefent editions, wherein the fpeeches are generally enlarged and raised: feveral whole scenes befides, and all the choruffes also, were fince added by Shakspeare. POPE.

3 London.] It appears from Hall's and Holinfhed's Chronicles that the bufinefs of this fcene was tranfacted at Leicester, where King Henry V. held a parliament in the fecond year of his reign. But the Chorus at the beginning of the second act shows that the author intended to make London the place of his first scene.

MALONE.

of Canterbury,] Henry Chicheley, a Carthufian monk, recently promoted to the fee of Canterbury. MALONE.

5 Ely.] John Fordham, confecrated 1388; died 1426. REED.

6

the fcambling and unquiet time-] In the household book of the 5th earl of Northumberland, there is a particular fection appointing the order of service for the Scambling days in Lent; that is, days on which no regular meals were provided, but every one fcambled, i. e. fcrambled and fhifted for himself as well as he could.

-So, in the old noted book intitled Leicefter's Commonwealth, one of the marginal heads is, "Scambling between Leicester and Huntington at the upfhot." Where in the text, the author fays,

Did push it out of further question."

ELY. But how, my lord, fhall we refift it now?
CANT. It must be thought on. If it pafs against us,
We lose the better half of our poffeffion:
For all the temporal lands, which men devout
By teftament have given to the church,

Would they strip from us; being valued thus,—
As much as would maintain, to the king's honour,
Full fifteen earls, and fifteen hundred knights;
Six thousand and two hundred good efquires;
And, to relief of lazars, and weak age,
Of indigent faint fouls, paft corporal toil,
A hundred almshouses, right well supply'd;
And to the coffers of the king, befide,

A thousand pounds by the year: Thus runs the bill.

ELr. This would drink deep.

CANT.

'Twould drink the cup and all.

ELY. But what prevention?

"Haftings, for ought I fee, when hee commeth to the feambling, is like to have no better luck by the beare [Leicefter] then his anceftour had once by the boare." [K. Richard III.] edit. 1641, 12mo. p. 87. So again, Shakspeare himself makes King Henry V. fay to the princefs Katharine, "I get thee with feambling, and thou muft therefore prove a good foldier-breeder." A& V. PERCY. Shakspeare uses the fame word in Much Ado about Nothing: Scambling, out-facing, fafhion-mong'ring boys."

Again, in The Merry Devil of Edmonton, 1608:

"Leave us to fcamble for her getting out."

See Vol. IV. p. 526, n. 2. STEEVENS.

"out of further question.] i. e. of further debate. MALONE. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"If we contend, out of our question wipe him."

STEEVENS.

A thousand pounds by the year:] Hall, who appears to have been Shakspeare's authority, in the above enumeration, fays, " and the kyng to have clerely in his cofers taventie thousand poundes."

REED.

CANT. The king is full of grace, and fair regard.
ELr. And a true lover of the holy church.
CANT. The courses of his youth promis'd it not.
The breath no fooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem'd to die too: yea, at that very moment,
Confideration like an angel came,'

And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him;
Leaving his body as a paradife,

To envelop and contain celeftial spirits.
Never was fuch a fudden scholar made:

Never came reformation in a flood,3

With fuch a heady current,+ fcouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

So foon did lose his feat, and all at once,
As in this king.

ELY.

We are bleffed in the change.

CANT. Hear him but reason in divinity,'

9 The breath no fooner left his father's body, But that his wildnefs, mortified in him,

Seem'd to die too:] The fame thought occurs in the last scene of the preceding play, where Henry V. fays:

"My father is gone wild into his grave,

"For in his tomb lie my affections." M. MASON,

2 Confideration like an angel &c.] As paradife, when fin and Adam were driven out by the angel, became the habitation of celeftial fpirits, fo the King's heart, fince confideration has driven out his follies, is now the receptacle of wisdom and of virtue.

Mr. Upton obferves, that according to the fcripture expreffion, JOHNSON. the old Adam, or the old man, fignified man in an unregenerated or gentile ftate. MALONE.

3 Never came reformation in a flood,] Alluding to the method by which Hercules cleanfed the famous ftables, when he turned a river through them. Hercules ftill is in our author's head when he mentions the Hydra. JOHNSON.

4 With fuch a heady current,] Old copy-currance. Corrected by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE.

5 Hear him but reafon in divinity, &c.] This speech feems to