K. HEN. Sure, we thank you. My learned lord, we pray you to proceed; And justly and religiously unfold, Why the law Salique, that they have in France, 8 Of what your reverence fhall incite us to: Therefore take heed how you impawn our perfon,* 7 Or nicely charge your understanding foul-] Take heed left by nice and fubtle fophiftry you burthen your knowing foul, or knowingly burthen your foul, with the guilt of advancing a falfe title, or of maintaining, by fpecious fallacies, a claim which, if fhown in its native and true colours, would appear to be false. JOHNSON. 8 - mifcreate,] Ill-begotten, illegitimate, fpurious. JOHNSON. 9in approbation] i. e. in proving and fupporting that title which fhall be now fet up. So, in Braithwaite's Survey of Hiftories, 1614: "Compofing what he wrote, not by report of others, but by the approbation of his own eyes." Again, in The Winter's Tale: 2 "That lack'd fight only;-nought for approbation, take heed how you impawn our perfan,] The whole drift of the king is to imprefs upon the archbishop a due fenfe of the caution with which he is to speak. He tells him that the crime of unjuft war, if the war be unjust, shall rest upon him: Therefore take heed how you impawn your perfon. So, I think, it should be read, Take heed how you pledge yourself, your honour, your happiness, in fupport of bad advice. Dr. Warburton explains impawn by engage, and fo efcapes the difficulty. JOHNSON. How you awake the sleeping sword of war; 'Gainft him, whofe wrongs give edge unto the fwords That make fuch wafte in brief mortality.' CANT. Then hear me, gracious fovereign,-and you peers, That owe your lives, your faith, and fervices, The allufion here is to the game of chefs, and the difpofition of the pawns with refpect to the King, at the commencement of this mimetic conteft. HENLEY. To engage and to pawn were in our author's time fynonymous. See Minthew's DICTIONARY in v. engage. But the word pawn had not, I believe, at that time, its prefent fignification. To impawn feems here to have the fame meaning as the French phrafe fe commettre. MALONE. 3 —brief mortality.] "Nulla brevem dominum fequetur." Horace. STEEVENS. 4 Under this conjuration,] The quartos, 1600 and 1608, read: After this conjuration 5 STEEVENS. There is no bar &c.] This whole fpeech is copied (in a manner verbatim) from Hall's Chronicle, Henry V., year the fecond, folio iv. xx. xxx. xl. &c. In the first edition it is very imperfect, and the whole history and names of the princes are confounded; but this was afterwards fet right, and corrected from the original, Hall's Chronicle. POPE. This fpeech (together with the Latin paffage in it) may as well be faid to be taken from Holinfhed as from Hall. STEEVENS. To make against your highness' claim to France, No woman fball fucceed in Salique land: ons, There left behind and fettled certain French; Which Salique, as I faid, 'twixt Elbe and Sala, See a fubfequent note, in which it is proved that Holinfhed, and not Hall, was our author's hiftorian. The fame facts indeed are told in both, Holinfhed being a fervile copyift of Hall; but Holinfhed's book was that which Shakspeare read; and therefore I always quote it in preference to the elder chronicle, contrary to the rule that ought in general to be obferved. MALONE. 6 gloze,] Expound, explain, and fometimes comment upon. So, in Troilus and Creffida: 66 you have faid well; "And on the cause and queftion now in hand, Four hundred twenty-fix; and Charles the great Eight hundred five. Befides, their writers fay, Of Blithild, which was daughter to king Clothair, Of Charles the duke of Lorain, fole heir male 8 To fine his title &c.] This is the reading of the quarto of 1608; that of the folio is-To find his title. I would read: To line his title with fome show of truth. To line may fignify at once to decorate and to ftrengthen. So, in Macbeth: did line the rebel "With hidden help and vantage; Dr. Warburton fays, that to fine his title, is to refine or improve it. The reader is to judge. I now believe that find is right; the jury finds for the plaintiff, or finds for the defendant; to find his title is, to determine in favour of his title with fome show of truth. JOHNSON. To fine his title, is to make it howy or Specious by fome appearance of juftice. STEEVENS. So, in King Henry IV. Part I: "To face the garment of rebellion, "With fome fine colour." to make his title The words in Holinfhed's Chronicle are, " feem true, and appear good, though indeed it was ftark naught.”In Hall" to make &c.—though indeed it was both evil and untrue." MALONE. I believe that fine is the right reading, and that the metaphor is taken from the fining of liquors. In the next line, the fpeaker fays: "Though in pure truth it was corrupt and naught." It is the jury that finds a verdict, not the plaintiff or defendant, and therefore a man cannot find his own title. M. MASON, Convey'd himself as heir to the lady Lingare, 2 9 Convey'd himself-] Derived his title. Our poet found this expreffion alfo in Holinfhed. MALONE. 2 the lady Lingare, Daughter to Charlemain, &c.] By Charles the Great is meant the emperor Charlemagne, fon of Pepin; Charlemain is Charlechauve, or Charles the Bald, who, as well as Charles le Gros, affumed the title of Magnus. See Goldafti Animadverfiones in Einhardi præfationem. Edit. 1711, p. 157. But then Charlechauve had only one daughter, named Judith, married, or, as fome fay, only betrothed, to our King Ethelwulf, and carried off, after his death, by Baldwin the forefter, afterward earl of Flanders, whom, it is very certain, Hugh Capet was neither heir to, nor any way defcended from. This Judith, indeed, had a great-grand-daughter called Luitgarde, married to a count Wichman, of whom nothing further is known. It was likewife the name of Charlemagne's fifth wife; but no fuch female as Lingare is to be met with in any French hiftorian. In fact, thefe fictitious perfonages and pedigrees feem to have been devifed by the English heralds, to "fine a title with fome fhow of truth," which, in pure truth was corrupt and naught." It was manifeftly impoffible that Henry, who had no hereditary title to his own dominions, could derive one, by the fame colour, to another perfon's. He merely propofes the invasion and conqueft of France, in profecution of the dying advice of his father: to bufy giddy minds 66 "In foreign quarrels; that action, thence borne out, 66 that his fubjects might have fufficient employment to mislead their attention from the nakednefs of his title to the crown. The zeal and eloquence of the archbishop are owing to fimilar motives. 3 RITSON. -Alfo king Lewis the tenth,] The word ninth has been inferted by fome of the modern editors. The old copies read tenth. Ninth is certainly wrong, and tenth certainly right. Ifabel was the wife of Philip the fecond, father of Lewis the ninth, and grandfather of Lewis the tenth. RITSON. Lewis the tenth,] This is a mistake, (as is observed in the Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. LIII. P. II. p. 588,) into which Shakfpeare was led by Holinfhed, (Vol. II. p. 546, edit. 1577,) whom he copied. St. Lewis, (for he is the perfon here described,) the |