And good my lord of Somerfet, unite

Your troops of horsemen with his bands of foot;-
And, like true fubjects, fons of your progenitors,
Go cheerfully together, and digeft

Your angry choler on your enemies.
Ourself, my lord protector, and the rest,
After fome refpite, will return to Calais;
From thence to England; where I hope ere long
To be presented, by your victories,

With Charles, Alençon, and that traiterous rout.
[Flourib. Exeunt King HENRY, GLO. SOM.

WIN. SUF. and BASSET.

the king

WAR. My lord of York, I promise you,
Prettily, methought, did play the orator.
YORK. And fo he did; but yet I like it not,
In that he wears the badge of Somerset.

WAR. Tufh! that was but his fancy, blame him not; I dare prefume, fweet prince, he thought no harm. YORK. And, if I wift, he did,—But let it reft; Other affairs must now be managed.

[Exeunt YORK, WARWICK, and VERNON.

And, if I wift, he did,] In former editions:

And, if I wifh, he did.

By the pointing reform'd, and a fingle letter expung'd, I have reftored the text to its purity:

And, if I wis, he did

Warwick had faid, the king meant no harm in wearing Somerfet's rofe: York teftily replies, " Nay, if I know any thing, he did think harm." THEOBALD.

This is followed by the fucceeding editors, and is indeed plaufible enough; but perhaps this fpeech may become fufficiently intelligible without any change, only fuppofing it broken:

And if I wish—

or, perhaps

he did

And if he did I wifb. JOHNSON.

I read-I wift, the pret. of the old obfolete verb I wis, is ufed by Shakspeare in The Merchant of Venice:

"There be fools alive, I wis,

"Silver'd o'er, and fo was this." STEEVENS.

which

EXE. Well didft thou, Richard, to fupprefs thy
voice:

For, had the paffions of thy heart burst out,
I fear, we should have feen decipher'd there
More rancorous fpite, more furious raging broils,
Than yet can be imagin'd or fuppos'd.
But howfoe'er, no fimple man that fees
This jarring difcord of nobility,

This fhould'ring of each other in the court,
This factious bandying of their favourites,
But that it doth prefage fome ill event."

'Tis much, when scepters are in children's hands; But more, when envy breeds unkind divifion;3 There comes the ruin, there begins confufion. [Exit.

York fays, he is not pleafed that the king fhould prefer the red rofe, the badge of Somerfet, his enemy; Warwick defires him not to be offended at it, as he dares fay the king meant no harm. To which York, yet unfatisfied, haftily adds, in a menacing tone,If I thought he did;-but he inftantly checks his threat with, let it reft. It is an example of a rhetorical figure, which our author has elsewhere used. Thus, in Coriolanus :

"An 'twere to give again-But 'tis no matter."

Mr. Steevens is too familiar with Virgil, not to recollect his
Quos ego-fed motos præflat componere fluctus.

The author of the Revifal understood this paffage in the fame

9 it doth prefage fome ill event.] That is, it doth prefage to him that fees this difcord, &c. that fome ill event will happen. MALONE.

2 'Tis much,] In our author's time, this phrafe meant-'Tis ftrange, or wonderful. See, As you like it, Vol. VI. p. 136, n. 3. This meaning being included in the word much, the word frange is perhaps underflood in the next line: "But more ftrange," &c. The conftruction however may be, But 'tis much more, when, &c.

MALONE.

'Tis much, is a colloquial phrafe, and the meaning of it, in many inftances, can be gathered only from the tenor of the fpeech in which it occurs. On the prefent occafion, I believe, it fignifies'Tis an alarming circumftance, a thing of great confequence, or of much weight. STEEVENS.

3

when envy breeds unkind divifion;] Envy in old English

SCENE II.

France. Before Bourdeaux.

Enter TALBOT, with his Forces.

TAL. Go to the gates of Bourdeaux, trumpeter, Summon their general unto the wall.

Trumpet founds a parley. Enter, on the walls, the
General of the French Forces, and Others.

English John Talbot, captains, calls you forth,
Servant in arms to Harry king of England;
And thus he would,-Open your city gates,
Be humble to us; call my fovereign yours,
And do him homage as obedient subjects,
And I'll withdraw me and my bloody power:
But, if you frown upon this proffer'd peace,
You tempt the fury of my three attendants,
Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire; '
Who, in a moment, even with the earth
Shall lay your ftately and air-braving towers,

writers frequently means enmity. Unkind is unnatural. See Vol. V. P. 555, 1. 12; and Vol. VI. p. 70, n. 3. MALONE.

5 Lean famine, quartering feel, and climbing fire;] The author of this play followed Hall's Chronicle: "The Goddeffe of warre, called Bellona-hath these three hand-maides ever of neceffitie attendyng on her; Bloud, Fyre, and Famine; whiche thre damofels be of that force and ftrength that every one of them alone is able and fufficient to torment and afflict a proud prince; and they all joyned together are of puiffance to deftroy the most populous countrey and moft richest region of the world." MALONE.

It may as probably be afferted that our author followed Holinshed, from whom I have already quoted a part of this paffage in a note on the first Chorus to King Henry V. See Holinfhed, p. 567.

If

you forfake the offer of their love."

GEN. Thou ominous and fearful owl of death,
Our nation's terror, and their bloody fcourge!
The period of thy tyranny approacheth.
On us thou canst not enter, but by death:
For, I proteft, we are well fortify'd,

And ftrong enough to iffue out and fight:
If thou retire, the Dauphin, well appointed,
Stands with the fnares of war to tangle thee:
On either hand thee there are fquadrons pitch'd,
To wall thee from the liberty of flight;
And no way canft thou turn thee for redress,
But death doth front thee with apparent spoil,
And pale destruction meets thee in the face.
Ten thousand French have ta'en the facrament,
To rive their dangerous artillery"

6 the offer of their love.] Thus the old editions. Sir T. Hanmer altered it to our. JOHNSON.

"Their love" may mean, the peaceable demeanour of my three attendants; their forbearing to injure you. But the expreffion is harfh. MALONE.

There is much fuch another line in King Henry VIII:

" If you

omit the offer of the time."

I believe, the reading of Sir T. Hanmer fhould be adopted.

STEEVENS.

"To rive their dangerous artillery] I do not understand the phrafe to rive artillery; perhaps it might be to drive; we fay to drive a blow, and to drive at a man, when we mean to exprefs furious affault. JOHNSON.

To rive feems to be used, with fome deviation from its common meaning, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV. sc. ii :

The foul and body rive not more at parting."

STEEVENS

Rive their artillery feems to mean charge their artillery fo much as to endanger their burfting. So, in Troilus and Creffida, Ajax bids the trumpeter blow fo loud, as to crack his lungs and split his. brazen pipe. TOLLET.

To rive their artillery means only to fire their artillery.-To rive is to burst; and a cannon, when fired, has fo much the appearance

8

Upon no chriftian foul but English Talbot.
Lo! there thou ftand'ft, a breathing valiant man,
Of an invincible unconquer'd fpirit:
This is the latest glory of thy praise,
That I, thy enemy, due thee withal; "
For ere the glafs, that now begins to run,
Finish the procefs of his fandy hour,
Thefe eyes, that fee thee now well coloured,
Shall fee thee wither'd, bloody, pale, and dead.
[Drum afar off.
Hark! hark! the Dauphin's drum, a warning bell,
Sings heavy mufick to thy timorous foul;
And mine fhall ring thy dire departure out.

[Exeunt General, &c. from the walls.

TAL. He fables not," I hear the enemy ;

of bursting, that, in the language of poetry, it may be well faid to burst. We fay, a cloud burfts, when it thunders.

M. MASON.

due thee withal;] To due is to endue, to deck, to grace. JOHNSON.

Johnfon fays in his Dictionary, that to due is to pay as due; and quotes this paffage as an example. Poffibly that may be the true meaning of it. M. MASON.

It means, I think, to honour by giving thee thy due, thy merited elogium. Due was fubftituted for dew, the reading of the old copy, by Mr. Theobald. Dew was fometimes the old fpelling of due, as Hew was of Hugh. MALONE.

The old copy reads-dew thee withal; and perhaps rightly. The dew of praife is an expreffion I have met with in other poets. Shakspeare ufes the fame verb in Macbeth:

"To dew the fov'reign flow'r, and drown the weeds." Again, in the second part of King Henry VI:

66

give me thy hand,

"That I may dew it with my mournful tears."

STEEVENS.

9 He fables not,] This expreffion Milton has borrowed in his Mafque at Ludlow Cafle:

"She fables not, I feel that I do fear

-."

"

STEEVENS.

It occurs again in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599: good father, fable not with him.

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