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took the city of Gaza, the metropolis of Syria, amidst the other spoils and wealth of Darius treasured up there, he found an exceeding rich and beautiful little chest or casket, and asked those about him what they thought fittest to be laid up in it. When they had severally delivered their opinions, he told them, he esteemed nothing so worthy to be preserved in it as Homer's Iliad. Vide Plutarchum in Vitâ Alexandri Magni. THEOBALD. ACT II. SCENE I.

Line 48.

-unready so?] Unready was the current word in JOHNSON.

those times for undressed.

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Line 285. From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.] This is given as the original of the two badges of the houses of York and Lancaster, whether truly or not, is no great matter. But the proverbial expression of saying a thing under the rose, I am persuaded came from thence. When the nation had ranged itself into two great factions, under the white and red rose, and were perpetually plotting and counterplotting against one another, then, when a matter of faction was communicated by either party to his friend in the same quarrel, it was natural for him to add, that he said it under the rose; meaning that, as it concerned the faction, it was religiously to be kept secret. WARBURTON.

Line 290. I love no colours;] Colours is here used amJOHNSON.

biguously for tints and deceits.

Line 301.

justly proposed.

Line 325.

well objected;] Properly thrown in our way, JOHNSON.

but anger,—that thy cheeks &c.] i. e. it is not

for fear that my cheeks look pale, but for anger; anger produced by this circumstance, namely, that thy cheeks blush, &c.

MALONE.

Line 350. He bears him on the place's privilege,] The Temple, being a religious house, was an asylum, a place of exemption, from violence, revenge, and bloodshed. JOHNSON.

ACT II. SCENE V.

Enter Mortimer,] Shakspeare has departed from the truth of history in this meeting of Mortimer and Plantagenet.

Line 406. Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.] I know not whether Milton did not take from this hint the lines with which he opens his tragedy. JOHNSON. Line 409. pursuivants of death,] Pursuivants. The heralds that, forerunning death, proclaim its approach. JOHNSON. Line 413. -us drawing to their exigent:] Exigent, end.

JOHNSON.

JOHNSON.

415. And pithless arms,] Pith was used for marrow, and figuratively, for strength. Line 428. Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign,This loathsome sequestration have I had;] Here

again, the author certainly is mistaken.

Line 433.

MALONE.

the arbitrator of despairs, Just death, kind umpire of men's miseries;] That is, he that terminates or concludes misery. The expression is harsh and forced.

JOHNSON.

Line 499. Levied an army;] Here is again another falsification of history. Cambridge levied no army, but was apprehended at Southampton, the night before Henry sailed from that town for France, on the information of this very Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. MALONE.

Line 508. Thou art my heir; the rest, I wish thee gather:] The sense is, I acknowledge thee to be my heir; the consequences which may be collected from thence, I recommend it to thee to draw. НЕАТН.

Line 539. Choak'd with ambition of the meaner sort;] We are to understand the speaker as reflecting on the ill fortune of Mortimer, in being always made a tool of by the Percies of the North in their rebellious intrigues; rather than asserting his claim to the crown, in support of his own princely ambition.

WARBURTON.

Line 545. Or make my ill,] My ill, is my ill usage. MALONE.

ACT III. SCENE I.

The Parliament-House.] This parliament was held in 1426, at Leicester, though the author of this play has represented it to have been held in London. King Henry was now in the fifth

year of his age. In the first parliament which was held at Lon

don shortly after his father's death, his mother queen Katharine brought the young king from Windsor to the metropolis, and sat on the throne of the parliament-house with the infant in her lap. MALONE.

-put up a Bill;] i. e. articles of accusation, for in this sense the word bill was sometimes used. So, in Nashe's Have with you to Saffron Walden, 1596: "That's the cause we have so manie bad workmen now adaies: put up a bill against them next parliament." MALONE.

Line 45. Thou bastard of my grandfather,] The bishop of Winchester was an illegitimate son of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, by Katharine Swynford, whom the duke afterwards married. MALONE.

Line 56. Roam thither then.] Roam to Rome. To roam is supposed to be derived from the cant of vagabonds, who often pretended a pilgrimage to Rome. JOHNSON.

Line 105. seemly, indecent.

Line 112.

-149.

kind remorse.

-unaccustom'd fight-] Unaccustom'd is unJOHNSON.

-an inkhorn mate,] A bookman. JOHNSON. -hath a kindly gird.] i. e. feels an emotion of JOHNSON.

Line 194. in reguerdon of that duty done,] Recompence,

JOHNSON.

return. Line 220. So will this base and envious discord breed.] That is, so will the malignity of this discord propagate itself, and advance. JOHNSON.

ACT III. SCENE II.

Line 248. Here enter'd Pucelle, and her practisants:] Practice, in the language of that time, was treachery, and perhaps in the

softer sense stratagem. Practisants are therefore confederates in stratagems.

JOHNSON. Line 255. No way to that,] That is, no way equal to that, no way so fit as that. JOHNSON.

Line 350. -save myself by flight;] I have no doubt that it was the exaggerated representation of sir John Fastolfe's cowardice which the author of this play has given, that induced Shakspeare to give the name of Falstaff to his knight. Sir John Fastolfe did indeed fly at the battle of Patay in the year 1429; and is reproached by Talbot in a subsequent scene, for his conduct on that occasion; but no historian has said that he fled before Rouen. The change of the name had been already made, for throughout the old copy of this play, this flying general is erroneously called Falstaffe. MALONE.

Dies, &c.] The duke of Bedford died at Rouen in September, 1435, but not in any action before that town.

ACT III. SCENE III.

MALONE,

Line 440. As looks the mother on her lowly babe,] It is plain Shakspeare wrote-lovely babe, it answering to fertile France above, which this domestic image is brought to illustrate.

WARBURTON.

The alteration is easy and probable, but perhaps the poet by lowly babe meant the babe lying low in death. Lowly answers as well to town defaced and wasting ruin, as lovely to fertile.

Line 477. these haughty words of hers

JOHNSON.

Have batter'd me like roaring cannon-shot,] How these lines came hither I know not; there was nothing in the speech of Joan haughty or violent, it was all soft entreaty and mild expostulation. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson mistakes the meaning of haughty; it simply means high, exalted.

Line 485. Done like a Frenchman; turn, and turn again!] The inconstancy of the French was always the subject of satire. I have read a dissertation written to prove that the index of the wind upon our steeples was made in form of a cock, to ridicule the French for their frequent changes. JOHNSON,

ACT III. SCENE IV.

Line 516. I do remember how my father said,] The author of this play was not a very correct historian. Henry was but nine months old when his father died, and never saw him. MALOne. Line 521. Or been reguerdon'd-] i. e. recompensed.

-539. That, who so draws a sword, 'tis present death;] Shakspeare wrote:

-draws a sword i'th' presence 't's death;

i. e. in the court, or in the presence chamber. WARBURTON. This reading cannot be right, because, as Mr. Edwards observed, it cannot be pronounced. It is, however, a good comment, as it shews the author's meaning. JOHNSON.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

Line 76. a Latinism. Line 106. - -did repugn the truth,] To repugn is to resist. 196. And, if I wist, he did,] York says he is not pleased that the king should prefer the red rose, the badge of Somerset his enemy; Warwick desires him not to be offended at it, as he dares say the king meant no harm. To which York, yet unsatisfied, hastily adds, in a menacing tone,-If I thought he did;but he instantly checks his threat with, let it rest. It is an example of a rhetorical figure, which our author has elsewhere used.

-I am prevented,] Prevented is here, anticipated;
MALONE.

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Line 209. 'Tis much,] In our author's time this phrase meant-Tis strange, or wonderful. MALONE.

Line 210. when envy breeds unkind division ;] Envy in old English writers frequently means enmity. Unkind is unnatural. MALONE.

ACT IV. SCENE II.

Line 222. Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire;] The author of this play followed Hall's Chronicle: "The Goddesse of warre, called Bellona- hath these three hand maides ever of necessitie attendyng on her; Bloud, Fire, and Famine; whiche thre damosels be of that force and strength that every one of

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