King Henry the Fourth. Prince John of Lancafter, Jons to the King. Sir Walter Blunt, Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester. Sir Richard Vernon. Sir John Falstaff. Gadshill. Peto. Bardolph. Lady Percy, wife to Hotspur, and fifter to Mortimer. Lady Mortimer, daughter to Glendower, and wife to Mortimer. Mrs. Quickly, hoftefs of a tavern in Eastcheap. Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, two Carriers, Travellers, and Attendants. SCENE, England. 2 Prince John of Lancafter.] The perfons of the drama were originally collected by Mr. Rowe, who has given the title of Duke of Lancafter to Prince John, a mistake which Shakspeare has been no where guilty of in the first part of this play, though in the fecond he has fallen into the fame error. King Henry IV. was himfelf the laft perfon that ever bore the title of Duke of Lancaster. But all his fons (till they had peerages, as Clarence, Bedford, Gloucefter,) were distinguished by the name of the royal house, as John of Lancaster, Humphrey of Lancaster, &c. and in that proper ftyle, the prefent John (who became afterwards fo illuftrious by the title of Duke of Bedford,) is always mentioned in the play before us. STEEVENS. FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV. ACT I. SCENE I. London. A Room in the Palace. Enter King HENRY, WESTMORELand, Sir Walter BLUNT, and Others. K. HEN. So fhaken as we are, fo wan with care, Find we a time for frighted peace to pant, And breathe short-winded accents of new broils * To be commenc'd in ftronds afar remote. No more the thirsty Erinnys of this foil Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;' 2 Find we a time for frighted peace to pant, And breathe fhort-winded accents of new broils-] That is, let us foften peace to reft a while without disturbance, that she recover breath to propose new wars. JOHNSON. 3 No more the thirfty Erinnys of this foil may Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;] See Mr. M. Mafon's note, p. 359. The old copies read-entrance. Perhaps the following conjecture may be thought very far fetch'd, and yet I am willing to venture it, because it often happens that a wrong reading has affinity to the right. We might read: the thirfty entrants of this foil; i. e. those who fet foot on this kingdom through the thirft of power or conqueft, as the speaker himself had done, on his return to England after banishment. Whoever is accustomed to the old copies of this author, will ge nerally find the words confequents, occurrents, ingredients, fpelt confequence, occurrence, ingredience; and thus, perhaps, the French word entrants, anglicized by Shakspeare, might have been corrupted into entrance, which affords no very apparent meaning. No more shall trenching war channel her fields, By her lips Shakspeare may mean the lips of peace, who is mentioned in the fecond line; or may ufe the thirsty entrance of the foil, for the porous furface of the earth, through which all moisture enters, and is thirftily drank, or foaked up. So, in an Ode inferted by Gafcoigne in his and Francis Kinwelmersh's tranflation of the Phoeniffe of Euripides: "And make the greedy ground a drinking cup, "To fup the blood of murdered bodies up." STEEVENS. If there be no corruption in the text, I believe Shakspeare meant, however licentioufly, to fay, No more fhall this foil have the lips of her thirsty entrance, or mouth, daubed with the blood of her own children. Her lips, in my apprehenfion, refers to foil in the preceding line, and not to peace, as has been fuggefted. Shakspeare feldom attends to the integrity of his metaphors. In the fecond of thefe lines he confiders the foil or earth of England as a perfon; (So, in King Richard II: "Tells them, he does beftride a bleeding land, "Gafping for life under great Bolingbroke.)" and yet in the first line the foil must be understood in its ordinary material fenfe, as alfo in a fubfequent line in which its fields are faid to be channelled with war. Of this kind of incongruity our author's plays furnish innumerable inftances. Daub, the reading of the earliest copy, is confirmed by a paffage in K. Richard II. where we again meet with the image prefented here: "For that our kingdom's earth fhall not be foil'd "With that dear blood which it hath foftered." The fame kind of imagery is found in K. Henry VI. P. III: "Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk:" In which paffage, as well as in that before us, the poet had perhaps the facred writings in his thoughts: "And now art thou curfed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand." Gen. iv. z. This laft obfervation has been made by an anonymous writer. Again, in K. Richard II: "Reft thy unreft on England's lawful earth, The earth may with equal propriety be faid to daub her lips with blood, as to be made drunk with blood. A paffage in the old play of King John, 1591, may throw fome light on that before us : "Is all the blood y-fpilt on either part, Clofing the crannies of the thirsty earth, "Grown to a love-game, and a bridal feaft?" MALONE. Nor bruife her flowrets with the armed hoofs The thirty entrance of the foil is nothing more or lefs, than the face of the earth parch'd and crack'd as it always appears in a dry fummer. As to its being perfonified, it is certainly no fuch unufual practice with Shakspeare. Every one talks familiarly of Mother Earth; and they who live upon her face, may without much impropriety be called her children. Our author only confines the image to his own country. The allufion is to the Barons' wars. RITSON. The amendment which I fhould propofe, is to read Erinnys, inftead of entrance.-By Erinys is meant the fury of discord. The Erinnys of the foil, may.poffibly be confidered as an uncommon mode of expreffion, as in truth it is; but it is juftified by a paffage in the second Æneid of Virgil, where Æneas calls Helen Troja & patriæ communis Erinnys. "Is Talbot flain? the Frenchman's only fcourge, "Your kingdom's terror, and black Nemefis?" of King It is evident that the words, her own children, her fields, her flowrets, must all neceffarily refer to this foil; and that Shakspeare in this place, as in many others, ufes the perfonal pronoun instead of the imperfonal; her instead of its; unless we fuppofe he means to perfonify the foil, as he does in Richard II. where Bolingbroke departing on his exile fays: fweet foil, adieu! My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet." M. MASON. Mr. M. Mafon's conjecture (which I prefer to any explanation hitherto offered refpecting this difficult paffage) may receive fupport from N. Ling's Epifle prefixed to Wit's Commonwealth, 1598: I knowe there is nothing in this worlde but is fubject to the Erynnis of ill-difpofed perfons."-The fame phrase alfo occurs in the tenth book of Lucan: Dedecus Egypti, Latio feralis Erinnys. Amidst thefe uncertainties of opinion, however, let me prefent our readers with a fingle fact on which they may implicitly rely; viz. that Shakspeare could not have defigned to open his play with a fpeech, the fifth line of which is obfcure enough to demand a series of comments thrice as long as the dialogue to which it is appended. All that is wanted, on this emergency, feems to bea juft and striking perfonification, or, rather, a proper name. former of thefe is not discoverable in the old reading-entrance; but the latter, furnished by Mr. M. Mason, may, I think, be fafely admitted, as it affords a natural unembarraffed introduction to the train of imagery that fucceeds. The Of hoftile paces: thofe oppofed eyes, Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,* Shall now, in mutual, well-befeeming ranks, Let us likewife recollect, that, by the firft editors of our author, Hyperion had been changed into Epton; and that Marston's Infatiate Countefs, 1613, concludes with a fpeech fo darkened by corruptions, that the comparifon in the fourth line of it is ab folutely unintelligible.-It stands as follows: "Night, like a mafque, is entred heaven's great hall, "Weele make this night the day," &c. Is it impoffible, therefore, that Erinnys may have been blundered into entrance, a transformation almost as perverse and mysterious as the foregoing in Marfton's tragedy? Being nevertheless aware that Mr. M. Mafon's gallant effort to produce an eafy fenfe, will provoke the flight objections and petty cavils of fuch as reftrain themfelves within the bounds of timid conjecture, it is neceffary I fhould fubjoin, that his present emendation was not inferted in our text on merely my own judgement, but with the deliberate approbation of Dr. Farmer.-Having now prepared for controverfy-figna canant! STEEVENS. like the meteors of a troubled heaven,] Namely, long ftreaks of red, which reprefent the lines of armies; the appearance of which, and their likeness to fuch lines, gave occafion to all the fuperftition of the common people concerning armies in the air, &c. WARBURTON. 5 As far as to the fepulcher &c.] The lawfulness and juftice of the holy wars have been much difputed; but perhaps there is a principle on which the queftion may be eafily determined. If it be part of the religion of the Mahometans to extirpate by the fword all other religions, it is, by the laws of felf-defence, lawful for men of every other religion, and for Christians among others, |