No more fhall trenching war channel her fields,

By her lips Shakspeare may mean the lips of peace, who is men. tioned in the fecond line; or may use the thirsty entrance of the foil, for the porous furface of the earth, through which all moisture enters, and is thirftily drank, or soaked up.

So, in an Ode inferted by Gafcoigne in his and Francis Kinwelmerfh'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 licentiously, to fay, No more fhall this foil have the lips of her thirfty 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 these 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 passage 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. 2. This laft obfervation has been made by an anonymous writer.

Again, in K. Richard II:

"Reft thy unreft on England's lawful earth,

66

Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood."

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 thirty earth,

"Grown to a love-game, and a bridal feast ?” MALONE.

Nor bruise 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 should propofe, is to read Erinnys, inftead of entrance. By Erinnys is meant the fury of difcord. 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 fecond Æneid of Virgil, where Æneas calls Helen

Troja & patria communis Erinnys.

And an expreffion fomewhat fimilar occurs in the first part of King
Henry VI. where Sir William Lucy fays:

"Is Talbot flain? the Frenchman's only fcourge,

"Your kingdom's terror, and black Nemefis?"

It is evident that the words, her own children, her fields, her
flowrets, muft 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:

66

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 phrafe alfo occurs in the tenth book of Lucan:

Dedecus Egypti, Latio feralis Erinnys.

Amidft these uncertainties of opinion, however, let me present
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
feries of comments thrice as long as the dialogue to which it is
appended. All that is wanted, on this emergency, feems to be-
a juft and ftriking perfonification, or, rather, a proper name.
former of thefe is not difcoverable in the old reading-entrance;
but the latter, furnished by Mr. M. Mafon, may, I think, be fafely
admitted, as it affords a natural unembarraffed introduction to the
train of imagery that fucceeds.

A a 4

"gain in the 5th Thebaid of Statius, v. 202

Pectore.

cuneta sua regnat

The

Erinnys

Of hostile paces: thofe oppofed eyes,

Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,*
All of one nature, of one fubftance bred,-
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,

Shall now, in mutual, well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way; and be no more oppos'd
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-fheathed knife,
No more fhall cut his mafter. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the fepulcher of Christ,'

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 abfolutely unintelligible.-It stands as follows:

66

Night, like a mafque, is entred heaven's great hall,
"With thousand torches ushering the way:
"To Rifus will we confecrate this evening,
"Like Meffermis cheating of the brack.

"Weele make this night the day," &c. *

Is it impoffible, therefore, that Erinnys may have been blundered into entrance, a transformation almoft as perverfe and mysterious as the foregoing in Marston'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 themselves within the bounds of timid conjecture, it is neceffary I fhould fubjoin, that his prefent 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

Whose foldier now, under whose bleffed cross We are impreffed and engag'd to fight,) Forthwith a power of English shall we levy;" Whose arms were moulded in their mothers' womb To chase these pagans, in those holy fields, Over whofe acres walk'd those blessed feet, Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nail'd For our advantage, on the bitter crofs. But this our purpose is a twelve-month old, And bootlefs 'tis to tell you-we will go; Therefore we meet not now:-Then let me hear Of you, my gentle coufin Weftmoreland, What yefternight our council did decree, In forwarding this dear expedience.R

WEST And m But yel

to make, obliged t only lyin

to the fe

not cor

fenfe, o Pericles,

The e I concer regards th

7 Ther

now mee

intended

8

So, in

9 And

A poft from Wales, loaden with heavy news;
Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
And a thousand of his people butchered:
Upon whofe dead corps there was fuch mifufe,
Such beaftly, fhameless transformation,
By those Welshwomen done, as may not be,
Without much shame, retold or spoken of.

K. HEN. It seems then, that the tidings of this broil

Brake off our business for the Holy land.

WEST. This, match'd with other, did, my gracious lord;

For more uneven and unwelcome news

Came from the north, and thus it did import.
On Holy-rood day, the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy,' and brave Archibald,+

Limits, as Mr. Heath obferves, may mean, outlines, rough sketches or calculations. STEEVENS.

Limits may mean the regulated and appointed times for the conduct of the bufinefs in hand. So, in Measure for Measure:-" between the time of the contract and limit of the folemnity, her brother Frederick was wreck'd at fea." Again, in Macbeth:

-I'll make fo bold to call,

"For 'tis my limited fervice." MALONE.

2 By thofe Welforwomen done,] Thus Holinfhed, p. 528:"-fuch fhameful villanie executed upon the carcaffes of the dead men by the Welbomen; as the like (I doo beleeve) hath never or fildome beene practifed." STEEVENS.

3

the gallant Hotfpur there,

Young Harry Percy,] Holinfhed's Hiftory of Scotland, p. 240, fays: "This Harry Percy was furnamed, for his often pricking, Henry Hotfpur, as one that feldom times refted, if there were anie fervice to be done abroad." TOLLET.

4 -Archibald,] Archibald Douglas, earl Douglas.

STEEVENS.