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That ever-valiant and approved Scot,

At Holmedon met,

Where they did spend a fad and bloody hour;
As by discharge of their artillery,

And shape of likelihood, the news was told;
For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention did take horse,
Uncertain of the iffue any way.

K. HEN. Here is a dear and true-industrious

friend,

Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stain'd with the variation of each foil'

Betwixt that Holmedon and this feat of ours;
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.
The earl of Douglas is discomfited;

Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights, Balk'd in their own blood," did fir Walter fee

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5 Stain'd with the variation of each foil-] No circumstance could have been better chosen to mark the expedition of Sir Walter. It is ufed by Falstaff in a fimilar manner, As it were to ride day and night, and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to fhift me, but to ftand flained with travel." HENLEY.

6 Balk'd in their own blood,] I fhould fuppofe, that the author might have written either bath'd, or bak'd, i. e. encrusted over with blood dried upon them. A paffage in Heywood's Iron Age, 1632, may countenance the latter of these conjectures:

"Troilus lies embak'd

"In his cold blood."

Again, in Hamlet :

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-horribly trick'd

"With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, fons,
"Bak'd and impafted," &c.

Again, in Heywood's Iron Age:

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Again, ibid:

bak'd in blood and duft.”

as bak'd in blood." STEEVENS.

Balk is a ridge; and particularly, a ridge of land: here is therefore a metaphor; and perhaps the poet means, in his bold and careless manner of expreffion : "Ten thousand bloody carcaffes piled up together in a long heap."" A ridge of dead bodies

On Holmedon's plains: Of prisoners, Hotspur took
Mordake the earl of Fife, and eldest son

To beaten Douglas; and the earl of Athol
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith."

piled up in blood." If this be the meaning of balked, for the
greater exactnefs of conftruction, we might add to the pointing, viz.
Balk'd, in their own blood, &c.

"Piled up in a ridge, and in their own blood," &c. But without
this punctuation, as at prefent, the context is more poetical, and
prefents a ftronger image.

A balk, in the fenfe here mentioned, is a common expreffion in
Warwickshire, and the northern counties. It is ufed in the fame
fignification in Chaucer's Plowman's Tale, p. 182, edit. Urr.
v. 2428. WARTON.

Balk'd in their own blood, I believe, means, lay'd in heaps or bil-
locks, in their own blood. Blithe's England's Improvement, p. 118,
obferves: "The mole raiseth balks in meads and paftures." In
Leland's Itinerary, Vol. V. p. 16 and 118, Vol. VII. p. 10, a balk
fignifies a bank or hill. Mr. Pope in the Iliad, has the fame thought:
"On heaps the Greeks, on heaps the Trojans bled,
"And thick'ning round them rife the hills of dead."
TOLLET.

"Mordake the earl of Fife, and eldeft fon

To beaten Douglas;] The article-the, which is wanting in
the old copies, was fupplied by Mr. Pope. Mr. Malone, however,
thinks it needlefs, and fays "the word earl is here used as a dif-
fyllable."

Mordake earl of Fife, who was fon to the duke of Albany, re-
gent of Scotland, is here called the fon of earl Douglas, through a
mistake into which the poet was led by the omiffion of a comma in
the paffage of Holinfhed from whence he took this account of the
Scottish prisoners. It ftands thus in the historian: "—and of
prifoners, Mordacke earl of Fife, fon to the gouvernour Archem-
bald earle Dowglas, &c." The want of a comma after gouverneur,
makes thefe words appear to be the defcription of one and the fame
perfon, and fo the poet understood them; but by putting the ftop
in the
proper place, it will then be manifeft that in this lift Mor-
dake who was fon to the governor of Scotland, was the first pri-
foner, and that Archibald earl of Douglas was the second, and
fo on.
STEEVENS.

8

and Menteith.] This is a mistake of Holinfhed in his English Hiftory, for in that of Scotland, p. 259, 262, and 419, he fpeaks of the earl of Fife and Menteith as one and the fame perfon. STEEVENS.

In Chapman's translation of the Shield of Achilles, 4°. 1598, the word balk also occurs: " amongst all these all silent stood their king, "Upon a balk, his scepter in his hand."

Steevery

And is not this an honourable spoil?
A gallant prize? ha, coufin, is it not?
WEST. In faith,

It is a conqueft for a prince to boast of.

K. HEN. Yea, there thou mak'st me fad, and mak'ft me fin

In envy that my lord Northumberland
Should be the father of fo bleft a fon:

A fon, who is the theme of honour's tongue;
Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant;
Who is fweet fortune's minion, and her pride:
Whilft I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and difhonour stain the brow

Of my young Harry. O, that it could be prov'd,
That fome night-tripping fairy had exchang'd
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,
And call'd mine-Percy, his-Plantagenet!
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.
But let him from my thoughts:-What think you
coz',

Of this young Percy's pride? the prisoners,"

In faith,

It is- Thefe words are in the first quarto, 1598, by the inaccuracy of the tranfcriber, placed at the end of the preceding fpeech, but at a confiderable distance from the laft word of it. Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors read-'Faith 'tis &c. MALONE. 2 the prifoners,] Percy had an exclufive right to these prifoners, except the earl of Fife. By the law of arms, every man who had taken any captive, whofe redemption did not exceed ten thoufand crowns, had him clearly for himself, either to acquit or ranfom, at his pleasure. It feems from Camden's Britannia, that Pounouny castle in Scotland was built out of the ranfom of this very Henry Percy, when taken prifoner at the battle of Otterbourne by an ancestor of the prefent earl of Eglington. TOLLET.

Percy could not refuse the Earl of Fife to the King; for being a prince of the blood royal, (fon to the Duke of Albany, brother to King Robert III.) Henry might juftly claim him by his acknowledged military prerogative. STEEVENS.

Which he in this adventure hath surpriz❜d,
To his own ufe he keeps; and fends me word,
I fhall have none but Mordake earl of Fife.

WEST. This is his uncle's teaching, this is Worcefter,

Malevolent to you in all aspects;

Which makes him prune himself,' and bristle up The creft of youth against your dignity.

K. HEN. But I have fent for him to answer this;
And, for this caufe, awhile we must neglect
Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.

Coufin, on Wednesday next our council we
Will hold at Windfor, fo inform the lords:
But come yourself with speed to us again;
For more is to be faid, and to be done,
Than out of anger can be uttered.*

WEST. I will, my liege.

[Exeunt.

2 Malevolent to you in all afpe&s;] An aftrological allufion. Worcester is reprefented as a malignant ftar that influenced the conduct of Hotspur. HENLEY.

3 Which makes him prune himself,] The metaphor is taken from a cock, who in his pride prunes himself; that is, picks off the loofe feathers to fmooth the reft. To prune and to plume, spoken of a bird, is the fame. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnfon is certainly right in his choice of the reading. So, in The Cobler's Prophecy, 1594:

"Sith now thou doft but prune thy wings,

"And make thy feathers gay."

Again, in Green's Metamorphofis, 1613:

"Pride makes the fowl to prune his feathers fo."

But I am not certain that the verb to prune is juftly interpreted. In The Booke of Haukynge, &c, (commonly called The Booke of St. Albans) is the following account of it: "The hauke proineth when the fetcheth oyle with her beake over the taile, and anointeth her feet and her fethers. She plumeth when she pulleth fethers of anie foule and cafteth them from her." STEEVENS.

4 Than out of anger can be uttered.] That is, " More is to be faid than anger will fuffer me to say: more than can issue from a mind disturbed like mine." JOHNSON.

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Enter HENR

HENRY Prince of Wales, and Falstaff.

FAL. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?

P. HEN. Thou art fo fat-witted, with drinking of old fack, and unbuttoning thee after fupper, and fleeping upon benches after noon, that thou haft forgotten to demand that truly which thou would'st truly know.' What a devil haft thou to do with the time of the day? unless hours were cups of fack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the figns of leaping-houses, and the bleffed fun himself a fair hot wench in flamecolour'd taffata; I see no reason, why thou should'st be fo fuperfluous to demand the time of the day.

FAL. Indeed, you come near me, now Hal: for we, that take purfes, go by the moon and seven stars; and not by Phoebus,-he, that wandering knight fo fair. And, I pray thee, fweet wag, when thou art

sto demand that truly which thou would'st truly know.] The Prince's objection to the queftion feems to be, that Falstaff had afked in the night what was the time of the day. JOHNSON.

This cannot be well received as the objection of the Prince; for presently after, the Prince himself fays: "Good morrow, Ned," and Poins replies: "Good morrow, fweet lad." The truth may be, that when Shakspeare makes the Prince with Poins a good morrow, he had forgot that the fcene commenced at night.

STEEVENS.

6 Phœbus,-he, that wandering knight fo fair.] Falstaff starts the idea of Phœbus, i. e. the fun; but deviates into an allufion to El Donzel del Febo, the knight of the fun in a Spanish romance tranflated (under the title of The Mirror of Knighthood, &c.) during the age of Shakfpeare. This illuftrious perfonage was "moft excellently faire" and a great wanderer, as thofe who travel after him throughout three thick volumes in 4to. will difcover. Perhaps the words "that wandering knight so fair," are part of fome for

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