blood:

Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.
Thy place in council thou hast rudely lost5,
Which by thy younger brother is supplied;
And art almost an alien to the hearts
Of all the court and princes of my
The hope and expectation of thy time
Is ruin'd; and the soul of every man
Prophetically does forethink thy fall.
Had I so lavish of my presence been,
So common-hackney'd in the eyes of men,
So stale and cheap to vulgar company;
Opinion, that did help me to the crown,
Had still kept loyal to possession;
And left me in reputeless banishment,
A fellow of no mark, nor likelihood.
By being seldom seen, I could not stir,
But, like a comet, I was wonder'd at:

That men would tell their children, This is he; Others would say,—Where? which is Bolingbroke? And then I stole all courtesy from heaven 7,

5 This appears to be an anachronism. The prince's removal from council, in consequence of his striking the Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, was some years after the battle of Shrewsbury (1403). His brother the duke of Clarence was appointed president in his room, and he was not created a duke till 1411.

6 True to him that had then possession of the crown.

7 Massinger, in The Great Duke of Florence, has adopted this expression:

Giovanni,

A prince in expectation, when he lived here
Stole courtesy from heaven; and would not to
The meanest servant in my father's house
Have kept such distance.'

Mr. Gifford, in the following note on this passage, gives the best explanation of the phrase, which the commentators have altogether mistaken:- the plain meaning of the phrase is that the affability and sweetness of Giovanni were of a heavenly kind, i. e. more perfect than was usually found among men, resembling that divine condescension which excludes none from its regard, and, therefore, immediately derived or stolen from heaven, from whence all good proceeds. The word stolen here means little else than to win by imperceptible progression, by gentle violence.'

And dress'd myself in such humility,

That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,
Even in the presence of the crowned king.
Thus did I keep my person fresh, and new;
My presence, like a robe pontifical,

Ne'er seen, but wonder'd at: and so my state,
Seldom, but sumptuous, showed like a feast;
And won, by rareness, such solemnity.
The skipping king, he ambled up and down
With shallow jesters, and rash bavinR wits,
Soon kindled, and soon burn'd: carded his state;
Mingled his royalty with carping 10 fools;
Had his great name profaned with their scorns;
And gave his countenance, against his name,
To laugh at gibing boys, and stand the push
Of every beardless vain comparative11:
Grew a companion to the common streets,

8 Bavins are brush-wood, or small faggots used for lighting fires. Thus in Lyly's Mother Bombie, 1594 ::-'Bavins will have their flashes, and youth their fancies, the one as soon quenched as the other burnt.'

9 To card is to mix, or debase by mixing. The metaphor is probably taken from mingling coarse wool with fine, and carding them together, thereby diminishing the value of the latter. The phrase is used by other writers for to mingle or mix. Thus in Beaumont and Fletcher's Tamer Tamed :

'But mine is such a drench of balderdash,
Such a strange carded cunningness.'

And in Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier :-'You card your beer (if you see your guests begin to get drunk), half small, half strong, &c. Carded ale' is also mentioned by Nashe, in 'Have with you to Saffron Walden,' 1596. Shakspeare has a similar thought in All's Well that Ends Well:- The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.'

10 The quarto, 1598, reads capring. The quarto, 1599, and subsequent old copies, read carping, which I am inclined to think from the context is the word which Shakspeare wrote. 'A carping momus,' and 'a carping fool,' were very common expressions in that age.

11 i. e. every beardless, vain, young fellow who affected wit, or was a dealer in comparisons. Vide Act i. Sc. 2, p. 109.

Enfeoff'd 12 himself to popularity:

That being daily swallow'd by men's eyes,
They surfeited with honey; and began

To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
So, when he had occasion to be seen,
He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
Heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes,
As, sick and blunted with community,
Afford no extraordinary gaze,

Such as is bent on sunlike majesty,

When it shines seldom in admiring eyes:
But rather drowz'd, and hung their eyelids down,
Slept in his face, and render'd such aspect
As cloudy men use to their adversaries;
Being with his presence glutted, gorg'd, and full.
And in that very line, Harry, standest thou:
For thou hast lost thy princely privilege,
With vile participation; not an eye

But is a-weary of thy common sight,

Save mine, which hath desir'd to see thee more;
Which now doth that I would not have it do,
Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.

P. Hen. I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord, Be more myself.

K. Hen.

For all the world,

As thou art to this hour, was Richard then
When I from France set foot at Ravenspurg;
And even as I was then, is Percy now.
Now by my sceptre, and my soul to boot,
He hath more worthy interest to the state 13,

12 i. e. gave himself up, absolutely and entirely, to popularity. To enfeoff is a law term, signifying to give or grant any thing to another in fee simple.

13 Interest to the state; we should now write in the state, but this was the phraseology of the poet's time. So in The Winter's Tale, - he is less frequent to his princely exercises than

Than thou, the shadow of succession:

For, of no right, nor colour like to right,
He doth fill fields with harness in the realm;
Turns head against the lion's armed jaws;

And, being no more in debt to years than thou,
Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on,
To bloody battles, and to bruising arms.
What never-dying honour hath he got

Against renowned Douglas; whose high deeds,
Whose hot incursions, and great name in arms,
Holds from all soldiers chief majority,
And military title capital,

Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ?
Thrice hath this Hotspur Mars in swathing clothes,
This infant warrior in his enterprises

Discomfited great Douglas; ta'en him once,
Enlarged him, and made a friend of him,
To fill the mouth of deep defiance up,

And shake the peace and safety of our throne.
And what say you to this? Percy, Northumberland,
The archbishop's grace of York, Douglas, Mortimer,
Capitulate 14 against us, and are up.

But wherefore do I tell these news to thee?
Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes,
Which art my near'st and dearest 15 enemy?
Thou that art like enough,-through vassal fear,
Base inclination, and the start of spleen,-
To fight against me under Percy's pay,
To dog his heels, and court'sy at his frowns,
To show how much degenerate thou art.

formerly.' Thou hast but the shadow of succession, compared with the more worthy interest in the state (i. e. great popularity) which he possesses."

14 To capitulate, according to the old dictionaries, formerly signified to make articles of agreement. The nobles enumerated had entered into such articles, or confederated against the king. 15 See vol. i. p. 382, note 5.

P. Hen. Do not think so, you shall not find it so ;
And God forgive them, that have so much sway'd
Your majesty's good thoughts away from me!
I will redeem all this on Percy's head,
And, in the closing of some glorious day,
Be bold to tell you, that I am your son;
When I will wear a garment all of blood,
And stain my favours 16 in a bloody mask,
Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame with it.
And that shall be the day, whene'er it lights,
That this same child of honour and renown,
This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,
And your unthought-of Harry, chance to meet:
For every honour sitting on his helm,

'Would they were multitudes; and on my head
My shames redoubled! for the time will come,
That I shall make this northern youth exchange
His glorious deeds for my indignities.
Percy is but my factor, good my lord,
To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;
And I will call him to so strict account,
That he shall render every glory up,
Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,
Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.
This, in the name of God, I promise here:
The which if he be pleas'd I shall perform,
I do beseech your majesty, may salve
The long-grown wounds of my intemperance:
If not, the end of life cancels all bands 17;
And I will die a hundred thousand deaths,
Ere break the smallest parcel 18 of this vow.

16 Favours is probably here used for colours; the scarf by which a knight of rank was distinguished. In the last scene the Prince says:

'But let my favours hide thy mangled face.'
18 Part.

17 Bonds.