ish ill done; it ish give over: I would have blowed up the town, so Chrish save me, la, in an hour. O, tish ill done, tish ill done; by my hand, tish ill done!

Flu. Captain Macmorris, I peseech you now, will you vouchsafe me, look you, a few disputations with you, as partly touching or concerning the disciplines of the war, the Roman wars, in the way of argument, look you, and friendly communication; partly, to satisfy my opinion, and partly, for the satisfaction, look you, of my mind, as touching the direction of the military discipline; that is the point.

Jamy. It sall be very gud, gud feith, gud captains bath and I sall quit9 you with gud leve, as I may pick occasion; that sall I, marry.

Mac. It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me, the day is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and the king, and the dukes; it is no time to discourse. The town is beseeched, and the trumpet calls us to the breach; and we talk, and, by Chrish, do nothing; 'tis shame for us all: so God sa' me, 'tis shame to stand still; it is shame, by my hand: and there is throats to be cut, and works to be done: and there ish nothing done, so Chrish sa' me, la.

Jamy. By the mess, ere theise eyes of mine take themselves to slumber, aile do gude service, or aile ligge i' the grund for it; ay, or go to death: and aile pay it as valorously as I may, that sall I surely do, that is the breff and the long: Mary, I wad full fain heard some question 'tween you 'tway.

Flu. Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under your correction, there is not many of your

nation

་

9 I shall quit you;' that is, I shall, with your permission, requite you; that is, answer you, or interpose with my arguments, as I shall find opportunity.

Mac. Of my nation? What ish my nation? ish a villain, and a bastard, and a knave, and a rascal? What ish my nation? Who talks of my nation?

Flu. Look you, if you take the matter otherwise than is meant, Captain Macmorris, peradventure, I shall think you do not use me with that affability as in discretion you ought to use me, look you; being as goot a man as yourself, both in the disciplines of wars, and in the derivation of my birth, and in other particularities.

Mac. I do not know you so good a man as myself: so Chrish save me, I will cut off your head. Gow. Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.

Jamy. Au! that's a foul fault.

[A Parley sounded. Gow. The town sounds a parley.

Flu. Captain Macmorris, when there is more better opportunity to be required, look you, I will be so bold as to tell you, I know the disciplines of war; and there is an end.

SCENE III.

[Exeunt.

The same. Before the Gates of Harfleur.

The Governor and some Citizens on the Walls; the English Forces below. Enter KING HENRY and his Train.

K. Hen. How yet resolves the governor of the town?

This is the latest parle we will admit:

Therefore, to our best mercy give yourselves;

Or, like to men proud of destruction,

Defy us to our worst; for, as I am a soldier

(A name, that, in my thoughts, becomes me best), If I begin the battery once again,

I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur

Till in her ashes she lie buried.

The gates of mercy shall be all shut up1;

And the flesh'd soldier,―rough and hard of heart,— In liberty of bloody hand, shall range

With conscience wide as hell; mowing like grass
Your fresh-fair virgins, and your flowering infants.
What is it then to me, if impious war,-

Array'd in flames, like to the prince of fiends,-
Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
Enlink'd to waste and desolation?

What is❜t to me, when you yourselves are cause,
your pure maidens fall into the hand

If

Of hot and forcing violation?

What rein can hold licentious wickedness,

When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil,
As send precepts to the Leviathan

To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town, and of your people,

Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of deadly murder, spoil, and villany.

If not, why, in a moment, look to see

The gates of mercy shall be all shut up.' Gray has borrowed this thought in his Elegy:

'And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.'

Thus again in King Henry VI. Part III.:

'Open thy gate of mercy, gracious Lord.'

Lord Bacon, in a letter to King James, written a few days after the death of Shakspeare, says, And therefore in conclusion we wished him not to shut the gate of your majesty's mercy against himself by being obdurate.' He is speaking of the earl of So

merset.

2. Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace

O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds.'

To overblow is to drive away, to keep off. Johnson observes that this is a very harsh metaphor.

The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,

And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls;
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes;

Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confus'd
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid?
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?

Gov. Our expectation hath this day an end:
The Dauphin, whom of succour we entreated3,
Returns us-that his powers are not yet ready
To raise so great a siege. Therefore, dread king,
We yield our town, and lives, to thy soft mercy:
Enter our gates; dispose of us, and ours;
For we no longer are defensible.

K. Hen. Open your gates,—Come, uncle Exeter, Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain, And fortify it strongly 'gainst the French: Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle,— The winter coming on, and sickness growing Upon our soldiers,—we'll retire to Calais. To-night in Harfleur will we be your guest; To-morrow for the march are we addrest1.

[Flourish. The King, &c. enter the Town.

SCENE IV1. Roüen. A Room in the Palace. Enter KATHARINE and ALICE.

Kath. Alice, tu as esté en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le langage.

3 Whom of succour we intreated.' See A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act iii. Sc. 1, p. 258, in a note on the passage:-' I shall desire you of more acquaintance.'

4 i. e. prepared.

1 Every one must wish with Warburton and Farmer to believe that this scene is an interpolation. Yet, as Johnson remarks,

Alice. Un peu, madame.

Kath. Je te prie, m'enseignez; il faut que j'apprenne à parler. Comment appellez vous la main,

en Anglois?

Alice. La main? elle est appellée, de hand.
Kath. De hand. Et les doigts?

Alice. Les doigts? ma foy, j' oublie les doigts; mais je me souviendray. Les doigts? je pense, qu'ils sont appellé de fingres; ouy, de fingres.

Kath. La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense, que je suis le bon escolier. J'ay gagné deux mots d'Anglois vistement. Comment appellez vous les ongles?

Alice. Les ongles? les appellons, de nails.

Kath. De nails. Escoutez; dites moy, si je parle bien: de hand, de fingres, de nails.

Alice. C'est bien dit, madame; il est fort bon Anglois.

Kath. Dites moy en Anglois, le bras.
Alice. De arm, madame.

Kath. Et le coude.

Alice. De elbow.

Kath. De elbow. Je m'en faitz la répétition de tous les mots, que vous m'avez appris dès à present. Alice. Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.

Kath. Excusez moy, Alice; escoutez: De hand, de fingre, de nails, de arm, de bilbow.

the grimaces of the two Frenchwomen, and the odd accent with which they uttered the English, might divert an audience more refined than could be found in the poet's time. There is in it not only the French language, but the French spirit. Alice compliments the princess upon the knowledge of four words, and tells her that she pronounces like the English themselves. The princess suspects no deficiency in her instructress, nor the instructress in herself. The extraordinary circumstance of introducing a character speaking French in an English drama was no novelty to our early stage.