Fly o'er them all, impatient for their hour.
Description cannot suit itself in words,
To démonstrate the life of such a battle.
In life so lifeless as it shows itself.

Con. They have said their prayers, and they stay for death.

Dau. Shall we go send them dinners, and fresh suits, And give their fasting horses provender, And after fight with them?

Con. I stay but for my guard 10; On, to the field : I will the banner from a trumpet take,

And use it for my hastę. Come, come, away!
The sun is high, and we outwear the day. [Excunt.

SCENE III. The English Camp.

Enter the English Host; GLOSTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, SALISBURY, and WESTMORELAND. Glo. Where is the king?

Bed. The king himself is rode to view their battle. West. Of fighting men they have full threescore thousand.

10 I stay but for my guard.' Dr. Johnson and Mr. Steevens were of opinion that guard here means rather something of ornament, than an attendant or attendants. Malone has successfully combated their opinion. Holinshed, speaking of the French, says: They thought themselves so sure of victory, that diverse of the noblemen made such haste toward the battle, that they left many of their servants and men of war behind them, and some of them would not once stay for their standards; as amongst other the duke of Brabant, when his standard was not come, caused a banner to be taken from a trumpet, and fastened to a speare, the which he commanded to be borne before him, instead of a standard.' I will add what Malone does not seem to have known, every prince, commander, and chief officer had his attendant guard, or squire of the body, as he was sometimes called; in French garde-du-corps. Even every gendarme, or complete man at arms, had his attendant archer, and they were both persons of distinction. The reader who wishes for proof of this may consult Nicot Thrésor de la Langue Françoise, under the words garde and gendarme. TT 2

Exe. There's five to one; besides, they all are fresh. Sal. God's arm strike with us! 'tis a fearful odds. God be wi' you, princes all; I'll to my charge; If we no more meet, till we meet in heaven, Then, joyfully,my noble lord of Bedford,— My dear lord Gloster,-and my good lord Exeter, And my kind kinsman1,-warriors all, adieu!

Bed. Farewell, good Salisbury; and good luck go with thee!

Exe. Farewell, kind lord; fight valiantly to-day: And yet I do thee wrong, to mind thee of it, For thou art fram'd of the firm truth of valour. [Exit SALISBURY. Bed. He is as full of valour, as of kindness; Princely in both.

West.

O that we now had here

Enter KING HENRY.

But one ten thousand of those men in England,
That do no work to-day!

K. Hen.

What's he, that wishes so?

My cousin Westmoreland?—No, my fair cousin : If we are mark'd to die, we are enough

To do our country loss; and if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honour. God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold;

1. And my kind kinsman.' This is addressed to Westmoreland by the speaker, who was Thomas Montacute, earl of Salisbury: he was not in point of fact related to Westmoreland, there was only a kind of connection by marriage between their families.

2 In the quarto this speech is addressed to Warwick. The incongruity of praying like a Christian and swearing like a heathen, which Johnson objects against, arose from the necessary conformation to the statute 3 James I. c. xxi. against introducing the sacred name on the stage. The players omitted it where they could, and where the metre would not allow of the omission they substituted some other word in its place.

Nor care I, who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns3 me not, if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But, if it be a sin to covet honour,

I am the most offending soul alive.

No, 'faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour,
As one man more, methinks, would share from me,
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more:
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he, which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd—the feast of Crispian1
He, that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He, that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his friends,
And say-to-morrow is Saint Crispian :
Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars,
And say, these wounds I had on Crispin's day.
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,

3 To yearn is to grieve or vex. Thus in The Merry Wives of Windsor: She laments for it that it would yearn your heart to see it.'

4 The feast of Crispian.' The battle of Agincourt was fought upon the 25th of October, 1415. The saints who gave name to the day were Crispin and Crispianus, brethren, born at Rome, from whence they travelled to Soissons, in France, about the year 303, to propagate Christianity, but because they would not be chargeable to others for their maintenance, they exercised the trade of shoemakers; the governor of the town discovering them to be Christians, ordered them to be beheaded, Hence they have become the patron saints of shoemakers. The vigil is the evening before the festival.

But he'll remember, with advantages 5,

What feats he did that day; Then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words,—
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster,-
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd:
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he, to-day that sheds his blood with me,
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition7:
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,

Shall think themselves accurs'd, they were not here;
And hold their manhoods cheap, while any speaks,
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

ૐ

Enter SALISBURY.

Sal. My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed;

'With advantages.' Old men, notwithstanding the natural forgetfulness of old age, shall remember their feats of this day, and remember to tell them with advantage. Age is commonly boastful, and inclined to magnify past acts and past times.

6 From this day to the ending,' &c. Johnson has a note on this passage, which concludes by saying that the civil wars have left in the nation scarcely any tradition of more ancient history.' Nothing can be more erroneous, as Mr. Pye observes; the battles of Creci and Agincourt are better known than those of Edgehill and Marston-moor.' The fact is, that the most popular parts of English history are the historical plays of Shakspeare.

7 i. e. shall advance him to the rank of a gentleman. King Henry V. inhibited any person but such as had a right by inheritance or grant, from bearing coats of arms, except those who fought with him at the battle of Agincourt; and these last were allowed the chief seats at all feasts and public meetings. Vide Anstis's Order of the Garter, vol. ii. p. 108.

The French are bravely in their battles set,
And will with all expedience 9 charge on us.

K. Hen. All things are ready, if our minds be so. West.Perish the man, whose mind is backward now! K. Hen. Thou dost not wish more help from England, cousin?

West. God's will, my liege, 'would you and I alone,
Without more help, might fight this battle out!
K. Hen. Why, now thou hast unwish'd five thou-
sand men 10;

Which likes me better, than to wish us one.—
You know your places: God be with you all!

Tucket. Enter MONTJOY.

Mont. Once more I come to know of thee, King
Harry,

If for thy ransome thou wilt now compound,
Before thy most assured overthrow:

For, certainly, thou art so near the gulf,

Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy,
The Constable desires thee-thou wilt mind1 11
Thy followers of repentance; that their souls
May make a peaceful and a sweet retire

From off these fields, where (wretches) their poor bodies

Must lie and fester.

K. Hen.

Who hath sent thee now?

Mont. The Constable of France.

8 i. e. in a braving manner. To go bravely is to look aloft; and to go gaily, desiring to have the preeminence: Speciose ingredi; faire le brave.'

9 i. e. expedition.

10

thou hast unwished five thousand men.' By wishing only thyself and me, thou hast wished five thousand men away. The poet, inattentive to numbers, puts five thousand, but in the last scene the French are said to be full three score thousand, which Exeter declares to be five to one; the numbers of the English are variously stated, Holinshed makes them fifteen thousand, others but nine thousand.

11 Expedience, it has been before observed, is expedition.