BOLING. O, let no noble eye profane a tear
For me, if I be gor'd with Mowbray's fpear:
As confident, as is the falcon's flight
Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.
My loving lord, [To LORD MARSHAL.] I take my
leave of you;—

Of you, my noble coufin, lord Aumerle ;-
Not fick, although I have to do with death;
But lufty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.
Lo, as at English feafts, fo I regreet

The daintiest laft, to make the end most sweet:
O thou, the earthly author of my blood,—

[To GAUNT.
Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,
Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up
To reach at victory above my head,-
Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers;
And with thy bleffings fteel my lance's point,
That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat,"

8

And furbish new the name of John of Gaunt,
Even in the lufty 'haviour of his fon.

GAUNT. Heaven in thy good caufe make thee profperous!

Be swift like lightning in the execution;

7 waxen coat,] Waxen may mean foft, and confequently penetrable, or flexible. The brigandines or coats of mail, then in ufe, were compofed of fmall pieces of fteel quilted over one another, and yet fo flexible as to accommodate the drefs they form, to every motion of the body. Of these many are ftill to be seen in the Tower of London. STEEVENS.

The object of Bolingbroke's request is, that the temper of his lance's point might as much exceed the mail of his adversary, as the iron of that mail was harder than wax. HENLEY.

8 And furbish-] Thus the quartos, 1608 and 1615. The folio reads-furnish. Either word will do, as to furnish in the time of Shakspeare fignified to drefs. So, twice in As you like it :"furnished like a huntfman."-"-furnished like a beggar."

STEEVENS.

And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,
Fall like amazing thunder on the casque
Of thy adverse pernicious enemy:

thrive!

Roufe up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live. BOLING. Mine innocency," and faint George to [He takes his feat. NOR. [Rifing.] However heaven, or fortune, cast my lot,

There lives, or dies, true to king Richard's throne,
A loyal, juft, and upright gentleman:
Never did captive with a freer heart

Caft off his chains of bondage, and embrace
His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,
More than my dancing foul doth celebrate
This feaft of battle with mine adversary.-
Moft mighty liege,-and my companion peers,—
Take from my mouth the wifh of happy years:
As gentle and as jocund, as to jeft,'

Go I to fight; Truth hath a quiet breast.

9 Mine innocency,] Old copies-innocence. Corrected by Mr. Steevens. MALONE.

2 This feaft of battle-]" War is death's feaft," is a proverbial faying. See Ray's Collection. STEEVENS.

3 As gentle and as jocund, as to jeft,] Not fo, neither. We fhould read to just; i. e. to tilt or tourney, which was a kind of fport too. WARBURTON.

The fenfe would perhaps have been better if the author had written what his commentator fubftitutes; but the rhyme, to which fenfe is too often enflaved, obliged Shakspeare to write jeft, and obliges us to read it. JOHNSON.

The commentators forget that to jeft fometimes fignifies in old language to play a part in a mask. Thus, in Hieronymo: "He promifed us in honour of our gueft,

"To grace our banquet with fome pompous jeft." and accordingly a mask is performed. FARMER.

Dr. Farmer has well explained the force of this word. So, in the third Part of K. Henry VI:

—as if the tragedy

"Were play'd in jeft by counterfeited actors." TOLLET.

K. RICH. Farewell, my lord: fecurely I efpy Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.Order the trial, marshal, and begin.

[The King and the Lords return to their feats. MAR. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Receive thy lance; and God defend the right! BOLING. [Rifing.] Strong as a tower in hope, I

cry-amen.

MAR. Go bear this lance [To an Officer.] to Thomas duke of Norfolk.

I HER. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Stands here for God, his fovereign, and himself, On pain to be found falfe and recreant,

To prove the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
A traitor to his God, his king, and him,
And dares him to fet forward to the fight.

2 HER. Here ftandeth Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk,

On pain to be found false and recreant,
Both to defend himself, and to approve
Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
To God, his fovereign, and to him, disloyal;
Courageously, and with a free defire,
Attending but the fignal to begin.

MAR. Sound, trumpets; and fet forward, com

batants.

[A charge founded. Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down.+

K. RICH. Let them lay by their helmets and their fpears,

- hath thrown his warder down.] A warder appears to have been a kind of truncheon carried by the person who prefided at these fingle combats. So, in Daniel's Civil Wars, &c. B. I: "When lo, the king, fuddenly chang'd his mind, "Cafts down his warder to arreft them there."

STEEVENS.

And both return back to their chairs again: Withdraw with us :-and let the trumpets found, While we return these dukes what we decree.—

[A long flourish. Draw near, [To the Combatants. And lift, what with our council we have done. For that our kingdom's earth should not be foil'd With that dear blood which it hath fostered; s And for our eyes do hate the dire aspéct

Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' fwords;

["And for we think the eagle-winged pride
Of fky-afpiring and ambitious thoughts,
With rival-hating envy, fet you on'

To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle
Draws the fweet infant breath of gentle fleep ;]
Which fo rous'd up with boisterous untun'd drums,
With harth-refounding trumpets' dreadful bray,
And grating fhock of wrathful iron arms,
Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace,

5 With that dear blood which it hath foftered;] The quartos read

With that dear blood which it hath been fofter'd.

I believe the author wrote

With that dear blood with which it hath been fofter'd.

The quarto 1608 reads, as in the text. STEEVENS.

MALONE.

And for we think the eagle-winged pride, &c.] Thefe five verfes are omitted in the other editions, and restored from the first of 1598. POPE.

7 -fet you on-] The old copy reads-on you. by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

8 To wake our peace, Which fo rous'd up

Corrected

Might-fright fair peace,] Thus the fentence ftands in the common reading abfurdly enough; which made the Oxford editor, instead of fright fair peace, read, be affrighted; as if these latter words could ever, poffibly, have been blundered into the former

And make us wade even in our kindred's blood;-
Therefore, we banish you our territories :-
You, coufin Hereford, upon pain of death,
Till twice five fummers have enrich'd our fields,
Shall not regreet our fair dominions,

But tread the stranger paths of banishment.

by transcribers. But his bufinefs is to alter as his fancy leads him, not to reform errors, as the text and rules of criticifm direct. In a word then, the true original of the blunder was this: the editors, before Mr. Pope, had taken their editions from the folios, in which the text flood thus:

the dire afpect

Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbour fwords;
Which fo rouz'd up.

-fright fair peace.

This is fenfe. But Mr. Pope, who carefully examined the firft printed plays in quarto (very much to the advantage of his edition) coming to this place, found five lines, in the first edition of this play printed in 1598, omitted in the first general collection of the poet's works; and, not enough attending to their agreement with the common text, put them into their place. Whereas, in truth, the five lines were omitted by Shakspeare himself, as not agreeing to the rest of the context; which, on revise, he thought fit to alter. On this account I have put them into hooks, not as fpurious, but as rejected on the author's revife; and, indeed, with great judgement; for,

To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle

Draws the feet infant breath of gentle fleep,

as pretty as it is in the image, is abfurd in the fense: for peace awake is ftill peace, as well as when afleep. The difference is, that peace afleep gives one the notion of a happy people funk in floth and luxury, which is not the idea the speaker would raise, and from which state the fooner it was awaked the better.

WARBURTON.

To this note, written with fuch an appearance of taste and judgement, I am afraid every reader will not fubfcribe. It is true, that peace awake is fill peace, as well as when afleep; but peace awakened by the tumults of thefe jarring nobles, and peace indulging in profound tranquillity, convey images fufficiently oppofed to each other for the poet's purpose. To wake peace is to introduce difcord. Peace afleep, is peace exerting its natural influence, from which it would be frighted by the clamours of war.

STEEVENS.