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(Whose foldier now, under whose blessed cross
We are impreffed and engag'd to fight,)
Forthwith a power of English fhall we levy;"
Whose arms were moulded in their mothers' womb
To chase these pagans, in those holy fields,
Over whofe acres walk'd thofe bleffed feet,
Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nail'd
For our advantage, on the bitter crofs.
But this our purpofe is a twelve-month old,
And bootlefs 'tis to tell you-we will go;
Therefore we meet not now:-Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle coufin Weftmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree,
In forwarding this dear expedience.8

WEST. My liege, this hafte was hot in question,
And many limits of the charge fet down
But yesternight: when, all athwart, there came

to make war upon Mahometans, fimply as Mahometans, as men obliged by their own principles to make war upon Christians, and only lying in wait till opportunity shall promife them fuccefs.

JOHNSON,

6 -fhall we levy ;] To levy a power of English as far as to the fepulcher of Chrift, is an expreffion quite unexampled, if not corrupt. We might propofe lead, without violence to the fenfe, or too wide a deviation from the traces of the letters. In Pericles, however, the fame verb is used in a mode as uncommon: "Never did thought of mine levy offence." STEEVENS. The expreffion-" As far as to the fepulcher" &c. does not, as I conceive, fignify-to the diftance of &c. but-fo far only as regards the fepulcher &c. DOUCE.

7 Therefore we meet not now:] i. e. not on that account do we now meet; we are not now affembled, to acquaint you with our intended expedition. MALONE.

8this dear expedience.] For expedition. WARBURTON, So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

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-I fhall break

"The cause of our expedience to the queen." STEEVENS, 9 And many limits-] Limits for eftimates, WARBURTON,

A poft from Wales, loaden with heavy news;
Whose worst was,-that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
And a thousand of his people butchered:
Upon whofe dead corps there was fuch misuse,
Such beaftly, fhameless transformation,
By thofe Welshwomen done, as may not be,
Without much shame, retold or spoken of.

K. HEN. It seems then, that the tidings of this broil

Brake off our business for the Holy land.

WEST. This, match'd with other, did, my gracious

lord;

For more uneven and unwelcome news

Came from the north, and thus it did import.
On Holy-rood day, the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy,' and brave Archibald,*

Limits, as Mr. Heath obferves, may mean, outlines, rough sketches or calculations. STEEVENS.

Limits may mean the regulated and appointed times for the conduct of the bufinefs in hand. So, in Meafure for Measure:-" between the time of the contract and limit of the folemnity, her brother Frederick was wreck'd at fea." Again, in Macbeth:

2

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I'll make fo bold to call,

"For 'tis my limited service." MALONE.

By thofe Welforwomen done,] Thus Holinfhed, p. 528: "-fuch fhameful villanie executed upon the carcaffes of the dead men by the Welbwomen; as the like (I doo beleeve) hath never or fildome beene practifed." STEEVENS.

3

the gallant Hotfpur there,

Young Harry Percy,] Holinfhed's Hiftory of Scotland, p. 240, fays: "This Harry Percy was furnamed, for his often pricking, Henry Hotfpur, as one that feldom times refted, if there were anie fervice to be done abroad." TOLLET.

4-Archibald,] Archibald Douglas, earl Douglas.

STEEVENS.

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 5

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

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

5 Stain'd with the variation of each foil-] No circumstance could have been better chofen to mark the expedition of Sir Walter. It is ufed by Falftaff in a fimilar manner, "As it were to ride day and night, and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me, but to fiand 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 thefe conjectures:

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

Again, in Heywood's Iron Age:

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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. "A

On Holmedon's plains: Of prisoners, Hotfpur took Mordake the carl of Fife, and eldest fon

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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 stronger 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.

In

Balk'd in their own blood, I believe, means, lay'd in heaps or billocks, in their own blood. Blithe's England's Improvement, p. 118, obferves: "The mole raifeth balks in meads and paftures.' 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."

1 Mordake the earl of Fife, and eldeft fon

TOLLET.

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 diffyllable."

Mordake earl of Fife, who was fon to the duke of Albany, regent 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 prifoners. It ftands thus in the hiftorian: " - and of prifoners, Mordacke earl of Fife, fon to the gouvernour Archembald earle Dowglas, &c." The want of a comma after gouvernour, makes these 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 Mordake who was fon to the governor of Scotland, was the first prifoner, and that Archibald earl of Douglas was the fecond, and fo on. STEEVENS.

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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.

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'ft 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 sweet fortune's minion, and her pride:
Whilft I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and difhonour ftain 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,2

In faith,

It is- Thefe words are in the firft quarto, 1598, by the inaccuracy of the tranfcriber, placed at the end of the preceding fpeech, but at a confiderable diftance 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 thousand crowns, had him clearly for himself, either to acquit or ranfom, at his pleafure. 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 refufe 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 acknow

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