My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet." M. MASON? I prefer Mr. M. Mason's conjecture to any ex planation hitherto offered respecting this difficult passage. Amidst these uncertainties of opinion, however, let me present our readers with a single fact on which they may implicitly rely; viz. that Shakspeare could not have designed to open his play with a speech, the fifth line of which 674 scure enough to demand a series of comments thrice as long as the dialogue to which it is api pended. All that is wanted, on this emergency! seems to be a just and striking personification, or, rather, a proper name. The former of these is not discoverable in the old reading-entrance, but the latter, furnished by Mr. M. Mason, may, I think, be safely admitted, 1, as it affords a natu ral unembarrassed introduction to the train of imagery that succeeds.

Being nevertheless aware that Mr. M. Mason's gallant effort to produce an easy sense, will provoke the slight objections and petty cavils of sneb as restrain themselves within the bounds of timid conjecture, it is necessary I should subjoin, that his present emendation was not inserted in cour text on merely my own judgement, but with the approbation of Dr. Farmer.

Having

de prepared for controversy signa canant!

now

P. 3, I. 19.

long streaks of

,,་།:

STEEVENS.

The

like the e meteors of a trqaðwe pled heaven, ] Nainely, red, which represent the lifes of which, and their

of armies; the appearance occasion to do bum" sự.

keness to such Tines, gave

perstition of the cominon people conccfming ar inies in the air, &c. WARBURTON.

P. 4, 12. aud fol. As far as to the sepulcher of Christ, &c.] The lawfulness and justice of the holy wars have been much disputed; but perhaps there is a principle on which the question, may be easily detervmined. If it be part of the religion of the Mahometans to extirpate by the sword all other religious, it is, by the laws of self-defence', lawful for men, of every other religion, and for Christians among others, to make war upon Mahometams, simply as Mahometans, as men obliged by their own principles, to make war upou Christians, and only lying in wait till opportunity shall spromise them success. JOHNSON.

as

T

- P.14, 14 5. To levy a power of English as far to the sepulcher of Christ, is an expression quite unexampled, if not corrupt. We night, propose lead, without violence to the sense too wide a deviation from the traces of the let-ters. An Pericles, however, the same verb, is used in a mode as uncommon:

or

Never did thought of mine levy offence."
STEEVENS.

*

The expression →“As far as to the sepulcher, &c. does not, as I conceive, signify bto the distance of, &c. but—so far only as regards the sepulcher, &c. DoUCE.

P. 4, 1. 14. Therefore we meet not now:] i. e. not on that account do we now meet; we are not now assembled, to acquaint you with our intended expedition. MALONE.

P. 4, 1. 18. expedience for expedition.

WARBURTON.

P. 4, 1. 20. Limits for estimates.

WARBURTON.

Limits, as Mr. Heath observes, may mean,

outlines, rough sketches or calculations."

STEEVENS. Limits may mean the regulated and appointed times for the conduct of the business in hand. MALONE.

P. 4, 1. 30. By those Welshwomen done, ] Thus Holinshed, p. 528: “ - such shameful villanie executed upon the carcasses of the dead men by the Welshwomen; as the like (I doo beleeve) hath never or sildome becne practised."

STEEVENS.

P. 5, 1. 4. Young Harry Percy,] Holinshed's History of Scotland, p. 240, says: "This Harry Percy was surnamed, for his often pricking, Henry Hotspur, as one that seldom times rested, if there were anie service to be done abroad." TOLLET.

P. 5, 1. 4. brave Archibald,] Archibald Douglas, Earl Douglas. STEEVENS. P. 5, 1. 15-19. Here is a dear and trueindustrious friend,

Sir Walter Blunt, &c.] No circumstance .could have been better chosen to mark the expedition of Sir Walter. It is used by Falstaff in a similar 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 stand stained with travel.". HENLEY.

P. 5, 1. 22. Balk'd in their own blood,] I should suppose, that the author might have written either bath'd or bak'd, i. e. encrusted over with blood dried upon them. 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

of expression: "Ten thousand bloody carcasses piled up together in a long heap." "A ridge of dead bodies piled up in blood." If this be the meaning of balked, for the greater exactness of construction, 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 present, the context is more poetical, and presents a stronger image.

Abalk, in the sense here mentioned, is a com→ mon expression in Warwickshire, and the northern counties. WARTON.

Balk'd in their own blood, I believe, means, lay'd in heaps or hillocks, in their own blood. TOLLET.

It

P. 6, 1. 12-15. Percy had an exclusive right to these prisoners, except the Earl of Fife. By the law of arms, every man who had taken any captiye, whose redemption did not exceed ten thousand crowns, had him clearly for himself, either to acquit or ransom, at his pleasure. seems from Camden's Britannia, that Pounouny castle in Scotland was built out of the ransom of this very Henry Percy, when taken prisoner at the battle of Otterbourne by an ancestor of the present Earl of Eglington. ToLLET.

Percy could not refuse the Earl of Fife to the King; for being a Prince of the blood royal, (Son to the Duke of Albany, brother to King Robert III.) Henry night justly claim him by his acknowledged military prerogative. STEEVENS. P. 6, 1. 17. 18. this is Worcester,

Malevolent to you in all aspects; ;] An astrological allusion. Worcester is repre

VOL. IX.

16

sented as a maglinant star that influenced the con duct of Hotspur. HENLEY.

P. 6, 19. Which makes him prune himself, &c.] The metaphor is taken from a cock, who in his pride prunes himself; that is, picks off the loose feathers to smooth the rest. To prune and to plume, spos ken of a bird, is the same. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson is certainly right in his choice of the reading. But I am not certain that the verb to prune is justly interpreted. In The Booke of Haukynge, &c. (commonly called The Booke of St. Albans) is the following account of it: "The hauke proineth when she fetcheth oyle with her beake over the taile, and anointeth her feet and her fethers. She plumeth when she pulleth fethers of anie foule and casteth thern from her." STEEVENS.

P. 6, 1. 27. 28. For more is to be said, and to be done,

Than out of anger can be uttered.] That is, "More is to be said than anger will suffer ine to say: more than can issue from a mind disturbed like mine." JOHNSON.

P. 6, last 1. and P. 7, 1. 1. and fol. The Prince's objection to the question seems to be that Falstaff had asked in the night what was the time of the day. JOHNSON.

This cannot be well received as the objection of the Prince; for presently after, the Prince himself says: "Good morrow, Ned," and Poins replies: "Good morrow, sweet lad." The truth may be, that when Shakspeare makes the Prince with Poins a good morrow, he had forgot that the scene commenced at night. STEEVENS.