And they shall do their office. So, be gone;
We will not now be troubled with reply:
We offer fair, take it advisedly.

[Exeunt WORCESTER and VERNON. P. HEN. It will not be accepted, on my life: The Douglas and the Hotspur both together Are confident against the world in arms.

K. HEN. Hence, therefore, every leader to his
charge;

For, on their answer, will we set on them:
And God befriend us, as our cause is just!

[Exeunt King, BLUNT, and Prince JOHN. FAL. Hal, if thou see me down in the battle, and bestride me, so; 'tis a point of friendship. P. HEN. Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship. Say thy prayers, and farewell. FAL. I would it were bed-time, Hal, and all well. P. HEN. Why, thou owest God a death.

[Exit'. FAL. 'Tis not due yet; I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter; Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? honour set to a leg 2? No. Or an arm? No. Or

Can

9 and bestride me,] In the battle of Agincourt, Henry, when king, did this act of friendship for his brother the Duke of Gloucester. STEEVENS.

So again, in The Comedy of Errors:

"When I bestrid thee in the wars, and took

66

Deep scars, to save thy life." MALONE.

1 Exit.] This exit is remarked by Mr. Upton. JOHNSON. * Can honour set to a leg?] Sganarelle, in Moliere's Cocu Imaginaire, argues in a manner remarkably similar:

Quand j'aurai fait le brave, et qu'un fer, pour ma peine,
M' aura d'un vilain coup transpercé la bedaine,
Que par la ville ira le bruit de mon trepas,

Dites-moi, mon honneur, en serez vous plus gras?

BLAKEWAY.

Honour

take away the grief of a wound? No.
hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour?
A word. What is in that word, honour? What
is that honour? Air. A trim reckoning !-Who
hath it? He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel
it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible
then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with
the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer
it-therefore I'll none of it: Honour is a mere
scutcheon, and so ends my catechism.

SCENE II.

The Rebel Camp.

Enter WORCESTER and VERNON.

[Exit.

WOR. O, no, my nephew must not know, sir
Richard,

The liberal kind offer of the king.

VER. 'Twere best, he did.

WOR.

Then are we all undone.

It is not possible, it cannot be,

The king should keep his word in loving us;
He will suspect us still, and find a time

To punish this offence in other faults:

Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes*:

3 - Honour is a MERE SCUTCHEON,] This is very fine. The reward of brave actions formerly was only some honourable bearing in the shields of arms bestowed upon deservers. But Falstaff having said that honour often came not till after death, he calls it very wittily a scutcheon, which is the painted heraldry borne in funeral processions; and by mere scutcheon is insinuated, that whether alive or dead, honour was but a name. WARBURTON.

4 SUSPICION all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes:] The same image of suspicion is exhibited in a Latin tragedy, called Roxana, written about the same time by Dr. William Alabaster. JOHNSON.

Dr. Farmer, with great propriety, would reform the line as I have printed it :

For treason is but trusted like the fox;

Who, ne'er so tame, so cherish'd, and lock'd up,
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.

Look how we can, or sad, or merrily,
Interpretation will misquote our looks;
And we shall feed like oxen at a stall,
The better cherish'd, still the nearer death.
My nephew's trespass may be well forgot,
It hath the excuse of youth, and heat of blood;
And an adopted name of privilege,-

A hare-brain'd Hotspur, govern'd by a spleen:
All his offences live upon my head,

And on his father's; we did train him on;
And, his corruption being ta'en from us,
We, as the spring of all, shall pay for all.
Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know,
In any case, the offer of the king.

VER. Deliver what you will, I'll say, 'tis so.
Here comes your cousin.

Enter HOTSPUR and DOUGLAS; and Officers and Soldiers, behind.

Hor. My uncle is return'd:-Deliver up

My lord of Westmoreland. Uncle, what news? WOR. The king will bid you battle presently.

DOUG. Defy him by the lord of Westmoreland'.

66

Suspicion shall be all stuck full of eyes."

In all former editions, without regard to measure, it stood thus:

Suspicion, all our lives, shall be stuck full of eyes."

All the old copies read-supposition. STEEVENS.

The emendation was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 4- an adopted name of privilege,

A hare-brain'd HOTSPUR,] The name of Hotspur will privilege him from censure. JOHNSON.

Deliver up

My lord of WESTMORELAND.] He was "impawned as a surety for the safe return" of Worcester. See Act IV. Sc. III.

MALONE.

Doug. Defy him by the lord of Westmoreland.] This line,

Hor. Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so".
DOUG. Marry, and shall, and very willingly.

[Exit.

WOR. There is no seeming mercy in the king.
Hor. Did you beg any? God forbid !
WOR. I told him gently of our grievances,
Of his oath-breaking; which he mended thus,-
By now forswearing that he is forsworn:
He calls us rebels, traitors; and will scourge
With haughty arms this hateful name in us.

Re-enter DoUGLAS.

-

DOUG. Arm, gentlemen; to arms! for I have

thrown

A brave defiance in King Henry's teeth,

And Westmoreland, that was engag'd", did bear it;
Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on.

WOR. The prince of Wales stepp'd forth before

the king,

And, nephew, challeng'd you to single fight.

;

Hor. O, 'would the quarrel lay upon our heads And that no man might draw short breath to-day, But I, and Harry Monmouth! Tell me, tell me, How show'd his tasking? seem'd it in contempt ?

as well as the next, (as has been observed by Mr. Capell,) properly belongs to Hotspur, whose impatience would scarcely suffer any one to anticipate him on such an occasion. MALONE.

Lord DOUGLAS, go you, &c.] Douglas is here used as a trisyllable. MALONE.

8 And Westmoreland, that was ENGAG'D,] Engag'd is delivered as an hostage. A few lines before, upon the return of Worcester, he orders Westmoreland to be dismissed. JOHNSON.

9 How show'd his TASKING?] Thus the quarto, 1598. The others, with the folio, read-talking. STEEVENS.

I know not whether tasking is not here used for taxing; i. e. his satirical representation. So, in As You Like It:

66

my taxing, like a wild goose, flies."

See p. 377, n. 9. Tasking, however, is sufficiently intelligible in its more usual acceptation. We yet say, "he took him to task."

MALONE.

VER. No, by my soul; I never in my life
Did hear a challenge urg'd more modestly,
Unless a brother should a brother dare

To gentle exercise and proof of arms.
He gave you all the duties of a man;
Trimm'd up your praises with a princely tongue;
Spoke your deservings like a chronicle;
Making you ever better than his praise,
By still dispraising praise, valued with you1:
And, which became him like a prince indeed,
He made a blushing cital of himself2;

And chid his truant youth with such a grace,
As if he master'd there a double spirit,

3

Of teaching, and of learning, instantly.
There did he pause: But let me tell the world,-

By still dispraising praise, valued with you :] This foolish line is indeed in the folio of 1623, but it is evidently the player's WARBURTON.

nonsense.

This line is not only in the first folio, but in all the editions before it, that I have seen. Why it should be censured as nonsense I know not. To vilify praise, compared or valued with merit superior to praise, is no harsh expression. There is another objection to be made. Prince Henry, in his challenge of Percy, had indeed commended him, but with no such hyperboles as might represent him above praise; and there seems to be no reason why Vernon should magnify the Prince's candour beyond the truth. Did then Shakspeare forget the foregoing scene? or are some lines lost from the Prince's speech? JOHNSON.

I do not suspect any omission. Our author in repeating letters and speeches of former scenes in his plays, seldom attends minutely to what he had written. I believe, in these cases he always trusted to memory. MALONE.

2 He made a blushing CITAL of himself:] Mr. Pope observes, that by cital is meant taxation; but I rather thinkit means recital. The verb is used in that sense in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, vol. iv. p. 98 :

66

for we cite our faults,

"That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives." Again, in King Henry V. Act V. Sc. II. :

"Whose want gives growth to the imperfections
"Which you have cited," &c. COLLINS.

he MASTER'D-] i. e. was master of. STEEVENS.