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them alone is able and sufficient to torment and afflict a proud prince; and they all joyned together are of puissance to destroy the most populous country and most richest region of the world." MALONE.

Line 240. To rive their dangerous artillery-] Rive their artillery seems to mean charge their artillery so much as to endanger their bursting.

Line 245.

to grace.

-due thee withal;] To due is to endue, to deck, JOHNSON.

Line 259. be then in blood:] Be in high spirits, be of true mettle.

Line 260. chase for lean Line 262.

JOHNSON.

Not rascal-like,] A rascal deer is the term of

poor

deer. JOHNSON. with heads of steel,] Continuing the image of

of deer, he supposes the lances to be their horns.

ACT IV. SCENE III.

JOHNSON.

Line 283. And I am lowted-] To lowt may signifiy to depress, to lower, to dishonour; but I do not remember it so used. We may read And I am flouted; I am mocked, and treated with contempt. JOHNSON.

I believe the meaning is: I am treated with contempt like a lowt, or low country fellow. MALONE. Line 314. And now they meet where both their lives are done.] i. e. expended, consumed. The word is yet used in this sense in the Western counties. MALONE.

Line 324. Thus, while the vulture of sedition-] Alluding to the tale of Prometheus.

JOHNSON.

ACT IV. SCENE IV.

Line 344. from bought and sold lord Talbot ;] i. e. from one utterly ruined by the treacherous practices of others. MALONE. Line 351. in advantage ling'ring,] Protracting his resistance by the advantage of a strong post. JOHNSON.

Or, perhaps, endeavouring by every means that he can, with advantage to himself, to linger out the action, &c.

MALONE.

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Line 392.

-a feast of death,] To a field where death will

JOHNSON.

be feasted with slaughter. Line 402. noble Talbot stood.] For what reason this scene is written in rhyme, I cannot guess. If Shakspeare had not in other plays mingled his rhymes and blank verses in the same manner, I should have suspected that this dialogue had been a part of some other poem which was never finished, and that being loath to throw his labour away, he inserted it here.

JOHNSON.

ACT IV. SCENE VI.

Line 496. On that advantage, bought with such a shame,

(To save a paltry life, and slay bright fame,)] The sense is-Before young Talbot fly from his father, (in order to save his life while he destroys his character,) on, or for the sake of, the advantages you mention, namely, preserving our household's name, &c. may my coward horse drop down dead!

MALONE.

ACT IV. SCENE VII.

Line 514. Triumphant death, smear'd with captivity!] That is, death stained and dishonoured with captivity. JOHNSON.

Line 521. Tend'ring my ruin,] Watching me with tenderness

JOHNSON.

in my fall. Line 530. Thou antick death,] The fool, or antick of the play, made sport by mocking the graver personages.

JOHNSON.

Line 534. -winged through the lither sky,] Lither is flexible or yielding. In much the same sense Milton says:

66 -He with broad sails
"Winnow'd the buxom air."

That is, the obsequious air.

JOHNSON.

Line 550. raging-wood,] Wood here means mad.

552. -in Frenchmen's blood!] The return of rhyme where young Talbot is again mentioned, and in no other place, strengthens the suspicion that these verses were originally part of

some other work, and were copied here only to save the trouble of composing new.

JOHNSON.

Line 557. —of a giglot wench:] Giglot is a wanton or a strumpet. JOHNSON.

ACT V. SCENE I.

In the original copy, the transcriber or printer forgot to mark the commencement of the fifth Act; and has by mistake called this scene, Scene II. The editor of the second folio made a very absurd regulation by making the Act begin in the middle of the preceding scene, (where the Dauphin, &c. enter, and take notice of the dead bodies of Talbot and his son,) which was inadvertently followed in subsequent editions. MALONE. Line 15. That such immanity-] i. e. barbarity, savageness. my years are young;] His majesty, however,

-23.

was twenty-four years old.
Line 31. What! is my lord of Winchester install'd,

MALONE.

And call'd unto a cardinal's degree!] It should seem from the stage-direction prefixed to this scene, and from the conversation between the legate and Winchester, that the author meant it to be understood that the bishop had obtained his cardinal's hat only just before his present entry. The inaccuracy, therefore, was in making Glocester address him by that title in the beginning of the play. He in fact obtained it in the fifth year of Henry's reign. MALONE.

Line 66. That, neither in birth,] I would read—for birth. That is, thou shalt not rule me, though thy birth is legitimate, and thy authority supreme.

JOHNSON.

ACT V. SCENE III.

Line 98.

ye charming spells, and periapts;] Charms sowed

up. Ezek. xiii. 18: "Woe to them that sow pillows to all armholes, to hunt souls."

РОРЕ.

Periapts were worn about the neck as preservatives from disease or danger. Of these, the first chapter of St. John's Gospel was deemed the most efficacious.

Line 102.

STEEVENS.

monarch of the north,] The north was always supposed to be the particular habitation of bad spirits. Milton,

therefore, assembles the rebel angels in the north.

JOHNSON.

The boast of Lucifer in the xivth chapter of Isaiah is said to be, that he will sit upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north. STEEVENS.

Line 139. Fell, banning hag!] To ban is to execrate, to curse. 162. As plays the sun upon the glassy streams, &c.] This comparison, made between things which seem sufficiently unlike, is intended to express the softness and delicacy of lady Margaret's beauty, which delighted, but did not dazzle; which was bright, but gave no pain by its lustre. JOHNSON.

Line 167.disable not thyself;] Do not represent thyself so weak. To disable the judgment of another was, in that age, the same as to destroy its credit or authority. JOHNSON.

Line 253. face, or feign,] "To face (says Dr. Johnson) is to carry a false appearance; to play the hypocrite." Hence the name of one of the characters in Ben Jonson's Alchymist.

MALONE. Line 301. To send such peevish tokens-] Peevish, for childish. WARBURTON.

Line 307. Mad, natural graces-] So the old copy. The modern editors have been content to read-her natural graces. By the word mad, however, I believe the poet only meant wild or uncultivated. In the former of these significations he appears to have used it in Othello:

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which Dr. Johnson has properly interpreted. We call a wild girl, to this day, a mad-cap.

Mad, in some of the ancient books of gardening, is used as an epithet to plants which grow rampant and wild.

ACT V. SCENE IV.

STEEVENS.

Line 317.

thy timeless cruel death?] i. e. untimely.

-319. Decrepit miser!] Miser here has not an avaricious meaning, but that of miser, wretch, Latin.

Line 331. that thou wilt be so obstacle!] A vulgar corruption of obstinate, which I think has oddly lasted since our author's time till now. JOHNSON,

Line 392. Alençon! that notorious Machiavel!] Machiavel

being mentioned somewhat before his time, this line is by some of the editors given to the players, and ejected from the text. JOHNSON.

Line 409. darkness and the gloomy shade of death-] The expression is scriptural: "Whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death." MALONE.

Line 410. till mischief, and despair,

Drive you to break your necks, or hang yourselves?] Perhaps Shakspeare intended to remark, in this execration, the frequency of suicide among the English, which has been commonly imputed to the gloominess of their air.

Line 418.

-remorse-] Pity, compassion.

JOHNSON.

—473. —upon comparison?] Do you stand to compare your present state, a state which you have neither right nor power to maintain, with the terms which we offer?

Line 474. accept the title thou usurp'st,

JOHNSON.

Of benefit-] Benefit is here a term of law. Be

content to live as the beneficiary of our king.

JOHNSON.

ACT V. SCENE V.

Line 507. So am I driven,] The simile is somewhat obscure; he seems to mean, that as a ship is driven against the tide by the wind, so he is driven by love against the current of his interest.

JOHNSON.

Line 531. Or one, that, at a triumph-] That is, at the sports at which a triumph is celebrated. JOHNSON.

Line 558. Than to be dealt in by attorneyship;] By the intervention of another man's choice; or the discretional agency of another. JOHNSON.

Line 600. If you do censure me &c.] To censure is here simply to judge. If in judging me you consider the past frailties of your own youth. JOHNSON,

END OF THE ANNOTATIONS ON THE FIRST PART OF

KING HENRY VI.

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