Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms; And, generally, to the crown and seat of France, Deriv'd from Edward, his great grandfather. ELY. What was the impediment that broke this off? CANT. The French ambassador, upon that instant, Crav'd audience: and the hour, I think, is come, To give him hearing: Is it four o'clock? ELY. It is. CANT. Then go we in, to know his embassy; Which I could, with a ready guess, declare, Before the Frenchman speak a word of it. ELY. I'll wait upon you; and I long to hear it. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The same. A Room of State in the same. Enter King HENRY, GLOSTER, Bedford, Exeter, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants. K. HEN. Where is my gracious lord of Canterbury? EXE. Not here in presence. K. HEN. Send for him, good uncle. 8 passages of his titles are the lines of succession by which his claims descend. Unhidden is open, clear. JOHNSON. I believe we should read several, instead of severals. M. MASON. • Send for him, good uncle.] The person here addressed was WEST. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?" K. HEN. Not yet, my cousin; we would be resolv'd, Before we hear him, of some things of weight, That task1 our thoughts, concerning us and France. Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of Ely. CANT. God, and his angels, guard your sacred throne, And make you long become it! K. HEN. Sure, we thank you. Why the law Salique, that they have in France, Thomas Beaufort, Earl of Dorset, who was half-brother to King Henry IV. being one of the sons of John of Gaunt, by Katharine Swynford. Shakspeare is a little too early in giving him the title of Duke of Exeter; for when Harfleur was taken, and he was appointed governour of the town, he was only Earl of Dorset. He was not made Duke of Exeter till the year after the battle of Agincourt, Nov, 14, 1416. MALONE. Perhaps Shakspeare confounded this character with that of John Holland, Duke of Exeter, who was married to Elizabeth, the king's aunt. He was executed at Plashey in 1400: but with this circumstance our author might have been unacquainted. See Remarks &c. on the last edition of Shakspeare, [i. e. that of 1778,] p. 239. STEEVENS. 9 Shall we call in &c.] Here began the old play. POPE. 1 -task-] Keep busied with scruples and laborious disquisitions. JOHNSON. Or nicely charge your understanding soul* Of what your reverence shall incite us to: 5 Or nicely charge your understanding soul-] Take heed, lest by nice and subtle sophistry you burthen your knowing soul, or knowingly burthen your soul, with the guilt of advancing a false title, or of maintaining, by specious fallacies, a claim which, if shown in its native and true colours, would appear to be false. JOHNSON. miscreate,] Ill-begotten, illegitimate, spurious. JOHNSON. -in approbation-] i. e. in proving and supporting that title which shall be now set up. So, in Braithwaite's Survey of Histories, 1614: "Composing what he wrote, not by report of others, but by the approbation of his own eyes." Again, in The Winter's Tale: "That lack'd sight only;nought for approbation, -take heed how you impawn our person,] The whole drift of the king is to impress upon the archbishop a due sense of the caution with which he is to speak. He tells him that the crime of unjust war, if the war be unjust, shall rest upon him: Therefore take heed how you impawn your person. So, I think, it should be read, Take heed how you pledge yourself, your honour, your happiness, in support of bad advice. Dr. Warburton explains impawn by engage, and so escapes the difficulty. JOHNSON. The allusion here is to the game of chess, and the disposition of the pawns with respect to the King, at the commencement of this mimetick contest. HENLEY. mous. To engage and to pawn were, in our author's time, synonySee Minsheu's Dictionary, in v. engage. But the word pawn had not, I believe, at that time, its present signification. To impawn seems here to have the same meaning as the French phrase se commettre. MALONE. We charge you in the name of God, take heed: That make such waste in brief mortality." CANT. Then hear me, gracious sovereign,-and That owe your lives, your faith, and services, To make against your highness' claim to France, 6 brief mortality.] "Nulla brevem dominum sequetur.' Horace. STEEVENS. 7 Under this conjuration,] The quartos, 1600 and 1608, read: 8 After this conjuration,. STEEVENS. There is no bar &c.] This whole speech is copied (in a manner verbatim) from Hall's Chronicle, Henry V. year the second, folio iv. xx. xxx. xl. &c. In the first edition it is very imperfect, and the whole history and names of the princes are confounded; but this was afterwards set right, and corrected from the original, Hall's Chronicle. POPE. This speech (together with the Latin passage in it) may as well be said to be taken from Holinshed as from Hall. STEEVENS. See a subsequent note, in which it is proved that Holinshed, and not Hall, was our author's historian. The same facts, indeed, are told in both, Holinshed being a servile copyist of Hall; but Holinshed's book was that which Shakspeare read; and therefore I always quote it in preference to the elder chronicle, contrary to the rule that ought in general to be observed. MALONE. But this, which they produce from Pharamond,- No woman shall succeed in Salique land: There left behind and settled certain French; Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala, Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say, 9gloze,] Expound, explain, and sometimes comment upon. So, in Troilus and Cressida : 66 you have said well; "And on the cause and question now in hand, |