That ever-valiant and approved Scot,
At Holmedon met,

Where they did spend a fad and bloody hour;
As by difcharge of their artillery,

And fhape 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 horfe,
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

156 Stain'd with the variation of each foil-] No circumftance could have been better chofen to mark the expedition of Sir Walter. It is used 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 thift me, but to and fained with travel." HENLEY.

6 Balk'd in their own blood,] I should suppose, that the author might have written either bath'd, or bak'd, i. e. encrufted over with blood dried upon them. A paffage in Heywood's Iron Age, 1632,' may countenance the latter of these conjectures:

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

Again, in Heywood's Iron Age:

Again, ibid:

bak'd in blood and duft."

here is

as bak'd in blood." STEEVENS. Balk is a ridge; and particularly, a ridge of land: therefore a metaphor; and perhaps the poet means, in his bold and careless manner of expreffion: "Ten thoufand bloody carcaffes piled up together in a long heap.". "A ridge of dead bodies VOL. XII.

N

On Holmedon's plains: Of prifoners, Hotspur took
Mordake the earl of Fife, and eldeft fon

To beaten Douglas; and the earl of Athol
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith. 8

piled up in blood." If this be the meaning of balked, for the greater exaduels 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 punduation, as at prefent, the context is more poetical, and prefents a stronger image.

A balk, in the sense here mentioned, is a common expreffion in Warwick hire, and the northern counties. It is used in the fame fignification in Chaucer's Plowman's Tale, p. 182, edit. Urr. v. 2428.

WARTON.

Balk'd in their own blood, I believe, means, lay'd in heaps or hil. locks, in their own blood. Blithe's England's Improvement, p. 118, obferves: "The mole raifeth halks in meads and paftures." In Leland's Itinerary, Vol. V. p. 16 and 118, Vol. VII. p. 10, a balk figuifies 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."

7 Mordake the earl of Fife, and eldest fon

TOLLET.

To beaten Donglas;] 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 ufed as a dif. fyllable."

Mordake eal of Fife, who was fon to the duke of Albany, re gent of Scotland, is here called the fon of earl Douglas, through a miftake into which the poet was led by the omiffion of a comma in the paffage of Holiofhed from whence he took this account of the Scouth prisoners. It itands thus in the hiflorian: “ —— and of prifoners, Mordacke earl of Fife, fon to the gouvernout Archembald earle Dowglas, &c. The want of a comma after gouvernour, makes these words appear to be the defcription of one and the fame person, and so the poet understood them; but by putting the stop in the proper place, it will then be manifeft that in this lift Mor dake 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.

8 and Menteith. ] Fnglish Hiftory, for in that of Scotland, p. 259, 262, and 419, he peaks of the earl of Fife and Menteith as one and the fame perfon. STELVENS

This is a mistake of Holinihed in his

And is not this an honourable spoil?
A gallant prize? ha, coufin, is it not?
WEST. In faith,

9

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 fen, who is the theme of honour's tongue;
Amongst a grove, the very ftraighteft 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',

2

Of this young Percy's pride? the prisoners, *

9 In faith,

2

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. the prifoners, Percy had an exclufive right to thefe 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 pleasure. It seems from Camden's Britannia, that Pounouny caftle in Scotland was built out of the ransom 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, (son to the Duke of Albany, brother to King Robert III.) Henry might juftly claim him by his acknowledged military prerogative. STEEVENS,

Which he in this adventure hath furpriz'd,
To his own ufe he keeps; and fends me word,
I fhall have none but vordake earl of Fife.

WEST. This is his uncle's teaching, this is Worcefler,

3

Which makes him prune himself, * and bristle up The creft of youth against your dignity.

K. HEN. But I have sent for him to answer this;
And, for this caufe, awhile we must neglect
Our holy purpose to Jerufalem.

Coufin, on Wednesday next our council we
Will hold at Windfor, fo inform the lords:
But come yourfelf with speed to us again;
For more is to be said, and to be done,
Than out of anger can be uttered. 4
WEST. I will, my liege.

2

[Exeunt.

Malevolent to you in all afpés;] An aftrological allufion. Worcester is reprefented as a malignant ftar that influenced the conduct of Hotspur. HENLEY.

3 Which makes him prune himself, ] The metaphor is taken from a cock, who in his pride prunes himself; that is, picks off the loofe feathers to fmooth the reft. To prune and to plume, fpoken of a bird, is the fame. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson is certainly right in his choice of the reading. So, in The Cobler's Prophecy, 1594:

"Sith now thou doft but prune thy wings,

"And make thy feathers gay."

Again, in Green's Metamorphofis, 1613:

"Pride makes the fowl to prune his feathers fo."

But I am not certain that the verb to prune is juftly interpreted. In The Booke of Haukynge, &c. (commonly called The Booke of St. Albans is the following account of it: The hauke proineth when the fetcheth oyle with her beake over the taile, and anointeth her feet and her fethers. She plumeth when the pulleth fethers of anie foule and cafleth them from her." STEEVENS. 4 Than out of anger can be uttered.] faid than anger will fuffer me to fay mind difturbed like mine." JOHNSON

That is, "More is to be more than can iffue from a

SCENE II.

The fame, Another Room in the Palace, Enter HENRY, Prince of Wales, and FALSTAFF.

FAL, How, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?

P. HEN. Thou art fo fat-witted, with drinking of old fack, and unbuttoning thee after fupper, and fleeping upon benches after noon, that thou haft forgotten to demand that truly which thou would'st truly know. What a devil haft thou to do with the time of the day? unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the figns of leaping-houfes, and the bleffed fun himself a fair hot wench in flamecolour'd taffata; I see no reason, why thou should'st be fo fuperfluous to demand the time of the day.

FAL. Indeed, you come near me, now Hal: for we, that take purses, go by the moon and seven stars ; and not by Phoebus,-he, that wandering knight fo fair. And, I pray thee, fweet wag, when thou art

6

5 to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know.] The Prince's objection to the question feems to be, that Falftaff had alked in the night what was the time of the day. JOHNSON.

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

STEEVENS.

6 Phœbus, he, that wandering knight fo fair.] Falfaff ftarts the idea of Phabus, i. e. the fuu; but deviates into an allufion to El Donzel del Febo, the knight of the fun in a Spanish romance tranf lated (under the title of The Mirror of Knighthood, &c.) during the age of Shakspeare. This illuftrious perfonage was moft excel lently faire," and a great wanderer, as thofe who travel after him throughout three thick volumes in 4to. will difcover. Perhaps the words "that wandering knight fo fair," are part of some for