That ever-valiant and approved Scot, At Holmedon met, Where they did spend a fad and bloody hour: And shape of likelihood, the news was told; K. HËN. Here is a dear and true-industrious friend, Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse, Stain'd with the variation of each foil-] No circumstance could have been better chosen to mark the expedition of Sir Walter. It is used by Falstaff in a fimilar 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 fland ftained with travel." HENLEY. • 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. A passage in Heywood's Iron Age, 1632, may countenance the latter of these conjectures: "Troilus lies embak'd "In his cold blood." horribly trick'd "With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, Bak'd and impasted," &c. Again, in Heywood's Iron Age: bak'd in blood and duft." as bak'd in blood." 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 expression: "Ten thousand bloody carcaffes piled up together in a long heap."-- "A ridge of dead bodies On Holmedon's plains: Of prifoners, Hotspur took piled up in blood." If this be the meaning of balked, for the greater exacanets 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 punduation, as at present, the context is more poetical, and presents a stronger image. A balk, in the sense here wentioned, is a common expreffion in Warwickshire, 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 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 raiseth halks in meads and paftures." In Leland's Itinerary, Vol. V. p. 16 and 118, Vol. VII. p. 10, a 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 rise the hills of dead." 7 Mordake the earl of Fife, and eldest fon TOLLET. To beaten Douglas;] The article - the, which is wanting in the old copies, was supplied by Mr. Pope. Mr. Malone, however, thinks it needless, and fays "the word earl is here used as a dif. fyllable." Mordake ea 1 of Fife, who was fon to the duke of Albany, regent of Scotland, is here called the son of earl Douglas, through a miftake into which the poet was led by the omiffion of a comma in the paffage of Holioshed from whence he took this account of the Scouth prifoners. It stands thus in the hiftorian: 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 description of one and the fame perfon, and so the poet understood them; but by putting the stop in the proper place, it will then be manifest that in this lift Mordake who was son to the governor of Scotland, was the first prifoner, and that Archibald earl of Douglas was the second, and so on. STEEVENS.. 8 and Menteith.) This is a mistake of Holinshed in his English History, for in that of Scotland, p. 259, 262, and 419, he Speaks of the earl of Fife and Monteith as one and the fame person. STEEVENS. And is not this an honourable spoil? It is a conquest for a prince to boast of. K. HEN. Yea, there thou mak'st me sad, and mak'ft me fin In envy that my lord Northumberland A fon, who is the theme of honour's tongue; Of my young Harry. O, that it could be prov'd, coz', Of this young Percy's pride? the prisoners, It is 2 9 In faith, These words are in the first quarto, 1598, by the inaccuracy of the transcriber, placed at the end of the preceding speech, but at a confiderable distance from the last word of it. Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors read-'Faith 'tis &c. MALONE. 2 the prisoners, Percy had an exclusive right to these prisoners, except the earl of Fife. By the law of arms, every man who had taken any captive, whose redemption did not exceed ten thousand crowns, had him clearly for himself, either to acquit or ransom, at his pleasure. It seems from Camden's Britannia, that Pounouny castle 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 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 might justly claim him by his acknowledged military prerogative; STEEVENS.' Which he in this adventure hath surpriz'd, WEST. This is his uncle's teaching, this is Wor- Malevolent to you in all aspects;* K. HEN. But I have sent for him to answer this; Coufin, on Wednesday next our council we [Exeunt. * Malevolent to you in all aspects;] An aftrological allufion. Worcester is represented as a malignant star that influenced the condut 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 rest. To prune and to plume, spoken of a bird, is the same, 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 Metamorphosis, 1613: "Pride makes the fowl to prune his feathers so." 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 the fetcheth oyle with her beake over the taile, and anointeth her feet and her fethers. She plumeth when the pulleth fethers of anic foule and casteth them from her." STEEVENS. 4 Than out of anger can be uttered.) faid than anger will fuffer me to say: mind difturbed like mine." JOHNSON That is, "More is to be more than can issue from a SCENE II. The Same, 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 so fat-witted, with drinking of old fack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and fleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast 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 signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flamecolour'd taffata; I see no reason, why thou should'st be so superfluous 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 Phœbus, he, that wandering knight fo fair. And, I pray thee, sweet wag, when thou art 5 to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. The Prince's objection to the question seems to be, that Falstaff had alked 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 wish Poins a good morrow, he had forgot that the scene commenced at night. STEEVENS. 6 Phœbus, he, that wandering knight fo fair.] Falstaff starts the idea of Phabus, i. e. the fun; but deviates into an allusion 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 illustrious personage was most excellently faire," and a great wanderer, as those who travel after him throughout three thick volumes in 4to. will discover. Perhapa the words " that wandering knight so fair," are part of some fore |