You would desire, the king were made a prelate:
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say, -it hath been all in all his study:
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music:
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,1
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;
So that the art and practic part of life
Must be the mistress to his theoric: 2
Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain:

His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow;
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,

Any retirement, any sequestration

From open haunts and popularity.

Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle; And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best, Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:

And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescives in his faculty.

Cant. It must be so: for miracles are ceased; And therefore we must needs admit the means,

How things are perfected.

Ely.

But, my good lord,

How now for mitigation of this bill
Urg'a by the commons? Doth his majesty

Incline to it, or no?

Cant.

He seems indifferent;

Or, rather, swaying more upon our part,
Than cherishing the exhibiters against us;
For I have made an offer to his majesty, -
Upon our spiritual convocation:
And in regard of causes now in hand,
Which I have open'd to his grace at large,
As touching France,--to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet

Did to his predecessors part withal.

Ely. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord? Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty;

Save, that there was not time enough to hear (As, I perceiv'd, his grace would fain have done) The severals, and unhidden passages

Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms; And, generally, to the crown and seat of France, Deriv'd from Edward his great grandfather.

off?

Ely. What was the impediment that broke this 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.

1 Johnson has noticed the exquisite beauty of this line. So that the art and practic part of life Must be the mistress to his theoric.'

2

He discourses with so much skill on all subjects, 'that his theory must have been taught by art and practice, which is strange, since he could see little of the true art or practice among his loose companions, nor ever retired to digest his practice into theory. Practic and theoric, or rather practique and theorique, was the old orthography of practice and theory.

3 Companies, for companions. 4 Popularity meant familiarity with the common people, as well as popular favour or applause.

5 This expressive word is used by Drant, in his Translation of Horace's Art of Poetry, 1567.

6 The severals, and unhidden passages. The particulars and clear unconcealed circumstances of his true titles, &c.

7 Send for him, good uncle. The person here addressed was Thomas Beaufort, half brother to King Henry IV being one of the sons of John of Gaunt by

K. Hen.

Sure, we thank you.

My learned lord, we pray you to proceed;
And justly and religiously unfold,

Why the law Salique, that they have in France,
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim.
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth;

For God doth know, how many, now in health,
Shall drop their blood in approbation10
Of what your reverence shall incite us to:
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,"
How you awake the sleeping sword of war;
We charge you in the name of God, take heed:
For never two such kingdoms did contend,
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,

'Gainst him, whose wrongs give edge unto the

swords

That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord:
And we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
As pure as sin with baptism.

Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and

you peers,

That owe your lives, your faith, and services,
To this imperial throne:--There is no bar12
To make against your highness' claim to France,
But this, which they produce from Pharamond,-
In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant,
No woman shall succeed in Salique land;
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze, 12
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm,
That the land Salique lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe:

Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Sax

ons,

There left behind and settled certain French:
Who, holding in disdain the German women,

Katharine Swynford. He was not made duke of Exeat till the year after the battle of Agincourt, 1416. He wa properly now only eart of Dorset. Shakspeare may have confounded this character with John Holland duke of Exeter, who married Elizabeth, the king's aunt, He was executed at Plashey, in 1400. The old play began with the next speech.

For some dishonest manners of their life,
Establish'd there this law, -to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land;
Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
Is at this day in Germany call'd-Meisen.
Thus doth it well appear, the Salique law
Was not devised for the realm of France:
Nor did the French possess the Salique land
Untill four hundred one and twenty years
After defunction of king Pharamond,
Idly suppos'd the founder of this law;
Who died with inthe year of our redemption
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year

Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childerick,
Did, as their general, being descended
Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,
Make claim and title to the crown of France.
Hugh Capet also, that usurp'd the crown

Of Charles the duke of Lorain, sole heir male
Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great, -
To fine' his title with some show of truth,

(Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,) Convey'd himself as heir to the Lady Lingare,

earth,

Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former lions of your blood.

West. They know, your grace hath cause, and

means, and might;

So hath your highnes; never king of England Had nobles richer, a..d more loyal subjects; Whose hearts have left their bodies here in Eng

land,

And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.

Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege, With blood, and sword, and fire, to win your right: In aid whereof, we of the spirituality

Will raise your highness such a mighty sum,
As never did the clergy at one time

Bring in to any of your ancestors.

K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the

French;

Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son

But lay down our proportions to defend

To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son

Against the Scot, who will make road upon us

Great

Was reunited to the crown of France.
So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim,
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female:
So do the kings of France unto this day;
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law,
To bar your highness claiming from the female;
And rather choose to hide them in a net,
Than amply to imbare their crooked titles
Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.

K. Hen. May I, with right and conscience, make

this claim?

Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign! For in the book of Numbers is it writ,When the son dies, let the inheritance Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord, Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag; Look back unto your mighty ancestors; Go, my dread lord, to your great grandsire's tomb, From whom you claim: invoke his warlike spirit, And your great uncle's, Edward the Black Prince; Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy, Making defeat on the full power of France; Whiles his most mighty father on a hill Stood smiling; to behold his lion's whelp Forage in blood of French nobility. O noble English, that could entertain With half their forces the full pride of France; And let another half stand laughing by, All out of work, and cold for action!

Cant. They of those marches, gracious sovereign,

Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatchers

only,

But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
For you shall read, that my great grandfather
Never went with his forces into France,

But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brimfulness of his force;
Galling the gleaned land with hot essays;
Girding with grievous siege, castles and towns;
That England, being empty of defence,

Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighbourhood.

Cant. She hath been then more fear'd' than harm'd, my liege:

For hear her but exampled by herself,-
When all her chivalry hath been in France,
And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
She hath herself not only well defended,
But taken, and impounded as a stray,

The king of Scots; whom she did send to France,
To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings;
And make your chronicle as rich with praise,
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.

West. But there's a saving, very old and true,

If that you will France win,
Then with Scotland first begin :

For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs:
Playing the mouse, in absence of the cat,
To spoil and havoc more than she can eat.

Eze. It follows, then, the cat must stay at home: Yet that is but a crush'd necessity; 12