Boling. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou haft wrought

A deed of flander, with thy fatal hand,

Upon my head, and all this famous land.

Exton. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.

Boling. They love not poison, that do poifon need,
Nor do I thee; though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
The guilt of confcience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word, nor princely favour:
With Cain go wander through the fhade of night,
And never fhew thy head by day nor light.-
Lords, I proteft, my foul is full of woe,

That blood fhould fprinkle me, to make me grow;
Come, mourn with me for what I do lament,
And put on fullen black incontinent;

I'll make a voyage to the Holy land,

To wash this blood off from my guilty hand :--
March fadly after; grace my mournings here,
In weeping after this untimely bier. [Exeunt omnes*.

This play is extracted from the Chronicle of Holinfbed, in which many paffages may be found which Shakeipeare has, with very little alteration, tranfplanted into his fcenes; particularly a fpeech of the bishop of Carlisle in defence of king Richard's unalienable right, and immunity from human jurifdiction.

Jonfon who, in his Catiline and Sejanus, has inferted many fpeeches from the Roman hiftorians, was perhaps induced to that practice by the example of Shakespeare, who had condescended fometimes to copy more ignoble writers. But Shakespeare had more of his own than Jonfon, and, if he fometimes was willing to fpare his labour, fhewed by what he performed at other times, that his extracts were made by choice or idlenefs rather than neceffity.

This play is one of thofe which Shakespeare has apparently revifed; but as fuccefs in works of invention is not always proportionate to labour, it is not finished at last with the happy force of fome other of his tragedies, nor can be said much to affect the pas fions, or enlarge the understanding. JOHNSON,

HENRY IV.

PARTI

Perfons

King Henry the Fourth.

Henry, prince of Wales,

}

John, duke of Lancaster, fans to the king,

Earl of Worcester,

Earl of Northumberland.

Henry Percy, furnamed Hotspur.
Edmund Mortimer, earl of March,
Scroop, archbishop of York.
Archibald, earl of Douglas,

Owen Glendower.

Sir Richard Vernon,
Earl of Weftmoreland.
Sir Walter Blunt.

Sir John Falstaff,

Poins.

Gadshill,

Peto.

Bardolph.

Lady Percy, wife to Hotfpur, fifter to Mortimer.
Lady Mortimer, daughter to Glendower, and wife to
Mortimer.

Quickly, hoftefs of a tavern in Eaftcheap.

Sheriff, vintner, chamberlain, drawers, two carriers,
travellers, and attendants, &c.
SCENE, England.

1

John, duke of Lancafter,] It should be Prince John of Lancafter. STEEVENS.

The perfons of the drama were originally collected by Mr. Rowe, who has given the title of Duke of Lancafter to Prince John, a mistake which Shakespeare has been no where guilty of in the first part of this play, though in the fecond he has fallen into the fame error. K. Henry IV. was himself the last perfon that ever bore the title of Duke of Lancaster. But all his fons ('till they had peerages, as Clarence, Bedford, Gloucester) were diftinguifhed by the name of the royal houfe, as John of Lancaster, Humphrey of Lancafier &c. and in that proper ftyle, the prefent John (who became afterwards fo illuftrious by the title of Duke of Bedford) is always mentioned in the play before us. STEEVENS.

KING HENRY

IV.

ACTI. SCENE I.

The court in London.

Enter king Henry, earl of Westmoreland, Sir Walter Blunt, and others.

K. Henry, So fhaken as we are, fo wan with care, Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,

And

The First Part of Henry IV.] The tranfactions contained in this historical drama are comprised within the period of about ten months; for the action commences with the news brought of Hotfpur having defeated the Scots under Archibald earl Douglas at Holmedon (or Halidown-hill) which battle was fought on Holyrood-day (the 14th of September) 1402; and it closes with the defeat and death of Hotfpur at Shrewsbury; which engagement happened on Saturday the 21st of July (the eve of Saint Mary Magdalen) in the year 1403. THEOBALD.

This play was first entered at Stationers' Hall, Feb. 25. 1597, by Andrew Wife. Again by M. Woolff, Jan. 9. 1598. For the piece fuppofed to have been its original, fee Six old Plays on which Shakespeare founded &c. publifhed for S. Leacroft, CharingCrofs. STEEVENS.

Shakespeare has apparently defigned a regular connection of thefe dramatic hiftories from Richard the Second to Henry the Fifth, King Henry, at the end of Richard the Second, declares his purpose to vifit the Holy land, which he refumes in this fpeech, The complaint made by king Henry in the last act of Richard the Second, of the wildnefs of his fon, prepares the reader for the frolicks which are here to be recounted, and the characters which are now to be exhibited, JOHNSON,

And breathe fhort-winded accents of new broils
To be commenc'd in ftronds afar remote.

* No more the thirsty entrance of this foil

3 Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe Short-winded accents

Shall

That is, let us foften peace to rest a while without disturbance, that the may recover breath to propofe new wars. JOHNSON. 4 No more the thirfly entrance of this foil

Shall damp her lips with her own childrens' blood ;]

This nonfenfe fhould be read: Shall trempe, i. e. moiften, and refers to thirsty in the preceding line: trempe, from the French, tremper, properly fignifies the moiftness made by rain. WARBURTON.

That these lines are abfurd is foon difcovered, but how this nonfenfe will be made fenfe is not fo eafily told; furely not by reading trempe, for what means he, that fays, the thirfy entrance of this foil fhall no more trempe her lips with her childrens' blood, more than he that fays it shall not damp her lips? To fuppofe the entrance of the foil to mean the entrance of a king upon dominion, and king Henry to predict that kings hall enter bereafter without bloodfhed, is to give words fuch a latitude of meaning, that no nonsense can want a congruous interpretation.

The ancient copies neither have trempe nor damp: the first quarto of 1599, that of 1622, the folio of 1623, and the quarto of 1639, all read:

No more the thirsty entrance of this foil

Shall daube her lips with her own childrens' blood.

The folios of 1632 and 1664 read, by an apparent error of the prefs, all damb her lips, from which the later editors have idly adopted damp. The old reading helps the editor no better than the new, nor can I fatisfactorily reform the paffage. I think that thirfly entrance must be wrong, yet know not what to offer. We may read, but not very elegantly:

No more the thirty entrails of this foil

Shall daubed be with her own childrens' blood.

The relative her is inaccurately used in both readings; but to regard fenfe more than grammar, is familiar to our author.

We may fuppofe a verfe or two loft between these two lines. This is a cheap way of palliating an editor's inability; but I believe fuch omiffions are inore frequent in Shakespeare than is commonly imagined. JOHNSON.

Perhaps the following conjecture may be thought very far fetch'd, and yet I am willing to venture it, because it often happens that a wrong reading has affinity to the right. I would read: the thirty entrants of this foil;