*Confideration like an angel came,

And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him
Leaving his body as a paradife,

To envelop and contain celeftial fpirits.
Never was fuch a fudden fcholar made:
Never came reformation in a flood",
With fuch a heady current, fcouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

So foon did lose his feat, and all at once,
As in this king.

Ely. We are bleffed in the change.

Cant. Hear him but reafon in divinity,

And,

4 Confideration, like an angel, &c.] As paradife, when fin and Adam were driven out by the angel, became the habitation of celeftial fpirits, so the king's heart, fince confideration has driven out his follies, is now the receptacle of wisdom and of virtue.

JOHNSON.

5 Never came reformation in a flood,] Alluding to the method by which Hercules cleanfed the famous ftables when he turned a a river through them. Hercules ftill is in our author's head when he mentions the Hydra. JOHNSON.

Hear him but reafon in divinity, &c.] This fpeech feems to have been copied from king James's prelates, fpeaking of their Solomon: when archbishop Whitgift, who, as an eminent writer fays, died foon afterwards, and probably doated then, at the Hampton-Court conference, declared himself verily perfuaded, that his facred majefty fpoke by the spirit of God. And, in effect, this scene was added after king James's acceffion to the crown: so that we have no way of avoiding its being esteemed a compliment to him, but by fuppofing it was a fatire on his bishops.

WARBURTON.

Why thefe lines fhould be divided from the reft of the speech and applied to king James, I am not able to conceive; nor why an opportunity fhould be fo eagerly fnatched to treat with contempt that part of his character which was leaft contemptible. King James's theological knowledge was not inconfiderable. To prefide at difputations is not very fuitable to a king, but to understand the questions is furely laudable. The poet, if he had James in his thoughts, was no fkilful encomiaft; for the mention of Harry's fkill in war, forced upon the remembrance of his audience the great deficiency of their present king; who yet with all his faults, and many faults he had, was fuch, that fir

Robert

And, all-admiring, with an inward wish

You would defire, the king were made a prelate :
Hear him debate of common-wealth affairs,
You would fay,-it hath been all-in-all his study:
Lift his difcourfe of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in mufic:
Turn him to any caufe of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloofe,
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
7 The air, a charter'd libertine, is ftill,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's
To fteal his fweet and honey'd fentences;
8 So that the art, and practic part of life

ears,

Muft

Robert Cotton fays, he would be content that England fhould never bave a better, provided that it should never have a worse.

JOHNSON.

Those who are folicitous that juftice fhould be done to the theological knowledge of our British Solomon, may very easily furnish themselves with fpecimens of it from a book entitled, Rex Platonicus, five de potentiffimi Principis Jacobi Britanniarum Regis ad illuftriffimam Academiam Oxonienfem adventu, Aug. 27, Anno 1605. In this performance we may still hear him reafoning in Divinity, Phyfic, Jurifprudence, and Philofophy. On the fecond of thefe fubjects he has not failed to express his wellknown enmity to tobacco, and throws out many a royal witticifm on the "Medici Nicotianifta," and "Tobacconifta" of the age; infomuch that Ifaac Wake, the chronicler of his triumphs at Oxford, declares, that "nemo nifi iniquiffimus rerum æftimator, bonique publici peffimè invidus, Jacobo noftro recufabit immortalem gloriæ aram figere, qui ipfe adeo mirabilem in Theologia, Jurifprudentia et Medicina arcanis peritiam eamque planè divinitus affecutus eft, ut &c." STEEVENS.

7 The air, &c.] This line is exquifitely beautiful. JOHNSON. The fame thought occurs in As You Like It. A&t II. fc. 7 : I must have liberty

66

Withal, as large a charter as the wind,

"To blow on whom I pleafe." MALONE.

So that the art, and practic part of life,] All the editions, if I am not deceived, are guilty of a flight corruption in this paffage. The archbishop has been fhewing what a mafter the king was in the theory of divinity, war, and policy; fo that it must be expected (as, I conceive he would infer) that the king should

now

Must be the miftrefs to this theorique":

Which is a wonder, how his grace fhould glean it,
Since his addiction was to courfes vain;

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

Any retirement, any fequeftration
From open haunts and popularity.

Ely. The ftrawberry grows underneath the nettle'; And wholfome berries thrive, and ripen beft, Neighbour'd by fruit of bafer quality:

And fo the prince obfcur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildnefs; which, no doubt,
Grew like the fummer grafs, fafteft by night,

now wed that theory to action, and the putting the feveral parts of his knowledge into practice. If this be our author's meaning, I think, we can hardly doubt but he wrote:

So that the act, and practic, &c.

Thus we have a confonance in the terms and fenfe. For theory is the art and study of the rules of any fcience; and action, the exemplification of thofe rules by proof and experiment..

THEOBALD.

This emendation is received by Dr. Warburton, but it appears to me founded upon a mifrepresentation. The true meaning feems to be this. He difcourfes with fo much skill on all fubjects, that the art and practice of life must be the mistress or teacher of his theorique; that is, that his theory must have been taught by art and practice; which, fays he, is strange, fince he could fee little of the true art or practice among his loofe companions, nor ever retired to digeft his practice into theory: art is ufed by the author for practice, as diftinguished from science or theory.

JOHNSON.

-to this theorique :] Theoric is what terminates in speculation. So, in The Valiant Welchman, 1615:

fon Caradoc,

'Tis yet unfit that on this fudden warning "You leave your fair wife, to the theorique Of matrimonial pleafure and delight."

Bookish theorique is mentioned in Othello. STEEVENS.

The ftrawberry &c.] i. e. the wild fruit fo called, that grows

in the woods. STEEVENS.

Unfeen,

Unfeen, yet crefcive in his faculty 2.

Cant. It must be fo: for miracles are ceas'd; And therefore we muft needs admit the means, How things are perfected.

Ely. But, my good lord,

How now for mitigation of this bill
Urg'd by the commons? Doth his majesty
Incline to it, or no?

Cant. He feems indifferent;

Or, rather, fwaying more upon our part,
Than cherishing the exhibiters against us :
For I have made an offer to his majesty,
Upon our fpiritual 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 fum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predeceffors part withal.

Ely. How did this offer feem receiv'd, my lord ?
Cant. With good acceptance of his majefty:
Save, that there was not time enough to hear
(As, I perceiv'd, his grace would fain have done)
The feverals, and unhidden paffages',

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

crefcive in his faculty.] Increafing in its proper power.
JOHNSON.

Grew like the fummer grafs, fafteft by night,
Unfeén, yet crefcive in his faculty.]

Crefcit occulto velut arbor ævo

Fama Marcelli.

Crefcive is a word ufed by Drant in his tranflation of Horace's Art of Poetry, 1567:

"As lufty youths of crefcive age doe flourishe freshe and grow." STEEVENS.

3 The feverals, and unbidden paffages,] This line I fufpect of corruption, though it may be fairly enough explained, the paf fages of his titles are the lines of fucceffion by which his claims defcend. Unbidden is open, clear. JOHNSON,

Ely.

Ely. What was the impediment that broke this off? Cant. The French ambaffador, upon that inftant, 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 fpeaks a word of it. Ely. I'll wait upon you; and I long to hear it. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Opens to the prefence.

Enter king Henry, Glofter, Bedford, Warwick, Weftmorland, and Exeter.

t

K. Henry. Where is my gracious lord of Canterbury?

Exe. Not here in prefence.

K. Henry. Send for him, good uncle 4.

Weft. Shall we call in the ambaffador, my liege? K. Henry, Not yet, my coufin; we would be refolv'd,

Before we hear him, of fome things of weight,
That' task our thoughts, concerning us and France.

Enter the archbishop of Canterbury, and bishop of Ely.
Cant. God, and his angels, guard your facred throne,
And make you long become it!

4 Good Uncle.] John Holland, duke of Exeter, was married to to Elizabeth the king's aunt. STEEVENS.

5 Shall we call in, &c,] Here began the old play. POPE. • Not yet, my confin; &c.] The 4to. 1600 and 1608, read Not yet, my coufin, till we be refolv'd

Of fome ferious matters touching us and France.

STEEVENS.

7 talk] Keep bufied with fcruples and laborious difquifitions. JOHNSON,

K. Henry.