The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor
mechanick porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The fad-ey'd justice, with his furly hum,
'Delivering o'er to executors pale

The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,-
That many things, having full referer.ce
To one confent, may work contrariously;
As many arrows, loosed several ways,
Fly to one mark;

As many feveral ways meet in one town;
As many fresh ftreams run in one self sea;
As many lines clofe in the dial's center;

So may a thousand actions, once afoot, End in one purpose, and be all well borne 9 Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.

• The civil citizens kneading up the boney;] This may poffibly be right but I rather think that Shakspeare wrote-heading up the honey; alluding to the putting up merchandize in casks. And this is in fact the cafe. The honey being beaded up in feparate and distinct cells by a thin membrance of wax drawn over the mouth of each of them, to hinder the liquid matter from running out. WARBURTON.

To head the honey can hardly be right; for though we head the cafk, no man talks of beading the commodities. To knead gives an easy fenfe, though not phyfically true. The bees do in fact knead the wax more than the honey, but that Shakspeare perhaps did not know. JOHNSON.

The old quartos read-lading up the honey. STEEVENS. 1 Delivering o'er to éxecutors pale

tioners.

The lazy yawning drone.] Executors is here used for execu
MALONE.

So may a thousand actions, once afoot,] The fpeaker is endeavouring to fhew that the state is able to execute many projected actions at once, and conduct them all to their completion, without impeding or jostling one another in their courfe. Shakfpeare, therefore, must have wrote, actions 't once a foot, i. e. at once, or on foot together. WARBURTON.

Sir T. Hanmer is more kind to this emendation by reading act The change is not neceffary, the old text may stand. JOHNSON.

at once.

? Without defeat.-] The quartos 1600 and 1608 read, Withput defect. STEEVENS.

Divide

Divide your happy England into four;
Whereof take you one quarter into France,
And you withal fhall make all Gallia fhake.
If we, with thrice that power left at home,
Cannot defend our own door from the dog,
Let us be worried; and our nation lose
The name of hardiness, and policy.

K. Henry. Call in the meffengers fent from the
Dauphin.

Now are we well refolv'd: and,-by God's help;
And yours, the noble finews of our power,-
France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
Or break it all to pieces: Or there we'll fit,
Ruling, in large and ample empery',

O'er France, and all her almost kingly dukedoms;
Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
Tomblefs, with no remembrance over them:
Either our history fhall, with full mouth,
Speak freely of our acts; or else our grave,

Like Turkish mute, fhall have a tonguclefs mouth,
Not worship'd with a waxen epitaph.

2

Enter

1 empery,] This word, which fignifies dominion, is now obfolete, though formerly in general ufe. So, in Claudius Tiberius Nero, 1607:

"Within the circuit cf our empery." STEEVENS.

with a waxen epitaph.] The quarto 1608 reads, with a

paper epitaph.

Either a waxen or a paper epitaph is an epitaph easily obliterated or destroyed; one which can confer no lafting honour on the dead. Shakipeare employs the former epithet in a fimilar fenfe in K. Richard II:

"That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat." Again, in G. Whetstone's Garden of Unthiftines, 1576: "In waxe, fay I, men easily grave their will;

"In marble ftone the worke with paine is wonne : "But perfect once, the print remaineth still,

"When waxen feales by every browse are donne."

STEEVENS.

The

Enter ambaladors of France.

Now we are well prepar'd to know the pleasure
Of our fair coufin Dauphin; for, we hear,
Your greeting is from him, not from the king.
Amb. May't please your majefty, to give us leave
Freely to render what we have in charge;
Or fhall we fparingly fhew you far off

The Dauphin's meaning, and our embaffy?

K. Henry. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king; Unto whole grace our paffion is as fubject, As are our wretches fetter'd in our prisons : Therefore, with frank and with uncurbed plainnefs, Tell us the Dauphin's mind.

Amb. Thus then, in few.

Your highness, lately fending into France,
Did claim fome certain dukedoms, in the right
Of your great predeceffor, king Edward the third,
In answer of which claim, the prince our mafter
Says, that you favour too much of your youth;
And bids you be advis'd, there's nought in France,
That can be with a nimble galliard 3 won ;

You

The second reading is more unintelligible, to me at least, than the other: a grave not dignified with the flightest memorial.

- JOHNSON. 3 —a nimble galliard won :] A galliard was an ancient dance, now obfolete. So, in All for Money, 1574:

"Where fhall we get a pipe to play the devil a galliard ?” STEEVENS. Galliards are thus defcribed by fir John Davis in his poem called Orchestra:

But for more diverfe and more pleafing show,
A fwift and wand'ring dance fhe did invent,
With paffages uncertain to and fro,

Yet with a certain answer and confent
To the quick music of the inftrument.
Five was the number of the mufic's feet,
Which still the dance did with five paces meet,

A gallant

You cannot revel into dukedoms there :
He therefore fends you, meeter for your fpirit,
This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,
Defires you, let the dukedoms, that you claim,
Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.
K. Henry. What treafure, uncle?

Exe. 4 Tennis-balls, my liege.

K. Henry. We are glad, the Dauphin is fo pleafant with us;

His prefent, and your pains, we thank you for :
When we have match'd our rackets to thefe balls,
We will, in France, by God's grace, play a fet,
Shall ftrike his father's crown into the hazard:
Tell him, he hath made a match with such a wrangler,
That all the courts of France will be disturb'd

6

With chaces. And we understand him well,

A gallant dance that lively doth bewray

A fpirit and a virtue masculine,

Impatient that her houfe on earth should stay
Since the herself is fiery and divine:

Oft doth the of her body upward fine;
With lofty turns and caprioles in the air,
Which with the lufty tunes accordeth fair.

How

EDITOR.

4 Tennis balls, my liege.] In the old play of Henry V. already mentioned, this prefent confifts of a gilded tun of tennis-balls and a carpet. STEEVENS.

5 We are glad the dauphin is fo pleasant with us ;] Thus ftands the answer of K. Henry in the fame old play :

"My lord, prince Dolphin is very pleasant with me.
"But tell him, that inftead of balls of leather,

"We will tofs him balls of brafs and of iron:

"Yea, fuch balls as never were tofs'd in France.

"The proudest tennis-court in France fhall rue it."

And the following paffage is in Michael Drayton's Battle of Agin

court:

"I'll fend him balls and rackets if I live,
"That they fuch racket fhall in Paris fee,
"When over line with bandies I fall drive;

"As that, before the fet be fully done,

"France may perhaps into the hazard run." STEEVENS. Chace is a term at tennis. JOHNSON.

How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,
Not measuring what ufe we made of them.
We never valu'd this poor feat of England;
"And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
To barbarous licence; As 'tis ever common,
That men are merrieft when they are from home.
But tell the Dauphin,-I will keep my ftate;
Be like a king, and fhew my fail of greatness,
When I do roufe me in my throne of France:
For that I have laid by my majesty,

And plodded like a man for working-days;
But I will rife then with fo full a glory,
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Yea, ftrike the dauphin blind to look on us.
And tell the pleasant prince,-this mock of his
Hath turn'd his balls to gun-ftones; and his foul
Shall

So is the hazard; a place in the tennis-court into which the ball is fometimes ftruck. STEEVENS.

And therefore, living hence,-] This expreffion has strength and energy he never valued England; and therefore lived bence; i. e. as if absent from it. But the Oxford editor alters bence to here. WARBURTON.

Living hence means, I believe, withdrawing from the court, the place in which he is now speaking. STEEVENS.

It is evident that the word bence implies here. The king fays, that as he had lived from home (i. e. his throne of France) in a place he did not efteem, he had been carelefs to obferve the dignity and behaviour of a great king. REMARKS.

If bence means here, any one word, as Dr. Johnson has fome. where obferved, may ftand for another. It undoubtedly does not fignify here in the prefent paffage; and, if it did, it would render what follows, nonfenfe. MALONE.

8 For that I have laid by] To qualify myself for this undertaking, I have defcended from my ftation, and studied the arts of life in a lower character. JOHNSON.

The quarto 1600 and 16-8 read for this. STEEVENS.

66

9 his balls to gun-ftones?] When ordnance was firft ufed, they difcharged balls, not of iron, but of stone. JOHNSON. So, Holinfhed, p. 947. About feaven of the clocke marched forward the light pieces of ordinance, with one and powder."

In