As is the ouze and bottom of the fea

With funken wreck and fumless treasuries.
Exe. But there's a faying very old and true:
3 If that you will France win,

Then with Scotland first begin.

For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded neft the weazel, Scot
Comes fneaking, and fo fucks her princely eggs;
Playing the mouse in abfence of the cat,

4 To taint, and havock, more than fhe can eat, Ely. It follows then, the cat must stay at home,

i. e. captures, booty. Without this there is neither beauty nor likeness in the fimilitude. WARBURTON.

The change of praise to prize, I believe no body will approve; the fimilitude between the chronicle and fea confifts only in this, that they are both full, and filled with fomething valuable. Befides, Dr. WARBURTON presupposes a reading which exifts in no ancient copy, for his chronicle as the later editions give it, the quarto has your, the folio their chronicle.

Your and their written by contraction y are just alike, and ber in the old hands is not much unlike y". I believe we fhould read her chronicle. JOHNSON.

I

2

and fumlefs treafuries.] The quarto 1608 reads,

and shipless treafury. STEEVENS.

Ely. But there's a faying, &c.] This fpeech, which is diffuafive of war with France, is abfurdly given to one of the churchmen in confederacy to push the king upon it, as appears by the firft fcene of this act. Befides, the poet had here an eye to Hall, who gives this obfervation to the duke of Exeter. But the editors have made Ely and Exeter change fides, and speak one another's fpeeches; for this, which is given to Ely, is Exeter's; and the following given to Exeter, is Ely's.

3

WARBURTON. If that you will France in, &c.] Hall's Chronicle. Hen. V. year 2. fol. 7. p. 2. X. РОРЕ.

4 To tear and havock more than he can eat.] It is not much the quality of the moufe to tear the food it comes at, but to run over and defile it. The old quarto reads, Spoile; and the two firft folios, tame: from which laft corrupted word, I think, I have retrieved the poet's genuine reading, taint.

THEOBALD.

Yet

5 Yet that is but a curs'd neceffity;
Since we have locks to fafeguard neceffaries,
And pretty traps to catch the

petty thieves. While that the armed hand doth fight abroad, The advised head defends itself at home:

7 For government, though high, and low, and lower, Put into parts, doth keep in one confent, Congruing in a full and natural close,

Like mufick.

Cant. True. Therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;

Το

5 Yet that is but a curs'd neceffity;] So the old quarto. The folios read cr'd: neither of the words convey any tolerable idea; but give us a counter-reafoning, and not at all pertinent. We should read, 'fcus'd neceffity. It is Ely's bufinefsto fhew, there is no real neceffity for ftaying at home: he must therefore mean, that though there be a feeming neceflity, yet it is one that may be well excus'd and got over.

WARB.

Neither the old readings nor the emendation feem very fatiffactory. A curfed neceffity has no fenfe; a 'fcus'd neceffity is fo harsh that one would not admit it, if any thing elfe can be found. A crush'd neceffity may mean, a neceffity which is fub. dued and over-powered by contrary reafons. We might read a crude neceflity, a neceffity not complete, or not well confidered and digefted, but it is too harsh.

Sir T. HANMER reads,

Yet that is not o'courfe a neceffity. JOHNSON.

A curs'd neceffity means, I believe, only an unfortunate neceffity. Curs'd, in colloquial phrafe, means any thing unfortunate. So we fay, fuch a one leads a curfed life; another has got into a curfed fcrape. STEEVENS.

6

And pretty traps] Thus the old copy; but I believe we thould read petty. STEEVENS.

7 Fer government, though high, and low, and lower.] The foundation and expreffion of this thought feems to be borrow'd from Cicero de Republica, lib. 2. Sic ex fummis, & mediis, & infimis interjectis ordinibus, ut fonis, moderatam ratione civitatem. Confenfu diffimiliorum concinere; & que harmonia à muficis dicitur in cantu, eam effe in civitate concordiam.. THEOв. 8 Setting endeavour in continual motion;

To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,

Obedience. Neither the fenfe nor the conftru&ion of this

B 3

paffage

To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience. For fo work the honey bees;
Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of forts;
Where fome, like magiftrates, correct at home;
9 Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like foldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the fummer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor;
Who, bufy'd in his majefty, furveys
The finging mafons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanick porters crowding in

paffage is
very obvious. The conftruction is, endeavour—as an
aim or butt to which endeavour, obedience is fixed. The fenfe is,
that all endeavour is to terminate in obedience, to be fubor-
dinate to the publick good and general defign of government.
JOHNSON.

9 Others, like merchants, VENTURE trade abroad;] What is the venturing trade? I am perfuaded we fhould read and point it thus,

Others, like merchant venturers, trade abroad.

WARB,

If the whole difficulty of this paffage confifts in the obscurity of the phrafe to venture trade, it may be eafily cleared. To venture trade is a phrafe of the fame import and ftructure as to bazard battle. Nothing could have raifed an objection but the defire of being bufy. JOHNSON.

The civil citizens KNEADING up the honey;] This may poffibly be right; but I rather think that Shakespeare wrote HEADING up the honey; alluding to the putting up merchandise in cafks. And this is in fact the cafe. The honey being headed up in feparate and diftinct cells by a thin membrane 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 heading the commodities. To knead gives an eafy fenfe, though not phyfically true. The bees do In fact knead the wax more than the honey, but that Shakefpeare perhaps did not know. JOHNSON.

The old quarto reads, lading up the honey. STEEVENS.

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 reference
To one confent, may work contrariously.
As many arrows, loofed feveral ways,
Come to one mark;

As many feveral ways meet in one town;
As many fresh streams run in one felf fea;
As many lines clofe in the dial's center;
So may a thousand actions, once a-foot,
End in one purpose, and be all well borne
3 Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.
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 fuch powers left at home,
Cannot defend our own door from the dog,
Let us be worried; and our nation lofe
The name of hardinefs 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.
pieces. Or there we'll fit,
Ruling, in large and ample empery,

So may a thousand actions, ONCE a-foot,] The fpeaker is en、 deavouring to fhew, that the ftate is able to execute many projected actions at once, and conduct them all to their comp.etion, without impeding or jostling one another in their courte. Shakespeare, therefore, muft 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 The change is not neceffary, the old text may

aft at once.

ftand. JOHNSON. 3 Without defeat.-] The quarto 1608 reads, Without defect.

B 4

STEEVENS.

O'er

O'er France, and all her almost kingly dukedoms,
Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
Tomblefs, with o remembrance over them.
Either our hiftory fal., with full mouth,
Speak freely of our acts; or elfe our grave,
Like Turkish mute, fhall have a tongueless mouth;
Not worship'd 4 with a waxen epitaph.

Enter ambafadors 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
fparingly fhew you far off

The Dauphin's meaning, and our embaffy?

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

Amb. Thus then, in few.

Your highnefs, lately fending into France,
Did claim fome certain dukedoms in the right
Of your great predeceffor, king Edward the third;
In anfwer 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 won:
You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
He therefore fends you, meeter for your spirit,
This tun of treafure; and, in lieu of this,
Defires you, let the dukedoms, that you claim,
Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin fpeaks.

with a waxen epitaph.] The quarto 1608 reads, with a paper epitaph. STEEVENS. This reading is more unintelligible, to me at leaft, than the ther: a grave not dignified with the flightest memorial.

JOHNSON.
K. Henry,