coming,' or (better) 'the emperor's coming,' parallel to the King of England's stay at home.' The line refers to the visit of Sigismund, Emperor of Germany, 1st May, 1416. Malone supposed that a line had dropped out before The Emperor', etc.; Capell rewrote the passage. It seems, however, that if instead of a semicolon, a comma is placed after 'at home,' the lines are perfectly intelligible as they stand.

V. i. 85. 'Doll'; Capell, Nell'; which is probably the correct reading, though Shakespeare may himself have made the mistake. V. ii. 7. 'Burgundy'; Rowe's emendation, from Quartos, of Folio 1, 'Burgogne'; Folios 2, 4, ‘Burgoigne'; Folio 3, 'Bargoigne.'

V. ii. 11. ‘So are you, princes English, every one'; Folios I, 2, 3, 'So are you princes (English) every one'; Folio 4, 'So are you princes (English every one).'

V. ii. 12. 'England'; so Folios 2, 3, 4; Folio 1 reads 'Ireland.' V. ii. 50. 'all'; Rowe's reading; Folios 'withall.'

V. ii. 82. 'Pass our accept'; Warburton reads, 'Pass, or accept'; Malone conj. ' Pass, or except,' etc.

V. ii. 259, 260. ‘queen of all, Katharine'; Capell conj. adopted by Dyce, 'queen of all Katharines.'

V. ii. 359. 'Héritier'; Folios read 'Heretere'; 'Præclarissimus'; so Folios; Rann reads 'Percarissimus'; the error is, however, copied from Holinshed.

V. ii. 393. 'Sennet'; Folio 1, 'Senet'; Folio 2, 'Sonet,' as though referring to the fourteen lines of the Epilogue.

Epil. 13. Which oft our stage hath shown'; vide Preface to 1, 2, 3 Henry VI.

Explanatory Notes.

The Explanatory Notes in this edition have been specially selected and adapted, with emendations after the latest and best authorities, from the most eminent Shakespearian scholars and commentators, including Johnson, Malone, Steevens, Singer, Dyce, Hudson, White, Furness, Dowden, and others. This method, here introduced for the first time, provides the best annotation of Shakespeare ever embraced in a single edition.

PROLOGUE.

1. O for a Muse, etc.:-How strongly Shakespeare was impressed by the greatness of his theme appears in his reiterated expressions of humility in approaching it. He begins, like the epic poets of antiquity, with an invocation of the Muse; he implores forgiveness, not only for the imperfection of his scenic apparatus, but for the "flat unraised spirits" in which he treats so mighty a theme.

7-19. This is taken almost literally from Holinshed: "In the second yeare of his reigne, King Henrie called his nigh court of parlement, in which manie petitions moved were for that time deferred. Amongst which one was to the effect, that the temporall lands devoutlie given, and disordinatelie spent by religious and other spirituall persons, should be seized into the Kings hands; sith the same might suffice to mainteine, to the honor of the King, and defense of the realme, fifteene earles, fifteene hundred knights, six thousand and two hundred esquires, and a hundred almessehouses, for reliefe onelie of the poore, impotent, and needie persons, and the King to have cleerelie to his coffers twentie thousand pounds." It should be remarked that this Parliament was called, April 30, 1414, at Leicester; but it appears from the Chorus

to the Second Act that the Poet laid the scene of the first Act at London.

51, 52. So that this theoric:-That is, he must have drawn his theory, digested his order and method of thought, from the art and practice of life, instead of shaping the latter by the rules and measures of the former: which is strange, since he has never been seen in the way either of learning the things in question by experience, or of digesting the fruits of experience into theory. Practic and theoric, or practique and theorique, were the old spelling of practice and theory. An apt commentary on the text occurs in A Treatise of Human Learning, by Lord Brooke, who was a star in the same constellation with Shakespeare, and one of the profoundest thinkers of the time:

“Againe, the active, necessarie arts

Ought to be briefe in bookes, in practise long:
Short precepts may extend to many parts;
The practise must be large, or not be strong.
For if these two be in one ballance weigh'd,
The artless use bears down the useless art.
The world should therefore her instructions draw
Backe unto life and actions, whence they came;
That practise, which gave being, might give law
To make them short, cleare, fruitfull unto man:
As God made all for use, even so must she
By chance and use uphold her mystery."

Scene II.

[Enter Gloucester, Bedford, etc.] The princes Humphrey and John of the preceding play were made Dukes of Gloucester and Bedford at the first Parliament of Henry V., 1414. At the same time, according to Holinshed, Thomas Beaufort, Marquess of Dorset, was made Duke of Exeter. The Beaufort family sprang from John of Gaunt by Catharine Swynford, to whom he was married after she had borne him several children. The earldom of Warwick was at that time in the family of Beauchamp, and the Earl of Westmoreland was Ralph Neville.

40. gloze:-So in Holinshed: "The verie words of that supposed law are these, In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant, that is to saie, Into the Salike land let not women succeed. Which the French glossers expound to be the realme of France, and that this law was made by King Pharamond." This may serve as a

sample showing how closely the Poet here follows the chronicler; the whole speech being little else than Holinshed's sentences versified.

74. Convey'd himself, etc.:-That is, passed himself off as heir to the lady Lingare. Bishop Cooper has the same expression: "To convey himself to be of some noble family." The matter is thus stated by Holinshed: "Hugh Capet also, who usurped the crowne upon Charles Duke of Loraine, the sole heire male of the line and stocke of Charles the great, to make his title seeme true, and appeare good, though in deed it was starke naught, conveied himselfe as heire to the ladie Lingard, daughter to King Charlemaine."

130-135. O, let, etc. :-So in Holinshed's paraphrase of the Archbishop's speech: At length, having said sufficientlie for the proofe of the King's just and lawful title to the crowne of France, he exhorted him to advance foorth his banner to fight for his right, to spare neither bloud, sword, nor fire, sith his warre was just, his cause good and his claime true: and he declared that in their spirituall convocation they had granted to his highnesse such a summe of monie as never by no spirituall persons was to any prince before those daies given or advanced."

252. galliard:-The galliard is thus described by Sir John Davies in his Orchestra:

"But, for more divers and more pleasing show,
A swift and wandring daunce she did invent,
With passages uncertaine, to and fro,

Yet with a certaine answere and consent
To the quicke musicke of the instrument.
Five was the number of the musicks feet,
Which still the daunce did with five paces meet.
A gallant daunce, that lively doth bewray
A spirit, and a vertue masculine,
Impatient that her house on earth should stay,
Since she herselfe is fiery and divine:
Oft doth she make her body upward fline;
With lofty turnes and capriols in the ayre,

Which with the lusty tunes accordeth faire."

258. Tennis-balls:-This funny piece of French diplomacy is thus related by Holinshed: "Whilest in the Lent season the King laie at Killingworth, there came to him from the Dolphin of France certeine ambassadors that brought with them a barrell of

Paris balles, which from their master they presented to him for a token that was taken in verie ill part, as sent in scorne, to signifie that it was more meet for the King to passe the time with such childish exercise, than to attempt any worthie exploit. Wherefore the King wrote to him that yer ought long he would tosse him some London balles that perchance should shake the walles of the best court in France." In the old play, The Famous Victories of Henry V., the "barrel of Paris balls becomes a gilded tun [i.e., goblet] of tennis-balls."

ACT SECOND.
Prologue.

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23. Richard Earl of Cambridge:-This was Richard Plantagenet, second son of Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, and brother to Edward, the Duke of York of this play.

Scene I.

30. [Pistol.] It is- clear, from the tenour of contemporary literature, that in Pistol and his companions Shakespeare drew from the life-studies that London ordinaries supplied him in abundance. We must call to mind the general custom of carrying weapons, the frequency of fatal brawls, license of duel, and insufficiency of police, together with the loose military population always afloat, to recognize fairly the unnatural developments of swaggering and cowardice in combination, that the circumstances of the times made familiar. Pistol might scarcely have been thought more of an exaggeration than the sullen and bloodyhinting Nym; and the original spectators must have appreciated, with a gusto that we may envy them, the scene in which these lilylivered rascals of contrasted costume stand opposed with naked swords that they are themselves afraid of, and affect to be held apart by the sword of Bardolph, only less a coward than the least of them, who faces out one impossible contingency by another and an oath-" Hear me, hear what I say-he that strikes the first stroke I'll run him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier." Mrs. Quickly herself never hit a truer meaning in attempting to express a false one, than when she bade good Corporal Nym, Show thy valour, and put up your sword."

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