Paris, Guysors, Poictiers, are all quite lost. BED. What say'st thou, man, before dead Henry's corse? Speak softly; or the loss of those great towns If Henry were recall'd to life again, These news would cause him once more yield the ghost. EXE. How were they lost? what treachery was us'd? MESS. No treachery; but want of men and mo ney. Among the soldiers this is muttered,— That here you maintain several factions; And, whilst a field should be despatch'd and fought, One would have ling'ring wars, with little cost; Let not sloth dim your honours, new-begot: EXE. Were our tears wanting to this funeral, These tidings would call forth her flowing tides 3. BED. Me they concern; regent I am of France :Give me my steeled coat, I'll fight for France.Away with these disgraceful wailing robes! among the places lost, as Gloster in his next speech infers that it had been mentioned with the rest. STEEVENS. 4 A third MAN thinks,] Thus the second folio. The first omits the word—man, and consequently leaves the verse imperfect. STEEVENS. 5 HER flowing tides.] i. e. England's flowing tides. MALONE. Wounds I will lend the French, instead of eyes, Enter another Messenger. 2 MESS. Lords, view these letters, full of bad France is revolted from the English quite; EXE. The Dauphin crowned king! all fly to him! O, whither shall we fly from this reproach? GLO. We will not fly, but to our enemies' throats: Bedford, if thou be slack, I'll fight it out. BED. Gloster, why doubt'st thou of my forward ness? An army have I muster'd in my thoughts, Enter a third Messenger. 3 MESS. My gracious lords,-to add to your laments, Wherewith you now bedew king Henry's hearse,— I must inform you of a dismal fight, Betwixt the stout lord Talbot and the French. WIN. What! wherein Talbot overcame? is't so? 3 MESS. O, no; wherein lord Talbot was o'erthrown: The circumstance I'll tell you more at large. 6 their intermissive miseries.] i. e. their miseries, which have had only a short intermission from Henry the Fifth's death to my coming amongst them. WARBURTON. Retiring from the siege of Orleans, Having full scarce six thousand in his troop', To keep the horsemen off from breaking in. 8 Hundreds he sent to hell, and none durst stand him; 7 Having FULL Scarce, &c.] The modern editors read-scarce full, but, I think, unnecessarily. So, in The Tempest : 66 Prospero, master of a full poor cell." STEEVENS. 8 above human thought, ENACTED WONDERS -] So, in King Richard III.: "The king enacts more wonders than a man." STEEVENS. 9-he SLEW:] I suspect the author wrote flew. MALONE. 1 And rush'd into the BOWELS OF THE BATTLE.] Again, in the fifth Act of this play: "So, rushing in the bowels of the French." The same phrase had occurred in the first part of Jeronimo, 1605: "Meet, Don Andrea! yes, in the battle's bowels." STEEVENS. 2 If sir John Fastolfe, &c.] Mr. Pope has taken notice, “That Falstaff is here introduced again, who was dead in Henry V. The occasion whereof is, that this play was written before King Henry IV. or King Henry V." But it is the historical Sir John Fastolfe (for so he is called in both our Chroniclers) that is here mentioned; who was a lieutenant general, deputy regent to the He being in the vaward, (plac'd behind3, A base Walloon, to win the Dauphin's grace, duke of Bedford in Normandy, and a knight of the garter; and not the comick character afterwards introduced by our author, and which was a creature merely of his own brain. Nor when he named him Falstaff do I believe he had any intention of throwing a slur on the memory of this renowned old warrior. THEOBALD. 66 Mr. Theobald might have seen his notion contradicted in the very line he quotes from. Fastolfe, whether truly or not, is said by Hall and Holinshed to have been degraded for cowardice. Dr. Heylin, in his Saint George for England, tells us, that he was afterwards, upon good reason by him alledged in his defence, restored to his honour."-" This Sir John Fastolfe," continues he, "was, without doubt, a valiant and wise captain, notwithstanding the stage hath made merry with him." FARMER. See vol xvi. p. 410; and Oldys's Life of Sir John Fastolfe in the General Dictionary. MALONE. In the 18th Song of Drayton's Polyolbion is the following character of this Sir John Fastolph : 66 66 Strong Fastolph with this man compare we justly may; "In many a brave attempt the general foe annoy'd; For an account of this Sir John Fastolfe, see Anstis's Treatise on the Order of the Garter; Parkins's Supplement to Blomfield's History of Norfolk; Tanner's Bibliotheca Britannica; or Capel's notes, vol. ii. p. 221; and Sir John Fenn's Collection of the Paston Letters. REED. 3 He being in the vaward, (plac'd behind,] Some of the editors seem to have considered this as a contradiction in terms, and have proposed to read-the rearward,—but without necessity. Some part of the van must have been behind the foremost line of it. We often say the back front of a house. STEEVENS. When an army is attacked in the rear, the van becomes the rear in its turn, and of course the reserve. M. MASON. Whom all France, with their chief assembled strength, Durst not presume to look once in the face. BED. Is Talbot slain? then I will slay myself, 3 MESS. O no, he lives; but is took prisoner, And lord Scales with him, and lord Hungerford: Most of the rest slaughter'd, or took, likewise. BED. His ransom there is none but I shall pay : The English army is grown weak and faint: And hardly keeps his men from mutiny, Since they, so few, watch such a multitude. EXE. Remember, lords, your oaths to Henry sworn; Either to quell the Dauphin utterly, Or bring him in obedience to your yoke. Το BED. I do remember it; and here take leave, go about my preparation. [Exit. GLO. I'll to the Tower, with all the haste I can, To view the artillery and munition; And then I will proclaim young Henry king. [Exit. EXE. To Eltham will I, where the young king is, Being ordain'd his special governor; And for his safety there I'll best devise. [Exit. |