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PERSONS REPRESENTED.

King HENRY the Fourth.

HENRY, Prince of Wales,
Prince JOHN of Lancaster,1
Earl of Westmoreland,
Sir WALTER BLUNT,

sons to the king.

friends to the king.

THOMAS PERCY, earl of Worcester.

HENRY PERCY, earl of Northumberland.
HENRY PERCY, surnamed Hotspur, his son.
EDMUND MORTIMER, earl of March.

SCROOP, archbishop of York.

ARCHIBALD, earl of Douglas.

OWEN GLENdower.

Sir RICHARD Vernon.

Sir JOHN FALSTAFF.

POINS.

GADSHILL.

PETO.

BARDOLPH.

Lady PERCY, wife to Hotspur, and sister to Mortimer.
Lady MORTIMER, daughter to Glendower, and wife to Mor-

timer.

Mrs. QUICKLY, hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap.

Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, Two Carriers, Travellers, and Attendants.

SCENE, England.

[1] The persons of the drama were originally collected by Mr. Rowe, who has given the title of Duke of Lancaster to Prince John, a mistake which Shakespeare has no where been guilty of in the first part of this play, though in the second he has fallen into the same error. King Henry IV. was himself the last person that ever bore the title of Duke of Lancaster. But all his sons (till they had peerages, as Clarence, Bedford, Gloucester,) were distinguished by the name of the royal house, as John of Lancaster, Humphrey of Lancaster, &c. and in that proper style the present John (who became afterwards so illustrious by the title of Duke of Bedford,) is always mentioned in the play before us.

STEEVENS.

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]

FIRST PART OF

KING HENRY IV.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-London. A Room in the Palace. Enter King HENRY, WESTMORELAND, Sir WALTER BLUNT, and others.

King Henry.

So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils'
To be commenc'd in stronds afar remote.

No more the thirsty Erinnys of this soil

Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,-
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now, in mutual, well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way; and be no more oppos'd
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,

As far as to the sepulchre of Christ,'

[1] That is, let us soften peace, to rest awhile without disturbance, that she may recover breath to propose new wars. JOHNSON.

[2] By Erinnys is meant the fury of discord. M. MASON.

[3] The lawfulness and justice of the holy wars have been much disputed; but perhaps there is a principle on which the question may be easily determined. If it be part of the religion of the Mahometans to extirpate by the sword all other religions, it is, by the laws of self-defence, lawful for men of every other religion, and for Christians among others, to make war upon Mahometans, simply as Mahometans, as men obliged by their own principles to make war upon Christians, and only lying in wait till opportunity shall promise them success. JOHNSON. Upon this note Mr. Gibbon makes the following observation: "If the reader will turn to the first scene of the First part of king Henry IV. he will see in the

(Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross
We are impressed and engag'd to fight,)
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy;
Whose arms were moulded in their mothers' womb
To chase these pagans, in those holy fields,
Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet,
Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nail'd
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose is a twelvemonth old,
And bootless 'tis to tell you-we will go ;

Therefore we meet not now :-Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree,
In forwarding this dear expedience."

West. My liege, this haste was hot in question,
And many limits of the charge set down

:

But yesternight when, all athwart, there came
A post from Wales, loaden with heavy news;
Whose worst was,-that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
And a thousand of his people butchered:
Upon whose dead corps there was such misuse,
Such beastly, shameless transformation,

By those Welshwomen done, as may not be,
Without much shame, re-told or spoken of.

K. Hen. It seems then, that the tidings of this broil Break off our business for the Holy land.

West. This, match'd with other, did, my gracious lord; For more uneven and unwelcome news

Came from the north, and thus it did import.
On Holy-rood day, the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy," and brave Archibald,
That ever-valiant and approved Scot,

At Holmedon met,

text of Shakespeare, the natural feelings of enthusiasm; and in the notes of Dr. Johnson, the workings of a bigotted, though vigorous mind, greedy of every pretence to hate and perserute those who dissent from his creed"-Gibbon's Hist. Vol. VI. 9. 4to. edit.

[3] For expedition.

REED.

[4] Limits for estimates. WARBURTON. [5] Thus Holinshed, "-such shameful villanie executed upon the carcasses of the dead men by the Welshwomen; as the like (I doo beleeve) hath never or sildome beene practised " See T Walsingham, p 557. STEEVENS.

[6] Holinshed's History of Scotland, saye This Harry Percy was surnamed, for his often pricking, Henry Hotspur, as one that seldom times rested, if there

were anie service to be done abroad."

TOLLET.

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