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, For living idly here, in pomp and ease, Whilst such a worthy leader, wanting aid, Unto his dastard foe-men is betray'd. 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, sworn ; Either to quell the Dauphin utterly, Or bring him in obedience to your yoke. BED. I do remember it; and here take leave, To 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. WIN. Each hath his place and function to at tend: I am left out; for me nothing remains. [Exit. Scene closes. SCENE II. France. Before Orleans. Enter CHARLES, with his Forces; ALENÇON, REIGNIER, and Others. CHAR. Mars his true moving3, even as in the heavens, 4 The king from Eltham I intend to SEND, And sit at chiefest stern of public weal.] The King was not at this time so much in the power of the Cardinal, that he could send him where he pleased. I have therefore no doubt but that there is an error in this passage, and that it should be read thus: "The king from Eltham I intend to steal, "And sit at chiefest stern of publick weal." This slight alteration preserves the sense, and the rhyme also, with which many scenes in this play conclude. The King's person, as appears from the speech immediately preceding this of Winchester, was under the care of the Duke of Exeter, not of the Cardinal : "Exe. To Eltham will I, where the young king is, Being ordain'd his special governor." M. MASON. The second charge in the Articles of Acusation preferred by the Duke of Gloster against the Bishop, (Hall's Chron. Henry VI. f. 12, b.) countenances this conjecture. MALONE. The disagreeable clash of the words—intend and send, seems indeed to confirm the propriety of Mr. M. Mason's emendation. STEEVENS. 5 Mars his true moving, &c.] So, Nash, in one of his prefaces before Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is Up, 1596: "You are as ignorant in the true movings of my muse, as the astronomers are in the true movings of Mars, which to this day they could never attain to. STEEVENS. So in the earth, to this day is not known: Otherwhiles, the famish'd English, like pale ghosts, Faintly besiege us one hour in a month. ALEN. They want their porridge, and their fat bull-beeves: Either they must be dieted like mules, And have their provender tyed to their mouths, REIG. Let's raise the siege; Why live we idly here? Talbot is taken, whom we wont to fear: Now for the honour of the forlorn French :- [Exeunt. Alarums; Excursions; afterwards a Retreat. Re-enter CHARLES, ALENÇON, REIGNIER, and Others. CHAR. Who ever saw the like? what men have I? Dogs! cowards! dastards!—I would ne'er have fled, But that they left me 'midst my enemies. REIG. Salisbury is a desperate homicide; He fighteth as one weary of his life. Do rush upon us as their hungry prey. ALEN. Froissard, a countryman of ours, records, England all Olivers and Rowlands bred", During the time Edward the third did reign. For none but Samsons, and Goliasses, It sendeth forth to skirmish. One to ten! CHAR. Let's leave this town; for they are hair- And hunger will enforce them to be more eager : 6 as their HUNGRY prey.] I believe it should be read : as their hungred prey." JOHNSON. 66 I adhere to the old reading, which appears to signify-' the prey for which they are hungry.' STEEVENS. 7 England all Olivers and Rowlands bred,] These were two of the most famous in the list of Charlemagne's twelve peers; and their exploits are rendered so ridiculously and equally extravagant by the old romancers, that from thence arose that saying amongst our plain and sensible ancestors, of giving one a Rowland for his Oliver,' to signify the matching one incredible lie with another. WARBURTON. Rather, to oppose one hero to another; i. e. " to give a person as good a one as he brings." STEEVENS. The old copy has-breed. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. 8 And hunger will enforce them To be more eager :] The preposition to should be omitted, as injurious to the measure, and unnecessary in the old elliptical mode of writing. So, Act IV. Sc. I. of this play: 66 "Let me persuade you take a better course." i. e. to take, &c. The error pointed out, occurs again in p. 30: Piel'd priest, dost thou command me to be shut out?" STEEVENS. 9 - gimmals-] A gimmal is a piece of jointed work, where one piece moves within another, whence it is taken at large for an engine. It is now by the vulgar called a gimcrack. JOHNSON. Their arms are set, like clocks', still to strike on; Enter the Bastard of Orleans. BAST. Where's the prince Dauphin? I have news for him. CHAR. Bastard of Orleans 2, thrice welcome to us. In the inventory of the jewels, &c. belonging to Salisbury cathedral, taken in 1536, 28th of Henry VIII. is "A faire chest with gimmals and key." Again: "Three other chests with gimmals of silver and gilt." Again, in The Vow-breaker, or The faire Maide of Clifton, 1636: "My actes are like the motionall gymmals "Fixt in a watch." See also King Henry V. Act IV. Sc. II. STEEVENS. Their arms are set, like clocks,] Perhaps our author was thinking of the clocks in which figures in the shape of men struck the hours. Of these there were many in his time. MALONE. To go like clockwork, is still a phrase in common use, to express a regular and constant motion. STEEVENS. 2 BASTARD of Orleans,] That this in former times was not a term of reproach, see Bishop Hurd's Letters on Chivalry and Romance, in the third volume of his Dialogues, p. 233, who observing on circumstances of agreement between the heroick and Gothick manners, says, that Bastardy was in credit with both." One of William the Conqueror's charters begins, "Ego Gulielmus cognomento Bastardus." And in the reign of Edward I. John Earl Warren and Surrey being called before the King's Justices to show by what title he held his lands, “ produxit in medium gladium antiquum evaginatum-et ait, Ecce Domini mei, ecce warrantum meum! Antecessores mei cum Willō Bastardo venientes conquesti sunt terras suas," &c. Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 13. Dugd. Bar. of Engl. vol. i. Blount 9. "Le Bastarde de Savoy," is inscribed over the head of one of the figures in a curious picture of the Battle of Pavia, in the Ashmolean Museum. In Fenn's Paston Letters, vol. iii. p. 72-3, in the articles of impeachment against the Duke of Suffolk, we read of the "Erle of Danas, bastard of Orlyaunce—." VAILLANT. Bastardy was reckoned no disgrace among the ancients. See |