Enter Sir Richard Vernon.
Hot. My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul!

Ver. Pray God, my news be worth a welcome, lord,
The earl of Westmorland, seven thousand strong,
Is marching hitherwards; with him prince John.

Hot. No harm: what more?

Ver. And further, I have learn’d,
The king himself in person hath set forth,
Or hitherwards intended speedily,
With strong and mighty preparation.

Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is his fon,
4 The niinble-footed mad-cap prince of Wales,
And his comrades, that daft the world aside,
And bid it pass?
Ver. 5 All furnish’d, all in arms,

All

4 The nimble-footed mad-cap prince of Wales,] Shakespeare rarely best ws his epithets at random. Stowe says of the prince, “ he was passing swift in running, infomuch that he with two “ other of his lords, without hounds, bow, or other engine, “c would take a wild-duck, or doe, in a large park.”

STEEVENS, Ş All furnish'd, all in arms,

All plum'd like citridges, that with the wind

Baited like eagles,- To bait with the wind appears to me an improper expression. To bait is, in the style of falconry, to beat the wing, from the French battre, that is, to flutter in preparation for Aight,

Besides, what is the meaning of estridges, that baited with the wind like eagles ? for the relative tisat, in the usual construction, must relate to eftridges. Sir Thomas Hanmer reads,

All plum'd like estridges, and with the wind

Paiting like eagles.
By which he has escaped part of the dificulty, but has yet left
impropriety sufficienī to make his reading questionable.
I read,

All furnish’d, all in arms,
All plum'd like edridges that wing the wind

Beites like eagles. This gives a strong image. They were not only plum'd like erridges, but their plumes fiuttered like those of an estridge

beading

6 All plum'd like estridges, that with the wind
Baited like eagles, having lately bath'd :
7 Glittering in golden coats like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at Midsummer;
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
s I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
9 His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm’d,

---

Rise

beating the wind with his wings. A more lively representation of ycung men ardent for enterprize, perhaps no writer has ever given. Johnson.

I believe eftridges never mount at all, but only run before the wind, opening their wings to receive its affiftance in urging them forward. They are generally hunted on horseback, and the art of the hunter is to turn them from the wind, by the help of which they are too feet for the swiftest horse to keep up with them. I should have suspected a line to have been omitted, had not all the copies concurred in the same reading. Steevens.

I have little doubt that instead of with, fume verb ought to be substituted here. Perhaps it should be whisk. The word is used by a writer of Shakespeare's age. England's Helicon, lign. 2.

“ This said, he whisk'd his particolourd wings.”

°T. T.

6 All plum'd like estridges, &c.] All dressed like the prince himself, the oftrich-feather being the cognizance of the prince of Wales. GRAY.

? Glittering in golden coats like images ;] This alludes to the manner of dresling up images in the Romish churches on holydays; where they are bedecked in gilt robes richly laced and embroidered. STEVENS.

8 I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,] We should read beaver up. It is an impropriety to say on: for the beaver is only the visiere of the helmet, which, let down, covers the face. When the soldier was not upon action he wore it up, so that his face might be seen, (hence Vernon says he saw young Harry.) But when upon action, it was let down to cover and secure che face. Hence in The Second Part of Henry IV. it is said, Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down.

WARBURTON. There is no need of all this note; for beaver may be a helmet; or the prince, trying his armour, might wear his beaver down. JOHNSON.

9 His cuisjes on his thighs, -] Cuises, French, armour for the thighs, Pope,

The

Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury;
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropt down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegafus,
1 And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
Hot. No more, no more; worse than the fun in

March,
This praise doch nourish agues. Let them come.
They come like facrifices in their triin,
And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoaky war,
All hot, and bleeding, will we offer them.
The mailed Mars shall on his altar fit
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprisal is fo nigh,
And yet not ours. Come, let me take my horse,
Who is to bear me, like a thunder-bolt,
Against the bosom of the prince of Wales.
2 Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse-
Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a corse.--
O, that Glendower were come!

Ver. There is more news:
I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,
He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.

The reason why his cuisses are fo particularly mentioned, I conceive to be, that his horsemanship is here praised, and the cuisses are that part of armour which most hinders a horseman's activity. JOHNSON.

And witch the world ) For bewitch, charm. POPE. 2 Harry to Harry spall, bet borse to horse,

Meet and ne'er part,-) This reading I have restored from the first edition. The edition in 1623, reads

Harry to Harry fall, not horse to borse,

Meet, and ne'er part.
Which has been followed by all the critics except Sir Thomas
Hanmer, who, juftly remarking the impertinence of the nega-
tive, reads,

Harry to Harry Mall, and borse to borse,

Meet, 4:1d ne'er part. But the unexampled expression of meeting to for meeting with, or fimply meeting, is yet left. The ancient reading is surely right.

JOHNSON.

Doug.

Doug. That's the worst tidings that I hear of yet.
Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.
Hot. What may the king's whole battle reach unto?
Ver. To thirty thousand.

Hot. Forty let it be;
My father and Glendower being both away,
The powers of us may serve so great a day.
Come, let us take a muster speedily:
Dooms-day is near; die all, die merrily. .

Doug. Talk not of dying; I am out of fear
Of death, or death's hand, for this one half year.

[Exeunt.

Doorns det us take a hay ferve 18 both away.

SCENE II.
Changes to a public road near Coventry.

Enter Falstaff and Bardolph. . Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of fack. Our soldiers shall march through : we'll to Sutton-Colfield to-night.

Bard. Will you give me money, captain ?
Fal. Lay out, lay out.
Bard. This bottle makes an angel.

Fal. And if it do, take it for thy labour ; and if it make twenty, take them all, I'll answer the coinage. Bid my 3 lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. Bard. I will, captain: farewell.

[Exit. Fal. If I be not asham'd of my soldiers, I am a + fouc'd gurnet. I have mis-usid the king's press

damnably.

- lieutenant Peto-] This passage proves that Peta did not go with the prince. Johnson.

" — fouc'd gurnet.] This is a dish mentioned in that very laughable poem callid The Counter-scuffle, 1658,

“ Stuck thick with cloves upon the back,
“ Well stuff'd with fage, and for the smack
“ Daintily ftrew'd with pepper black,

" Souc'd gurnet."

Souc'd

damnably. I have got, in exchange of an hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good housholders, yeomens fons: enquire me out contracted batchelors, such as had been ask'd twice on the bans; such a commodity of warm Naves, as had as lief hear the devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver, 5 worse than a ftruck fowl, or a hurt wild-duck. I prest me none but such toasts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out their services. And now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, Naves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his fores : and such as indeed were never soldiers; but discarded unjust servingmen, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapiters, and oftlers trade-fallen; the cankers

Souc'd gurnet is an appellation of contempt very frequently employed in the old comedies. So in Decker's Honest Wbore, * 1635,

" Punk! you for!c'd gurnet !!” Steevens.

worse i jan a flruck fowl, or a hurt wild duck.] The repetition of the fame image disposed Sir Thomas Hanmer, and after him Dr. Warburton, to read, in opposition to all the copies, a ftruck deer, which is indeed a proper expression, but not likely to have been corrupted. Shakespeare, perhaps, wrote a ftruck forel, which, being negligently read by a man not skilled in hunter's language, was calily changed to ftruck fowl. Sorel is used in Love's Labour loft for a young deer; and the terms of the chase were, in our author's time, familiar to the ears of every gentleman. JOHNSON.

Both the quarto's and folio's read fruck fool. This may mean a fool who had been hurt by the recoil of an over-loaded gun which he had inadvertently discharged. Fowl, however, feems to have been the word designed by the poet, who might have thought an opposition between fowl, i.e. domestic birds, and wild-fowl, sufficient on this occasion. STEVENS. · O younger fons to younger brothers, Raleigh, in his Discourse on War, uses this very expresion for men of desperate fortune and wild adventure. Which borrowed it from the other I know not, but I think the play was printed before the difcourse. JOHNSON.

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