And all the shrouds, wherewith my life should sail,
Are turned to one thread, one little hair:

My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
And then all this thou seest is but a clod,
And module of confounded royalty.

BAST. The dauphin is preparing hitherward;

Where, heaven he knows how we shall answer him:
For, in a night, the best part of my power,
As I upon advantage did remove,
Were in the washes, all unwarily,

Devoured by the unexpected flood.

[The KING dies.

SAL. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.

My liege! my lord!—But now a king,—now thus.

P. HEN. Even so must I run on, and even so stop. What surety of the world, what hope, what stay, When this was now a king, and now is clay!

BAST. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind To do the office for thee of revenge;

And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven,

As it on earth hath been thy servant still.

Now, now, you stars, that move in your right spheres,

Where be your powers? Show now your mended faiths;

And instantly return with me again,

To push destruction, and perpetual shame,

Out of the weak door of our fainting land:

Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought:
The dauphin rages at our very heels.

SAL. It seems, you know not then so much as we:
The cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,

Who half an hour since came from the dauphin;
And brings from him such offers of our peace
As we with honour and respect may take,
With purpose presently to leave this war.

BAST. He will the rather do it, when he sees
Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.

SAL. Nay, it is in a manner done already;
For many carriages he hath despatch'd
To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel
To the disposing of the cardinal.

With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,
If you think meet, this afternoon will post
To consummate this business happily.

BAST. Let it be so:—And you, my noble prince,
With other princes that may best be spar'd,
Shall wait upon your father's funeral.

P. HEN. At Worcester must his body be interr'd;
For so he will'd it.

BAST.

Thither shall it then.

And happily may your sweet self put on
The lineal state and glory of the land!

To whom, with all submission, on my knee,
I do bequeath my faithful services

And true subjection everlastingly.

SAL. And the like tender of our love we make,

To rest without a spot for evermore.

P. HEN. I have a kind soul, that would give you thanks,

And knows not how to do it, but with tears.

BAST. O, let us pay the time but needful woe,
Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.—
This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

But when it first did help to wound itself.

Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them: Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.

[Exeunt.

VARIOUS READINGS.

"Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;

For ere thou canst report I will be there,

The thunder of my cannon shall be heard:

So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,

And sudden presage of your own decay." (ACT I., Sc. 1.)

The reading, says Mr. Collier, has always been "sullen presage." The sound of a trumpet could not with any fitness be called a "sullen presage." As Chatillon was instantly to return, sudden was the word of our great dramatist.

"Sullen presage" is a separate idea from "the trumpet of our wrath," as Johnson pointed out. The angry and discourteous ambassador would return 66 a sullen presage" of "decay" to France. The haste of his return has been previously conveyed in "be thou as lightning."

"Good den sir Richard,-God-a-mercy, fellow;
And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter:
For new-made honour doth forget men's names;
'T is too respective, and too sociable.
For your diversion, now your traveller,
He and his toothpick at my worship's mess," &c.

There is a misprint, and an error in punctuation in the folio, accordto Mr. Collier:

""T is too respective and too sociable,

For your conversion."

It was common to entertain "picked men cf countries" for the diversion of the company at the tables of the higher orders.

(ACT I., Sc. 1.)

And so this feeble platitude of the diverting traveller is to supersede the Shaksperean satire, that when there is a conversion -a change of condition in a man-to remember names (opposed, by implication, to forget) is too respective (or punctilious), and too so ciable, for new-made honour.

"It lies as sightly on the back of him,

As great Alcides' shows upon an ass." (ACT II., Sc. 1.)

The folio reads, "great Alcides' shoes." Theobald says, "But why his shoes, in the name of propriety? For let Hercules and his shoes

The "shoes of Hercules" were as commonly alluded to in our old poets, as the ex pede Herculem was a familiar allusion of the learned.

"All preparation for a bloody siege, And merciless proceeding by these French, Come 'fore your city's eyes." The folios read comfort. Rowe, confront. "Come 'fore" is a less violent change.

Our former scruples in our strong-barr'd gates:

"The grappling vigour, and rough frown of war,
Is cold in amity, and faint in peace,
And our oppression hath made up this league."

"A caged lion by the mortal paw." (ACT III., Sc. 1.)

Mr. Collier thinks that the error of cased for caged is self-evident.

Cased is probably an error. Mr. Collier had suggested caged in 1842. But, knowing this suggestion, Mr. Dyce maintains that the right word is chafed, quoting most appositely from 'Henry VIII.,'

"So lcoks the chafed lion Upon the daring huntsman that has gall'd him," &c.

"Now by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;
Some fiery devil hovers in the sky,
And pours down mischief."

The first folio has aiery devil. Fiery, says Mr. Collier, we may feel confident, was the word of the poet, and which is so consistent with the context. Mr. Collier adds, "Percy quotes 'Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy,' where, among other things, it is said, 'Fiery spirits, or devils, are such as commonly work by blazing stars,' &c."

in

(ACT III., Sc. 2.)

We may venture to think that Mr. Collier carries his advocacy too far when he quotes what Burton says of "fiery devils," and there stops, although Percy continues the quotation: · -"Aerial spirits, or devils, are such as keep quarter most part in the air; cause many tempests, thunder and lightning; tear oaks; fire steeples; strike men and beasts; make it rain stones, as in Livy's time." We turn to Burton, and find in another place, where he says of this class who pour down mischief, "Paul, to the Ephesians, calls them forms of the air." Shakspere knew this curious learning from the Schoolmen; but the corrector knew nothing about it.

"I had a thing to say,

But I will fit it with some better time." (ACT III., Sc. 3.)

The old corrector supports Pope

66 some better time," instead of some better tune, as it had been commonly misprinted.

We have no faith in tune being a misprint. The tune is the accompaniment to the words, and John immediately hints at a bribe, before he repeats, "I had a thing to say."