You would desire, the king were made a prelate:
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say,-it hath been all in all his study:
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music:
Turn him to any cause of policy,

The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,'

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;
So that the art and practic part of life
Must be the mistress to his theoric:2
Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain:
His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow;
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.

Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle;
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best,
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:
And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.

Cant. It must be so: for miracles are ceased;
And therefore we must needs admit the means,
How things are perfected.
Ely.

But, my good lord,
How now for mitigation of this bill'
Urg'd by the commons? Doth his majesty
Incline to it, or no?

Cant.

He seems indifferent;
Or, rather, swaying more upon our part,
Than cherishing the exhibiters against us;
For I have made an offer to his majesty,-
Upon our spiritual convocation :
And in regard of causes now in hand,
Which I have open'd to his grace at large,
As touching France,--to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.

Ely. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?
Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty;
Save, that there was not time enough to hear
(As, I perceiv'd, his grace would fain have done)
The severals, and unhidden passages

Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms;
And, generally, to the crown and seat of France,
Deriv'd from Edward his great grandfather.
Ely. What was the impediment that broke this
off?

Cant. The French ambassador upon that instant
Crav'd audience: and the hour I think is come,
To give him hearing: Is it four o'clock ?
Ely.

It is. Cant. Then go we in, to know his embassy; Which I could, with a ready guess, declare, Before the Frenchman speak a word of it. Ely. I'll wait upon you; and I long to hear it. [Exeunt.

1 Johnson has noticed the exquisite beauty of this line. So that the art and practic part of life Must be the mistress to his theoric.'

2

SCENE II. The same. A Room of State in the same. Enter KING HENRY, GLOSTEr, BedFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants.

K. Hen. Where is my gracious lord of Canter bury?

Exe. Not here in presence.

K. Hen. Send for him, good uncle."

West. Shall we call in the ambassador my liege? K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin; we would be resolv'd,

Before we hear of him, of some things of weight, That task our thoughts, concerning us and France. Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of Ely.

Cant. God, and his angels, guard your sacred throne,

And make you long become it!

K. Hen.

Sure, we thank you. My learned lord, we pray you to proceed; And justly and religiously unfold, Why the law Salique, that they have in France, Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim. And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading, Or nicely charge your understanding soul With opening titles miscreate, whose right Suits not in native colours with the truth; For God doth know, how many, now in health, Shall drop their blood in approbation"" Of what your reverence shall incite us to: Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,11 How you awake the sleeping sword of war; We charge you in the name of God, take heed: For never two such kingdoms did contend, Without much fail of blood; whose guiltless drops Are every one a woe, a sore complaint, 'Gainst him, whose wrongs give edge unto the

swords

That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord:
And we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
That what you speak is in your conscience wasa'd
As pure as sin with baptism.

Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign,-and

you peers,

That owe your lives, your faith, and services,
To this imperial throne:-There is no bar12
To make against your highness' claim to France,
But this, which they produce from Pharamond,→→
In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant,
No woman shall succeed in Salique land;
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze,11
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm,
That the land Salique lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe:
Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Sax

ons,

There left behind and settled certain French; Who, holding in disdain the German women, Katharine Swynford. He was not made duke of Exeter till the year after the battle of Agincourt, 1416. He wa properly now only eart of Dorset. Shakspeare may have confounded this character with John Holland duke of Exeter, who married Elizabeth, the king's aunt. He was executed at Plashey, in 1400. The old play be.

3 Companies, for companions.

4 Popularity meant familiarity with the common people, as well as popular favour or applause. 5 This expressive word is used by Drant, in his Translation of Horace's Art of Poetry, 1567.

6 The severals, and unhidden passages." The particulars and clear unconcealed circumstances of his true titles, &c.

7 Send for him, good uncle.' The person here addressed was Thomas Beaufort, half brother to King Henry IV being one of the sons of John of Gaunt by

81. e. keep our thoughts busied.

9 Or burthen your knowing or conscious soul with displaying false titles in a specious manner or opening pretensions, which, if shown in their native colours, would appear to be false.

10 Shall drop their blood in approbation. Approbation is used by Shakspeare for proving or establish ing by proof.

11 Therefore take heed how you impain our person. To impain was to engage or pledge.

12There is no bar,' &c. The whole speech is taken from Holinshed.

13 To gloze is to expound or explain, and sometimes to comment upon.