Nor bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs

The amendment which I should propose, is to read Erinnys, instead of entrance.-By Erinnys is meant the fury of discord. The Erinnys of the soil, may possibly be considered as an uncommon mode of expression, as in truth it is; but it is justified by a passage in the second Eneid of Virgil, where Eneas calls Helen

Troje patriæ communis Erinnys."

And an expression somewhat similar occurs in The First Part of King Henry VI, where sir William Lucy says:

"Is Talbot slain? the Frenchman's only scourge,

"Your kingdom's terror, and black Nemesis 2"

It is evident that the words, her own children, her fields, her flowrets, must all necessarily refer to this soil; and that Shakspeare in this place, as in many others, uses the personal pronoun instead of the impersonal; her instead of its; unless we suppose he means to personify the soil, as he does in King Richard II, where Bolingbroke departing on his exile says:

sweet soil, adieu!

My mother and my nurse, that bears me yet."

M. Mason. Mr. M. Mason's conjecture (which I prefer to any explanation hitherto offered respecting this difficult passage) may receive support from N. Ling's Epistle prefixed to Wit's Commonwealth, 1598: " I knowe there is nothing in this worlde but is subject to the Erinnys of ill-disposed persons."-The same phrase also occurs in the tenth Book of Lucan:

"Dedecus Ægypti, Latio feralis Erinnys." Again, in the 5th Thebaid of Statius, v. 202:

66 cuncta suo regnat Erinnys

"Pectore."

Amidst these uncertainties of opinion, however, let me present our readers with a single fact on which they may implicitly rely; viz. that Shakspeare could not have designed to open his play with a speech, the fifth line of which is obscure enough to demand a series of comments thrice as long as the dialogue to which it is appended. All that is wanted, on this emergency, seems to be a just and striking personification, or, rather, a proper name. The former of these is not discoverable in the old reading-entrance; but the latter, furnished by Mr. M. Mason, may, I think, be safely admitted, as it affords a natural unembarrassed introduction to the train of imagery that succeeds.

Let us likewise recollect, that by the first editors of our author, Hyperion had been changed into Epton; and that Marston's Insatiate Countess, 1613, concludes with a speech so darkened by corruptions, that the comparison in the fourth line of it is absolutely unintelligible.-It stands as follows:

"Night, like a masque, is entred heaven's great hall,
"With thousand torches ushering the way:

"To Risus will we consecrate this evening,

Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven, 3
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,

"Like Messermis cheating of the brack.
"Weele make this night the day," &c.*

Is it impossible, therefore, that Erinnys may have been blundered into entrance, a transformation almost as perverse and mysterious as the foregoing in Marston's tragedy?

Being nevertheless aware that Mr. M. Mason's gallant effort to produce an easy sense, will provoke the slight objections and petty cavils of such as restrain themselves within the bounds of timid conjecture, it is necessary I should subjoin, that his present emendation was not inserted in our text on merely my own judgment, but with the deliberate approbation of Dr. Farmer.Having now prepared for controversy-signa canant! Steevens.

3

like the meteors of a troubled heaven,] Namely, long streaks of red, which represent the lines of armies; the appearance of which, and their likeness to such lines, gave occasion to all the superstition of the common people concerning armies in the air, &c. Warburton.

4 As far as to the sepulchre &c.] 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.

Since my introduction of this corrupted line, I have discovered the true sense of it. Read:

brack?
oracle S

The printer took the MS. o for a b, and the le for ak. See the Euterpe of Herodotus, for the history of Mycerinus, who, changing night into day, by means of lamps and torches, and thus apparently multiplying his predicted six years of life into twelve, designed to convict the Oracle of falshood. Steevens.

(Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross
We are impressed and engag'd to fight,)
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy;5
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 twelve-month old,
And bootless 'tis to tell you-we will go;
Therefore we meet not now: 6-Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree,
In forwarding this dear expedience.7

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

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 text of Shakspeare, 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 persecute those who dissent from his creed." Gibbon's History, Vol. VI, 9, 4to. edit. Reed.

5 shall we levy;] To levy a power of English as far as to the sepulchre of Christ, is an expression quite unexampled, if not corrupt. We might propose lead, without violence to the sense, or too wide a deviation from the traces of the letters. In Pericles, however, the same verb is used in a mode as uncommon: "Never did thought of mine levy offence." Steevens. The expression" As far as to the sepulchre," &c. does not, as I conceive, signify—to the distance of &c. but—so far only as regards the sepulchre, &c. Douce.

6 Therefore we meet not now:] i. e. not on that account do we now meet; we are not now assembled, to acquaint you with our intended expedition. Malone.

71

this dear expedience.] For expedition. Warburton. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

66

I shall break

"The cause of our expedience to the queen." Steevens.

And many limits-] Limits for estimates. Warburton. Limits, as Mr. Heath observes, may mean, outlines, rough sketches, or calculations. Steevens.

Limits may mean the regulated and appointed times for the conduct of the business in hand. So, in Measure for Measure

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,

9

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

K. Hen. It seems then, that the tidings of this broil Brake 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,

Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour;
As by discharge of their artillery,

And shape of likelihood, the news was told;
For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention did take horse,
Uncertain of the issue any way.

K. Hen. Here is a dear and true-industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stain'd with the variation of each soil3

"between the time of the contract and limit of the solemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea." Again, in Macbeth: - I'll make so bold to call,

"For 'tis my limited service." Malone.

9 By those Welshwomen done,] Thus Holinshed, p. 528: " 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. the gallant Hotspur there,

1

Young Harry Percy,] Holinshed's History of Scotland, p. 240, says: "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.

ว Archibald,] Archibald Douglas, earl Douglas. Steevens.

Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours;

And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.
The earl of Douglas is discomfited;

Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights,
Balk'd in their own blood, did sir Walter see

3 Stain'd with the variation of each soil-] No circumstance could have been better chosen to mark the expedition of sir Walter. It is used by Falstaff in a similar manner: "As it were to ride day and night, and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me, but to stand stained with travel."

Henley.

4 Balk'd in their own blood,] I should suppose, that the author might have written either bath'd, or bak'd, i. e. encrusted over with blood dried upon them. A passage in Heywood's Iron Age, 1632, may countenance the latter of these conjectures:

"Troilus lies embak'd

"In his cold blood.".

Again, in Hamlet:

66

horribly trick'd

"With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
"Bak'd and impasted," &c.

Again, in Heywood's Iron Age:

bak'd in blood and dust."

as bak'd in blood." Steevens.

Balk, is a ridge; and particularly, a ridge of land: here is therefore a metaphor; and perhaps the poet means, in his bold and careless manner of expression: "Ten thousand bloody carcasses piled up together in a long heap."-" A ridge of dead bodies piled up in blood." If this be the meaning of balked, for the greater exactness of construction, we might add to the pointing, viz.

Balk'd, in their own blood, &c.

"Piled up in a ridge, and in their own blood," &c. But without this punctuation, as at present, the context is more poetical, and presents a stronger image.

A balk, in the sense here mentioned, is a common expression in Warwickshire, and the northern counties. It is used in the same signification in Chaucer's Plowman's Tale, p. 182, edit. Urr. v. 2428. Warton.

Balk'd in their own blood, I believe, means, laid in heaps or hillocks, in their own blood. Blithe's England's Improvement, p. 118, observes: "The mole raiseth balks in meads and pastures." In Leland's Itinerary, Vol. V, p. 16 and 118, Vol. VII, p. 10, a balk signifies a bank or hill. Mr. Pope, in the Iliad, has the same thought:

"On heaps the Greeks, on heaps the Trojans bled,
"And thick'ning round them rise the hills of dead."

Tollet.