With all my wits, my pains, and strong endeavours,
To bring your most imperial majesties
Unto this bar and royal interview,

Your mightiness on both parts best can witness.
Since then my office hath so far prevail'd,

That, face to face, and royal eye to eye,
You have congreeted; let it not disgrace me,
If I demand, before this royal view,
What rub, or what impediment, there is,
Why that the naked, poor, and mangled peace,
Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births,
Should not, in this best garden of the world,
Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?
Alas! she hath from France too long been chas'd;
And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,
Corrupting in its own fertility.

Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
Unpruned dies: her hedges even-pleached,—
Like prisoners wildly over-grown with hair,2

9 Unto this bar -] To this barrier; to this place of congress. Johnson.

1 Unpruned dies:] We must read, lies; for neglect of pruning does not kill the vine, but causes it to ramify immoderately, and grow wild; by which the requisite nourishment is withdrawn from its fruit. Warburton.

This emendation is physically right, but poetically the vine may be well enough said to die, which ceases to bear fruit. Johnson. 2 her hedges evenen-pleach'd,—

Like prisoners wildly over-grown with hair, &c.] This image of prisoners is oddly introduced. A hedge even-pleach'd is more properly imprisoned than when it luxuriates in unpruned exuberance. Johnson.

Johnson's criticism on this passage has no just foundation. The King compares the disorderly shoots of an unclipped hedge, to the hair and beard of a prisoner, which he has neglected to trim; a neglect natural to a person who lives alone, and in a dejected state of mind. M. Mason.

The learned commentator [Dr. Johnson] misapprehended, I believe, our author's sentiment. Hedges are pleached, that is, their long branches being cut off, are twisted and woven through the lower part of the hedge, in order to thicken and strengthen the fence. The following year, when the hedge shoots out, it is customary, in many places, to clip the shoots, so as to render them even The Duke of Burgundy, therefore, among other instances of the neglect of husbandry, mentions this; that the hedges, which were even-pleached, for want of trimming, put

Put forth disorder'd twigs: her fallow leas
The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory,
Doth root upon; while that the coulter rusts, 3
That should deracinate such savagery:

4

The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover,
Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,
Conceives by idleness; and nothing teems,
But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,
Losing both beauty and utility.

6

And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges,
Defective in their natures, grow to wildness;
Even so our houses, and ourselves, and children,
Have lost, or do not learn, for want of time,
The sciences that should become our country;

forth irregular twigs; like prisoners, who in their confinement have neglected the use of the razor, and in consequence are wildly over-grown with hair. The hedge, in its cultivated state, when it is even-pleached, is compared to the prisoner; in its "wild exuberance," it resembles the prisoner "over-grown with hair."

As a hedge, however, that is even-pleached or woven together, and one that is clipt, are alike reduced to an even surface, our author, with his usual license, might have meant only by evenpleached, our hedges which were heretofore clipp'd smooth and

even."

66

The line "Like prisoners" &c. it should be observed, relates to the one which follows, and not to that which precedes it. The construction is, Her even-pleached hedges put forth disordered twigs, resembling persons in prison, whose faces are from neglect over-grown with hair. Malone.

3

voce.

coulter-] The ploughshare. See Johnson's Dict. in Reed.

deracinate] To deracinate is to force up by the roots. So, in Troilus and Cressida:

66

rend and deracinate

"The unity." &c.

Malone.

5 all—] Old copy, unmetrically-withall. Steevens. 6 And as our vineyards,] The old copy reads-And all our vineyards. The emendation was made by Mr. Roderick. Malone.

7 Defective in their natures,] Nature had been changed by some of the editors into nurture; but, as Mr. Upton observes, unnecessarily. Sua deficiuntur natura. They were not defective in their crescive nature, for they grew to wildness; but they were defective in their proper and favourable nature, which was to bring forth food for man. Steevens.

1

But

grow, like savages,- -as soldiers will,
That nothing do but meditate on blood,-
To swearing, and stern looks, diffus'd attire,
And every thing that seems unnatural.
Which to reduce into our former favour,
You are assembled: and my speech entreats,
That I may know the let, why gentle peace
Should not expel these inconveniencies,
And bless us with her former qualities.

K. Hen. If, duke of Burgundy, you would the peace;
Whose want gives growth to the imperfections
Which you have cited, you must buy that peace
With full accord to all our just demands;

Whose tenours and particular effects

You have, enschedul'd briefly, in your hands.

Bur. The king hath heard them; to the which, as yet, There is no answer made.

K. Hen.
Well then, the peace,
Which you before so urg'd, lies in his answer,

Fr. King. I have but with a cursorary eye
O'er-glanc'd the articles: pleaseth your grace
To appoint some of your council presently
To sit with us once more, with better heed
To re-survey them, we will, suddenly,
Pass our accept, and peremptory answer.1

8 diffus'd attire,] Diffus'd, for extravagant. The military habit of those times was extremely so. Act III, Gower says, And what a beard of the general's cut, and a horrid suit of the camp, will do amongst, &c. is wonderful to be thought on. Warburton.

Diffus'd is so much used by our author for wild, irregular and strange, that in The Merry Wives of Windsor he applies it to a song supposed to be sung by fairies. Johnson.

9 -former favour,] Former appearance. Johnson. So, in Othello:

— nor should I know him,

"Were be in favour as in humour alter'd." Steevens.

we will, suddenly,

Pass our accept, and peremptory answer.] As the French King desires more time to consider deliberately of the articles, 'tis odd and absurd for him to say absolutely, that he would accept them all. He certainly must mean, that he would at once wave and decline what he disliked, and consign to such as he approved of. Our author uses pass in this manner in other places; as in King John:

K. Hen. Brother, we shall.-Go, uncle Exeter,-
And brother Clarence,2—and you, brother Gloster,—
Warwick, and Huntington,-go with the king:
And take with you free power, to ratify,
Augment, or alter, as your wisdoms best
Shall see advantageable for our dignity,
Any thing in, or out of, our demands;

And we 'll consign thereto.-Will you, fair sister,
Go with the princes, or stay here with us?

Q. Isa. Our gracious brother, I will go with them;
Haply, a woman's voice may do some good,
When articles, too nicely urg'd, be stood on.

K. Hen. Yet leave our couisn Katharine here with us; She is our capital demand, compris'd

Within the fore-rank of our articles.

Q. Isa. She hath good leave.

[Exeunt all but HEN. KATH. and her gentlewoman. K. Hen. Fair Katharine, and most fair!3

"But if you fondly pass our proffer'd love." Warburton. The objection is founded, I apprehend, on a misconception of the word accept, which does not, I think, import that he would accept them all, but means acceptation. We will immediately, says he, deliver our acceptation of these articles,-the opinion which we shall form upon them, and our peremptory answer to each particular. Fuller, in his Worthies, 1660, uses acception for acceptation. See sc. vii, of the preceding Act.

If any change were to be made, I would rather read," Pass or accept," &c. i. e. agree to, or except against the articles, as I should either approve or dislike them. So, in a subsequent part of this scene, p. 376:

"Nor this I have not, brother, so denied,

"But your request shall make me let it pass." Malone. Pass our accept, and peremptory answer.] i. e, we will pass our acceptance of what we approve, and we will pass a peremptory answer to the rest. Politeness might forbid his saying, we will pass a denial, but his own dignity required more time for delibe. ration. Besides, if we read pass or accept, is not peremptory answer superfluous, and plainly implied in the former words? Tollet.

2 And brother Clarence,] Neither Clarence nor Huntington, whom the King here addresses, has been enumerated in the Dramatis Persone, as neither of them speaks a word. Huntington was John Holland, Earl of Huntington, who afterwards married the widow of Edmond Mortimer, Earl of March. Malone.

3 Fair Katharine, and most fair!] Shakspeare might have taken the hint for this scene from the anonymous play of Henry V, so

Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms,
Such as will enter at a lady's ear,

And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?

Kath. Your majesty shall mock at me; I cannot speak your England.

K. Hen. fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you me, Kate?

like

Kath. Pardonnez moy, I cannot tell vat is-like me. K. Hen. An angel is like you, Kate; and you are like an angel.

Kath. Que dit-il? que je suis semblable à les anges? Alice. Ouy, vrayment, (sauf vostre grace) ainsi dit il. K. Hen. I said so, dear Katharine; and I must not blush to affirm it.

Kath. O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines des tromperies.

k. Hen. What says she, fair one? that the tongues of men are full of deceits?

Alice. Ouy; dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits: dat is de princess.4

K. Hen. The princess is the better English-woman. I' faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding: I am glad, thou canst speak no better English; for, if thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain king,

5

often quoted, where the King begins with greater bluntness, and with an exordium most truly English:

"How now, fair lady Katharine of France!

"What news?" Steevens.

dat is de princess.] Surely this should be—“ Dat says de princess." This is in answer to the King, who asks, “What says she, fair one?" M. Mason.

I believe the old reading is the true one. By-dat is the princess, the lady, in her broken English, means-that is what the prin cess has said. Perhaps, the speaker was desirous to exempt herself from suspicion of concurrence in a general censure on the sincerity of mankind. Steevens.

5 such a plain king,] I know not why Shakspeare now gives the King nearly such a character as he made him formerly ridicule in Percy. This military grossness and unskilfulness in all the softer arts does not suit very well with the gaieties of his youth, with the general knowledge ascribed to him at his accession, or with the contemptuous message sent him by the Dau