Who, when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
I thought, upon one pair of English legs,
Did march three Frenchmen. Yet forgive me, God,
"That I do brag thus: this your air of France
"Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent.
Go, therefore, tell thy mafter, here I am;
My ranfom is this frail and worthless trunk ;
My army but a weak and fickly guard :

Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
Though France himself, and such another neighbour,
Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Mountjoy.
Go, bid thy mafter well advise himself:

If we may pafs, we will; if we be hinder'd,

* We fhall your tawny ground with your red blood Discolour; and fo, Mountjoy, fare you well.

The fum of all our anfwer is but this:
We would not feek a battle as we are ;
Yet, as we are, we fay we will not shun it:
So tell your mafter.

Mount. I fhall deliver fo: thanks to your Highnefs.

[Exit. Glou. I hope they will not come upon us now. K. Henry. We are in God's hand, brother, not in

theirs :

March to the bridge; it now draws toward night
Beyond the river we'll incamp ourselves;

And on to-morrow bid them march away. [Exeunt.

The French camp near Agincourt.

Enter the Conftable of France, the Lord Rambures, Orleans, Dauphin, with others.

Con. Tut, I have the best armour of the world. Would it were day!

Orl. You have an excellent armour; but let my horfe have his due.

*Hall's chronicle, fol. 14. Henry V. year 2.

+ This fcene is fhorter, and I think better, in the first editions of 1600 and 1608 But as the enlargements appear to be the author's own, I would not omit them; but have, for the reader's curiosity. marked them with fmall commas. Mr. Pope.

VOL. IV.

• Con.

• Con. It is the best horfe of Europe.

• Orl. Will it never be morning?

Dau. My Lord of Orleans, and my Lord High Conftable, you talk of horse and armour,

Orl. You are as well provided of both, as any prince in the world.

Dau. What a long night is this! I will not change my horfe with any that treads but on four pasterns: ça, ha! le cheval volant, the Pegafus, chez les narines 'de feu! he bounds from the earth, as if his intrails were hairs; when I beftride him, I foar, I am a hawk; he trots the air, the earth fings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more mu'fical than the pipe of Hermes.

Orl. He's of the colour of the nutmeg.

Dau. And of the heat of the ginger It is a beaft for Perfeus: he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient ftilnefs while his rider mounts him: he is, indeed, a horfe; and all other beafts you may call jades. Con. Indeed, my Lord, it is a moft abfolute and excellent horse.

Dau. It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance inforces homage.

Orl. No more, coufin.

• Dau. Nay, the man hath no wit, that cannot, from the rifing of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary • deserved praise on my palfrey; it is a theme as fluent as the fea: turn the fands into eloquent tongues, and my horfe is argument for them all; 'tis a fubject for a fovereign to reason on, and for a fovereign's fovereign to ride on; and for the world, familiar to us ⚫ and unknown, to lay apart their particular functions, and wonder at him. I once writ a fonnet in ⚫his praise, and began thus, Wonder of nature

*

Orl. I have heard a fonnet begin fo to one's mistress. • Dau. Then did they imitate that which I compos'd

to my courfer; for my horfe is my ristress. Orl. Your miftrefs bears well.

Here I fuppofe, fome foolish poem of our author's time is ridicu led; which indeed partly appears from the answer. Mr. Warburton.

Dau. Me, well;-which is the prefcript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress.

Con. Methought, yesterday your mistress fhrewdly • fhook your back.

Dau. So, perhaps, did your's.

Con. Mine was not bridled.

• Dau. O, then, belike, she was old and gentle; and you rode like a Kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your ftrait trouffers.

Con. You have good judgment in horfemanship.

Dau. Be warn'd by me then; they that ride so, ⚫ and ride not warily, fall into foul bogs. I had ra⚫ther have my horse to my mistress.

Con. I had as lieve have my mistress a jade.

• Dau. I tell thee, Conftable, my mistress wears her • own hair.

6

• Con. I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a fow to my mistress.

Dau. Le chien eft retourné à fon propre vomiffement, &la truie lavée au bourbier; thou mak'it ufe of any ⚫ thing.

Con. Yet do I not use my horfe for my mistress; * or any fuch proverb, fo little kin to the purpose. • Ram. My Lord Constable, the armour that I faw in your tent to-night, are those stars, or suns upon it? Con. Stars, my Lord.

• Dau. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope. Con. And yet my sky fhall not want.

• Dau. That may be, for you bear many fuperfluoufly; and 'twere more honour fome were away.

• Con. Ev'n as your horfe bears your praifes, who ⚫ would trot as well were fome of your brags difmount⚫ed.

• Dau. Would I were able to load him with his de⚫fert.' Will it never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and my way fhall be paved with English faces.

Con. I will not say so, for fear I fhould be face'd out of my way; but I would it were morning, for I would fain be about the ears of the English.

Ram. Who will go to hazard with me for twenty English prifoners?

002

Con.

Con. You must first go yourself to hazard ere you

have them.

Dau. 'Tis midnight, I'll go arm myself.
Orl. The Dauphin longs for morning.
Ram. He longs to eat the English.
Con. I think he will eat all he kills.

[Exit.

Orl. By the white hand of my Lady, he's a gallant prince.

Con. Swear by her foot, that she may tread out ⚫ the oath.

rl. He is fimply the moft active gentleman of France. Con. Doing is activity, and he will still be doing. Orl. He never did harm that I heard of.

Con. Nor will do none to-morrow: he will keep that good name ftill.

Orl. I know him to be valiant.

Con. I was told that by one that knows him better than you.

Orl. What's he?

Con. Marry, he told me so himself, and he said he car'd not who knew it. *

SCENE X.

Enter a Messenger.

Meff. My Lord High Conftable, the English lie within fifteen hundred paces of your tents.

Con. Who hath measur'd the ground?

Me. The Lord Grandpree.

Con. A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were day! Alas, poor Harry of England! he longs not for the dawning as we do.

-who knew it.

• Orl. He needs not, it is no hidden virtue in him.

Con. By my faith, Sir, but it is; never any body faw it, but his lacquey; 'tis a hooded valour, and when it appears, it will bate. Orl. Il-will never faid well.

Con. I will cap that proverb with, There is flattery in friendship.
Orl. And I will take up that with, Give the devil his due.

Con. Well place'd; there ftands your friend for the devil; have at the very eye of that proverb with, Apox on the devil.

Orl. You are the better at proverbs, by how much a fools bolt is foon fhet.

Con. You have shot over.

Orl, 'Tis not the first time you were over-fhot.

SCENE, &c.

Orl.

Orl. What a wretched and peevifh fellow is this King of England, to mope with his fat-brain'd followers fo far out of his knowledge?

Con. If the English had any apprehenfion, they would

run away.

Orl. That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual armour, they could never wear fuch heavy head-pieces.

Ram. That ifland of England breeds very valiant creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.

Orl." Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth "of a Ruffian bear, and have their heads crush'd like "rotten apples. You may as well fay, that's a valiant flea that dares eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.

Con. "Juft, juft; and the men do fympathize with "the mastiffs in robuftious and rough coming on, leaving their wits with their wives; and then give them great meals of beef, and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves, and fight like devils.

66

Orl. Ay; but thefe English are fhrewdly out of beef. Con. Then fhall we find to-morrow, they have only ftomachs to eat, and none to fight, Now is it time to arm; come, fhall we about it?

Orl. 'Tis two o'clock; but (let me fee) by ten, We shall have each a hundred Englishmen. [Exeunt.

WOW entertain conjecture of a time,

I.

When creeping murmur, and the poring dark,

Fills the wide veffel of the univerfe *,

"From camp to camp, thro' the foul womb of night, "The hum of either army ftilly founds,

"That the fix'd centinels almost receive
"The fecret whispers of each other's watch..
"Fire answers fire; and thro' their paly flames
"Each battle fees the other's umber'd † face.

Univerfe, for horizon.

+Umber'd or umbred, is a term in blazonry, and fignifies fadrwed.

"Steed