The Ancient English Morris Dance,
MENTIONED IN KING HENRY VI, PART I, PAGE 18, AND KING HENRY VI, PART II, PAGE 144.
The above engraving is from a curious painted glass window at Betley, in Staffordshire, and represents, 1. The Fool.-2 A Morisco-3. A Spaniard.-4. Tom the Piper.-5. The May-Pole. Then follow the English characters, which are supposed to represent the five great ranks of civil life.-6. The Franklin, private gentleman.-7. A plain Churl, or peasant.-8. The man with the Hobby-horse, the Monarch of May, and intended Consort of Marian.-9. A Nobleman.-10. The Friar.-11. Maid Marian, the Queen of May.-12. The lesser Fool.
For a detailed and curious description of this dance and the dancers, see SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES, I vol. 8vo. 1838. P. 76 to 85.
The transactions comprised in this history take up about nine years. The action commences with the account of Hotspur's being defeated and killed (1403); and closes with the death of King Henry IV. and the coronation of King Henry V. (1412-13.) THEOBALD.
This play was entered at Stationers' Hall, August 23, 1600. STEEVENS.
The Second Part of King Henry IV. I suppose to have been written in 1598. MALONE.
Mr. Upton thinks these two plays improperly called The First and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth. The first play ends, he says, with the peaceful settlement of Henry in the king
dom by the defeat of the rebels. This is hardly true for the rebels are not yet finally suppressed. The second, he tells us, shows Henry the Fifth in the various lights of a goodnatured rake till, on his father's death, he assumes a more manly character. This is true; but this representation gives us no idea of a dramatic action. These two plays will appear to every reader, who shall peruse them without ambition of critical discoveries, to be so connected, that the second is merely a sequel to the first; to be two only because they are too long to be one. JOHNSON.
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Warkworth. Before Northumberland's Castle.
Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues.
Rum. Open your ears; For which of you will stop
The vent of hearing, when loud Rumour speaks?
1. from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride;
The which in every language I pronounce,
Staffing the ears of men with false reports.
I speak of peace, while covert enmity,
Under the smile of safety, wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make tearful musters, and prepar'd defence;
Whilst the big year, swol'n with some other grief,
Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
And no such matter; Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures;
And of so easy and so plain a stop,
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Cao play upon it. But what need I thus
My well-known body to anatomize
Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
I run before king Harry's victory;
Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,
Hath beaten down young Hotspur, and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
To speak so true at first? my office is
To noise abroad,-that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword;
And that the king before the Douglas' rage
Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news
Than they have learn'd of me: From Rumour's
They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true
Port. What shall I say you are? Bard.
That the lord Bardolph doth attend him here.
Port. His lordship is walk'd forth into the or-
Please it your honour, knock but at the gate, And he himself will answer.
I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. North. Good, an heaven will!
As good as heart can wish :The king is almost wounded to the death; And, in the fortune of my lord your son, Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts Kill'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince John, And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field; And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk sir John, Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day, So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won, Came not, till now, to dignify the times, Since Cæsar's fortunes!
How is this deriv'd?
Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?
Bard. I spake with one, my lord, that came from
thence,
A gentleman well bred, and of good name,
That freely render'd me these news for true.
North. Here comes my servant, Travers, whom
On Tuesday last to listen after news. [I sent
Bard. My lord, I over-rode him on the way;
And he is furnish'd with no certainties,
More than he haply may retail from me.
Tra. My lord, sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd, Out-rode me. After him, came, spurring hard, A gentleman almost forespent with speed, That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him I did demand, what news from Shrewsbury. He told me, that rebellion had bad luck,
And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold:
With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head; and, starting so,
He seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.
North.
Ha!-Again.
Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
Of Hotspur, coldspur? that rebellion
Had met ill luck!
Bard.
My lord, I'll tell you what ;-
If my young lord your son have not the day,
Upon mine honour, for a silken point
I'll give my barony: never talk of it.
North. Why should the gentleman, that rode by
[Travers,
Give then such instances of loss?
Who, he?
He was some hilding fellow, that had stol'n
The horse he rode on: and, upon my life,
Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.
Enter MORTON.
North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
So looks the strond, whereon the imperious flood
Hath left a witness'd usurpation.-
Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
Mor. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord?
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask,
To fright our party.
North. How doth my son, and brother?
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was burn'd:
But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy's death, ere thou report'st it.
This thou would'st say,-Your son did thus, and
Your brother, thus; so fought the noble Donglas;
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
But in the end, to stop mine ear indeed,
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with-brother, son, and all are dead.
Mor. Douglas is living, and your brother, yet:
But, for my lord your son,-
North.
Why, he is dead.
See, what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
He, that but fears the thing he would not know,
Hath, by instinct, knowledge from others' eyes,
That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;
Tell thou thy earl, his divination lies;
And I will take it as a sweet disgrace,
And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.
Mor. You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.
North. Yet, for all this, say not, that Percy's
[dead.
I see a strange confession in thine eye:
Thon shak'st thy head; and hold'st it fear, or sin,
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so;
The tongue offends not, that reports his death:
And he doth sin, that doth belie the dead;
Not he, which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knolling a departing friend.
Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
Mor. I am sorry, I should force you to believe
That, which I would to heaven I had not seen:
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rend' ring faint quittance, wearied and out-breath'd,
To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down
The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
From whence with life he never more sprung up.
In few, his death (whose spirit lent a fire
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,)
Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
From the best temper'd courage in his troops:
For from his metal was his party steel'd;
Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turu'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.
And as the thing, that's heavy in itself,
Upon enforcement, flies with greatest speed;
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear,
That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim,
Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
Fly from the field: Then was that noble Worcester
Too soon ta'en prisoner: and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
'Gan vail his stomach, and did grace the shame
Of those that turn'd their backs; and, in his flight,
Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
Is, that the king hath won; and hath sent out
A speedy power, to encounter you, my lord,
Under the conduct of young Lancaster,
And Westmoreland: this is the news at full.
North. For this I shall have time enough to
In poison there is physic; and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well:
And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints,
Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
Out of his keeper's arms; even so my limbs,
Weaken'd with grief, being now enrag'd with grief,
Are thrice themselves: hence, therefore, thou nice
crutch;
A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel,
Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif;
Thou art a guard too wanton for the head,
Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.
Now bind my brows with iron; and approach
The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring,
To frown upon the enrag'd Northumberland!
Let heav'n kiss earth! Now let not nature's hand
Keep the wild flood confin'd! let order die!
And let this world no longer be a stage,
To feed contention in a lingering act;
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead!
Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my
lord.
[honour,
Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your
Mor. The lives of all your loving complices
Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er
To stormy passion, must perforce decay.
You cast the event of war, my noble lord,
And summ'd the account of chance, before you
Let us make head. It was your presurmise,
That in the dole of blows your son might drop:
You knew, he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,
More likely to fall in, than to get o'er:
You were advis'd, his flesh was capable
Of wounds and scars; and that his forward spirit
Would lift him where most trade of danger rang'd;
Yet did you say,-Go forth; and none of this,
Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
The still-borne action: What hath then befallen,
Or what hath this bold enterprize brought forth,
More than that being, which was like to be?
Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss,
Knew, that we ventur'd on such dangerous seas,
That, if we wrought out life, 'twas ten to one;
And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd
Chok'd the respect of likely peril fear'd;
And, since we are o'erset, venture again.
Come, we will all put forth; body, and goods.
Mor. "Tis more than time: And, my most noble
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