* Second Part of King HeNRY IV.] The tranfactions comprized in this history take up about nine years. The action commences with the account of Hotfpur's being defeated and killed [1403]; and clofes with the death of King Henry IV. and the coronation of King Henry V. [1412-13.] THEOBALD. This play was entered at Stationers' Hall, Auguft 23, 1600.

STEEVENS.

The Second Part of King Henry IV. I fuppofe to have been written in 1598. See An Attempt to afcertain the Order of Shakspeare's Plays, Vol. II. MALONE.

Mr. Upton thinks these two plays improperly called The First and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth. The first play ends, he fays, with the peaceful fettlement of Henry in the kingdom by the defeat of the rebels. This is hardly true; for the rebels are not yet finally fuppreffed. The fecond, he tells us, fhows Henry the Fifth in the various lights of a good-natured rake, till, on his father's death, he affumes a more manly character. This is true; but this reprefentation givès us no idea of a dramatick action. These two plays will appear to every reader, who fhall peruse them without ambition of critical difcoveries, to be fo connected, that the fecond is merely a fequel to the firft; to be two only because they are too long to be one. JOHNSON.

King Henry the Fourth:

Henry, Prince of Wales, afterwards
King Henry V;

Thomas, Duke of Clarence;

I

Prince John of Lancaster, afterwards his Sons, (2 Henry V.) Duke of Bedford;

Prince Humphrey of Glofter, afterwards (2 Henry V.) Duke of Glofter;

Earl of Warwick;

Earl of Weftmoreland } of the King's Party.

Gower; Harcourt;

Lord Chief Juftice of the King's Bench.

A Gentleman attending on the Chief Juftice.

Earl of Northumberland;

Scroop, Archbishop of York;

Lord Mowbray; Lord Haftings;

Lord Bardolph; Sir John Colevile;

Enemies to the

King.

Travers and Morton, Domefticks of Northumberland.

Falstaff, Bardolph, Piftol, and Page.

Poins and Peto, Attendants on Prince Henry.

Shallow and Silence, Country Juftices.

Davy, Servant to Shallow.

Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, Feeble, and Bullcalf, Recruits.

Fang and Snare, Sheriff's Officers.

Rumour. A Porter.

A Dancer, Speaker of the Epilogue.

Lady Northumberland. Lady Percy.
Hoftefs Quickly. Doll Tear-fheet.

Lords and other Attendants; Officers, Soldiers, Meffenger, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, &c.

SCENE, England..

* See note under the Perfonae Dramatis of the First Part of

this play. STEEVENS.

INDUCTION.

Warkworth. Before Northumberland's Castle.

2

Enter Rumour, painted full of Tongues.3

RUM. Open your ears; For which of

you will

ftop The vent of hearing, when loud Rumour speaks?

2 Enter Rumour,] This fpeech of Rumour is not inelegant or unpoetical, but it is wholly ufelefs, fince we are told nothing which the firft fcene does not clearly and naturally difcover. The only end of fuch prologues is to inform the audience of fome facts previous to the action, of which they can have no knowledge from the perfons of the drama. JOHNSON.

3 Rumour, painted full of tongues.] This the author probably drew from Holinfhed's Defcription of a Pageant, exhibited in the court of Henry VIII. with uncommon coft and magnificence: "Then entered a perfon called Report, apparelled in crimson fattin, full of toongs, or chronicles." Vol. III. p. 805. This however might be the common way of reprefenting this perfonage in mafques, which were frequent in his own times. T. WARTON.

Stephen Hawes, in his Paftime of Pleafure, had long ago exhibited her (Rumour) in the fame manner:

"A goodly lady, envyroned about
"With tongues of fire."

And fo had Sir Thomas More, in one of his Pageants

"Fame I am called, mervayle you nothing

Thoughe with tonges I am compaffed all rounde." Not to mention her elaborate portrait by Chaucer, in The Booke of Fame; and by John Higgins, one of the affiftants in The Mirror for Magiftrates, in his Legend of King Albanacte.

FARMER.

I, from the orient to the drooping west,4
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
Upon my tongues continual flanders ride;
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with falfe reports.
I fpeak of peace, while covert enmity,
Under the smile of fafety, wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful mufters, and prepar'd defence;
Whilft the big year, fwol'n with fome other grief,
Is thought with child by the ftern tyrant war,
And no fuch matter? Rumour is a pipe 5
Blown by furmises, jealoufies, conjectures;

In a mafque prefented on St. Stephen's night, 1614, by Thomas Campion, Rumour comes on in a fkin-coat full of winged tongues. Rumour is likewife a character in Sir Clyomon, Knight of the Golden Shield, &c. 1599.

So alfo, in The whole magnificent Entertainment given to King James, and the Queen his Wife, &c. &c. 15th March, 1603, by Thomas Decker, 4to. 1604: Directly under her in a cart by herfelfe, Fame ftood upright: a woman in a watchet roabe, thickly fet with open eyes and tongues, a payre of large golden winges at her backe, a trumpet in her hand, a mantle of fundry cullours traverfing her body: all these enfignes displaying but the propertie of her fwiftneffe and aptneffe to disperse Rumoure." STEEVENS.

painted full of tongues.] This direction, which is only to be found in the first edition in quarto of 1600, explains a paffage in what follows, otherwife obfcure. POPE.

4the drooping weft,] A paffage in Macbeth will beft explain the force of this epithet:

"Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
"And night's black agents to their preys do rouse."

MALONE.

Rumour is a pipe-] Here the poet imagines himself defcribing Rumour, and forgets that Rumour is the speaker.

JOHNSON,

And of fo eafy and fo plain a ftop,

That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-difcordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it. But what need I thus
My well-known body to anatomize

Among my houfhold? Why is Rumour here ?
I run before king Harry's victory;
Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,

Hath beaten down young Hotfpur, and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion

Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
To speak fo true at firft? my office is

To noife abroad, that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's fword;
And that the king before the Douglas' rage
Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumour'd through the peafant towns
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury

And this worm-eaten hold of ragged ftone,"

6

fo eafy and fo plain a ftop,] The Stops are the holes in a flute or pipe. So, in Hamlet: "Govern these ventages with your finger and thumb:-Look you, these are the stops.". Again: "You would feem to know my stops." STEEVENS.

7 And this worm-eaten hold of ragged ftone,] The old copies read-worm-eaten hole. MALONE.

Northumberland had retired and fortified himself in his castle, a place of strength in those times, though the building might be impaired by its antiquity; and, therefore, I believe our poet

wrote:

And this worm-eaten hold of ragged ftone. THEOBALD, Theobald is certainly right. So, in The Wars of Cyrus, &c. 1594:

"Befieg'd his fortrefs with his men at arms,

"Where only I and that Libanio stay'd

66

By whom I live. For when the hold was loft," &c.

Again, in King Henry VI. P. III :

"She is hard by with twenty thousand men,

"And therefore fortify your hold, my lord." STEEVENS,