A kindly gird is a gentle or friendly reproof. STEEVENS. The word gird does not here signify reproof as Steevens supposes, but a twitch, a pang, a yearning of kindness. M. MASON.

I wish Mr. M. Mason had produced any example of gird used in the sense for which he contends. I cannot supply one for him, or I most /readily would. STEEVENS,

P. 172, 1. 30.

pence, return.

reguerdon

JOHNSON.

It is perhaps a corruption of

middle Latin.

STEEVENS.

i. e. recom

regardum,

P. 175, 1. 25. So will this base and envious

discord breed.] That is, so will the malignity of this discord propagate itself, and advance. JOHNSON.

P. 173, last but one 1. His days may finish ere that hapless time. ] The Duke of Exeter died shortly after the meeting of this parliament, and the Earl of Warwick was appointed governor or tutor to the King in his room. MALONE.

P. 174, 1. 16. Our sacks shall be a mean to sack the city,] Falstaff has the same quibble, showing his bottle of sack: "Here's that will sack a city." STEEVENS.

P. 175, first 1. and her practisants:] Practice, in the language of that time, was treachery, and perhaps in the softer sense stratagem. Practisants are therefore confederates in stratagems. JOHNSON.

P. 175, 1.9. No way to that,] That is, no way equal to that, no way so fit as that. JOHNSON. P. 175, last but one 1. That hardly we escap'd the pride of France.]

Pride signifies the haughty power, as the same speaker says afterwards, Act IV. sc. vi:

"And from the pride of Gallia rescu'd thee." One would think this plain enough. But what won't a puzzling critick obscure! Mr. Theobald says Pride of France is an absurd and unmeaning expression, and therefore alters it to prize of France; and in this is followed by the Oxford editor. WARBURTON.

- P. 176, l. 5. Alençon Sir T. Hanmer has replaced here, instead of Reignier, because Alençon, not Reignier, appears in the ensuing scene. JOHNSON.

P. 176, 1. 10. 'Twas full of darnel;] “Darnel (says Gerard) hurteth the eyes, and maketh them dim, if it happen either in corne for breade, or drinke." Hence the old proverb Lolio victi tare, applied to such as were dim-sighted. Thus also, Ovid, Fast. I. 691:

८८

Et careant lolus oculos vitiantibus agri.” Pucelle means to intimate, that the corn she carried with her, had produced the same effect on the guards of Rouen; otherwise they would have seen through her disguise, and defeated her stratagem. STEEVENS.

P. 178, 1. 19. Pendragon,] This hero was Uther Pendragon, brother to Aurelius, and father to King Arthur. STEEVENS. P. 178, 1. 26. Fast, Whither away? v? to safe myself by flight;] I have no doubt that it was the exaggerated representation of Sir John Fastolfe's cowardice which the author of this play has given, that induced Shakspeare to give the name of Falstaff to his knight. Sir John Fastolfe did indeed fly at the battle of Patay in the year 1429; and is reproached by

Talbot in a subsequent scene, for his conduct on said that he that occasion; but no historian has fled before Rouen. The change of the name had been already made, for throughout the old copy of this play this flying general is erroneously called Falstaffe. MALONE.

P. 179, 1. 4-6. Now, quiet soul, depart when heaven please;

*

For I have seen our enemis' overthrow.] So, in St. Luke, ii. 29: "Lord, now lettest thon thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." STEEVENS

f

P. 179, 1. 10. The Duke of Bedford died at Rouen in September, 1435, but not in any action before that town. MALONE.

P. 179, 1. 24. all a-mort?] i. e. quite dispirited; a frequent Gallicism. So, in The Taming of the Shrew:

"What, sweeting! all a-mort?" STEEVENS. P. 179, 1. 27. Now will we take some order in the town, i. e. make, some necessary dispositions. STERVENS. P. 181, 1. 7. To extirp is to root out.

P. 182, l. 11.

STEEVENS.

As looks the mother on her lowly babe,] It is plain Shakspeare wrote lovely babe, it answering to fertile France above, which this domestic image is brought to illustrate. Warburton.

The alteration is easy and probable, but perhaps the poet by lowly babe meant the babe lying low in death. Lowly answers as well to towns defaced and wasting ruin, as lovely to fertile.

JOHNSON

P. 183, 1. 7. They set him free,] A mistake: The Duke was not liberated till after Burgundy's

decline to the French interest; which did not happen, by the way, till some years after the execution of this very Joan la Pucelle; nor was that during the regency of York, but of Bedford. RITSON.

P. 183, 1. 15-18. these haughty words of hers.

Have batter'd me like roaring cannon

shot, &c.] How these lines came hither I know not; there was nothing in the speech of Joan haughty or violent, it was all soft entreaty and mild expostulation. JoHNSON.

Haughty does not mean violent in this place, but elevated, high-spirited. It is used in a similar sense, in two other passages in this very play. M. MASON.

P. 183, 1. 23. Done like a Frenchman; turn, and turn again!] The inconstancy of the French was always the subject of satire. I have read a dissertation written to prove that the index of the wind upon our steeples was made in form of a cock, to ridicule the French for their frequent changes. JOHNSON. P. 184, 1. 25. I do remember how my father said,] The author of this play was not a very correct historian. Henry was but nine months old when his father died, and never saw him. MALONE.

P. 184, 1. 27. resolved of your truth,} i. e. confirmed in opinion of it. STEEVENS. P. 184, last but one 1.

reguerdon'd] i, e. rewarded. The word was obsolete even in the time of Shakspeare. STEEVENS.

P. 185, 1. 81- these colours that I wear} This was the badge of a rose, and not an officer's scarf. TOLLET.

-P. 185, 1. 22. That, who so draws a sword, 'tis present death;] Shak

speare wrote:

draws a sword i'th presence 't's death; i. e. in the court, or in the presence chamber. WARBURTON.

This reading cannot be right, because, as Mr. Edwards observed, it cannot be pronounced. It is, however, a good comment, as it shows the author's meaning. JOHNSON.

I believe the line should be written as it is in the folio:

That, who so draws a sword,

i. e. (as Dr. Warburton has observed) with a menace in the court, or in the

presence chamber. STEEVENS. Johnson, in his collection of Ecclesiastical Laws, has preserved the following, which was made by Hua, King of the West Saxons, 693: "If any one fight in the King's house, let him forfeit all his estate, and let the King deem whether he shall live or not.". I am told that there are many other ancient canons to the same purpose. Grey. STEEVENS.

Sir William Blackstone observes that, "by the ancient law before the Conquest, fighting in the King's palace, or before the Kings judges, was punished with death. So too, in the old Gothic constitution, there were many places privileged by law, quibus major reverentia et secu ritas debetur, ut templa et judicia, quae sancta habebantur, arces, et aula regis, denique locus quilibet presente aut adventante rege. And at present with us, by the Stat. 33 Hen. VIII. c. 12. malicious striking in the King's palace, wherein his royal person resides, whereby blood