I see a strange confeffion in thine eye:

Thou shak'ft thy head; and hold'st it fear, or fin,”
To speak a truth. If he be flain, say so:*
The tongue offends not, that reports his death:
And he doth fin, that doth belie the dead;
Not he, which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a lofing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a fullen bell,

Remember'd knolling a departing friend."

part of this fpeech might be imputed to the diftraction of Northumberland's mind; but the calmness of the reflection, contained in the laft lines, feems not much to countenance fuch a fuppofition. I will venture to diftribute this paffage in a manner which will, I hope, feem more commodious; but do not wish the reader to forget, that the moft commodious is not always the true reading:

Bard. Yet, for all this, fay not that Percy's dead.
North. I fee a strange confeffion in thine eye,
Thou shak'ft thy head, and hold' ft it fear, or fin,
To fpeak a truth. If he be flain, fay fo:
The tongue offends not, that reports his death;
And he doth fin, that doth belie the dead;
Not he, which fays the dead is not alive.

Mor. Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a lofing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a fullen bell,

Remember'd knolling a departing friend.

Here is a natural interpofition of Bardolph at the beginning,

who is not pleased to hear his news confuted, and a proper preparation of Morton for the tale which he is unwilling to tell.

7-bold'ft it fear, or fin,]

8

JOHNSON.

Fear for danger.

WARBURTON.

If he be flain, fay fo:] The words fay fo are in the first folio, but not in the quarto: they are neceffary to the verse, but

the fenfe proceeds as well without them. JOHNSON.

9 Sounds ever after as a fullen bell,

Remember'd knolling a departing friend.] So, in our author's 71ft Sonnet:

-you shall hear the furly fullen bell

"Give warning to the world that I am fled."

BARD. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead. MOR. I am forry, I fhould force you to believe That, which I would to heaven I had not feen: But these mine eyes faw him in bloody ftate, Rend'ring faint quittance, wearied and outbreath'd,

2

To Harry Monmouth; whofe swift wrath beat down

The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
From whence with life he never more fprung up.
In few, his death (whose spirit lent a fire
Even to the dulleft peafant in his camp,)
Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
From the beft temper'd courage in his troops:
For from his metal was his party fteel'd;
Which once in him abated, all the reft

This fignificant epithet has been adopted by Milton:
"I hear the far-off curfew found,
"Over fome wide water'd fhore

Swinging flow with fullen roar."

Departing, I believe, is here used for departed. MALONE.

I cannot concur in this fuppofition. The bell, anciently, was rung before expiration, and thence was called the pasing bell, i. e. the bell that folicited prayers for the foul paffing into another world. STEEVENS.

I am inclined to think that this bell might have been originally ufed to drive away demons who were watching to take poffeffion of the foul of the deceased. In the cuts to fome of the old fervice books which contain the Vigilia mortuorum, several devils are waiting for this purpofe in the chamber of the dying man, to whom the priest is administering extreme unction. DOUCE.

faint quittance,] Quittance is return. By faint quittance is meant a faint return of blows. So, in King Henry V : "We fhall forget the office of our hand,

"Sooner than quittance of defert and merit."

3 For from his metal was his party feel'd;

STEEVENS.

Which once in him abated,] Abated, is not here put for the general idea of diminished, nor for the notion of blunted, as applied

Turn'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 lofs,
Lend to this weight fuch lightnefs with their fear,
That arrows fled not fwifter toward their aim,
Than did our foldiers, aiming at their fafety,
Fly from the field: Then was that noble Worcester
Too foon ta'en prisoner: and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whofe well-labouring fword
Had three times flain the appearance of the king,
'Gan vail his ftomach,+ and did grace the shame
Of those that turn'd their backs; and, in his flight,
Stumbling in fear, was took. The fum 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 Weftmoreland: this is the news at full.

NORTH. For this I fhall have time enough to mourn. In poison there is phyfick; and these news,

to a fingle edge. Abated means reduced to a lower temper, or, as the workmen call it, let down. JOHNSON.

4 'Gan vail his ftomach,] Began to fall his courage, to let his fpirits fink under his fortune. JOHNSON.

From avaller, Fr. to caft down, or to let fall down. MALONE. This phrafe has already appeared in The Taming of the Shrew, Vol. VI. p. 556:

"Then vail your ftomachs, for it is no boot;

"And place your hands below your husbands' foot." REED. Thus, to vail the bonnet is to pull it off. So, in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599:

"And make the king vail bonnet to us both."

To vail a ftaff, is to let it fall in token of refpect. Thus, in the fame play:

And for the ancient cuftom of vail-ftaff,

Keep it ftill; claim thou privilege from me:

"If any ask a reafon, why? or how?

66

Say, English Edward vail'd his ftaff to you.

See Vol. V. p. 398, n. 9. STEEVENS.

Having been well, that would have made me fick,+
Being fick, have in fome measure made me well:
And as the wretch, whofe fever-weaken'd joints,
Like ftrengthless hinges, buckle' under life,
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire

Out of his keeper's arms; even fo my limbs,
Weaken'd with grief, being now enrag'd with grief,
Are thrice themselves: hence therefore, thou nice
crutch;

A Having been well, that would have made me fick,] i. e. that would, had I been well, have made me fick. MALONE.

buckle-] Bend; yield to preffure. JOHNSON.

even fo my limbs,

Weaken'd with grief, being now enrag'd with grief,

Are thrice themfelves:] As Northumberland is here comparing himself to a perfon, who, though his joints are weakened by a bodily diforder, derives ftrength from the distemper of the mind, I formerly propofed to read—“Weakened with age," or, "Weakened with pain."

When a word is repeated, without propriety, in the fame or two fucceeding lines, there is great reafon to fufpect fome corruption. Thus, in this fcene, in the first folio, we have "able heels," instead of "armed heels," in confequence of the word able having occurred in the preceding line. So, in Hamlet: "Thy news fhall be the news," &c. inftead of" Thy news fhall be the fruit."-Again, in Macbeth, instead of " Whom we, to gain our place," &c. we find

"Whom we, to gain our peace, have fent to peace."

In this conjecture I had once fome confidence; but it is much diminished by the fubfequent note, and by my having lately obferved, that Shak fpeare elsewhere uses grief for bodily pain. Falstaff, in K. Henry IV. Part I. p. 569, speaks of the grief of a wound." Grief in the latter part of this line is ufed in its present sense, for forrow; in the former part for bodily pain. MALONE.

Grief, in ancient language, fignifies, bodily pain, as well as forrow. So, in A Treatife of fundrie Difeafes, &c. by T. T. 1591: "-he being at that time griped fore, and having grief in his lower bellie." Dolor ventris is, by our old writers, frequently tranflated "grief of the guts." I perceive no need of alteration. STEEVENS. 7-nice- i. e. trifling. So, in Julius Cæfar:

it is not meet

"That every nice offence should bear his comments."

STEEVENS.

4

A fcaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel,

Muft glove this hand: and hence, thou fickly quoif;

Thou art a guard too wanton for the head,

8

Which princes, flesh'd with conqueft, aim to hit.
Now bind my brows with iron; And approach
The ragged'ft hour that time and spite dare bring,
To frown upon the enrag'd Northumberland!
Let heaven kifs 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 firft-born Cain
Reign in all bofoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead!?

8 The ragged'ft hour-] Mr. Theobald and the subsequent editors read The rugged'. But change is unneceffary, the expreffion in the text being used more than once by our author. In As you like it, Amiens fays, his voice is ragged; and rag is employed as a term of reproach in The Merry Wives of Windfor, and in Timon of Athens. See alfo the Epiftle prefixed to Spenfer's Shepherd's Calender, 1579: "as thinking them fittest for the ruftical rudeness of fhepheards, either for that their rough found would make his rimes more ragged, and ruftical," &c. The modern editors of Spenfer might here fubftitute the word rugged with juft as much propriety as it has been fubftituted in the prefent paffage, or in that in As you like it. See Vol. VI. p. 54, n. 5.

Again, in The Rape of Lucrece:

"Thy fecret pleasure turns to open shame,

"Thy fmoothing titles to a ragged name.”

Again in our poet's eighth Sonnet:

"Then let not Winter's ragged hand deface
"In thee thy fummer."

Again, in the play before us:

"A ragged and fore-ftall'd remiffion." MALONE.

And darkness be the burier of the dead!] The conclufion of this noble fpeech is extremely ftriking. There is no need to fuppofe it exactly philofophical; darkness, in poetry, may be abfence of