_Cooee!_ Through flamegirt foam Speeds now my soul Straight to thy hero home. Blue waters roll Round where Immortals trod-- Shakespeare--half man, half God-- Laughed, with divining rod, Sounding the soul. Thou shining gem of sea! Angels on wing, Resting where men are free, Teach them to sing Such songs blind Milton heard, Coleridge and Wordsworth stirred, Keats’, and our own lost bird’s Haunting, sweet ring. _Cooee!_ North, hear the song On the South’s breath, Laurels to life belong; Cypress to death! Wreathe in song’s garland fair, Culled with a Nation’s care, My cypress leaf--a prayer, Warm with South’s breath! _Eleanor Elizabeth Montgomery._ NOTES I.--ENGLAND I _Agincourt, or the English Bowmans Glory. To a pleasant new Tune._ Quoted in Heywood’s _King Edward IV._, and, therefore, popular before 1600. This ballad has been severely edited, and I omit several stanzas. It is printed in full in Hazlitt’s edition of Collier’s ‘Shakespeare’s Library,’ vol. i. (Reeves & Turner, 1825). II Published in 1589. III-IV Both were published in _Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall_ (1605?) and _Poemes_ (1619). As to the first:--l. 6. _Caux_ (‘commonlie called Kidcaux,’ says Holinshed) was the district north-east of the mouth of the Seine. l. 83. _bilbos._ Swords, from Bilbao. 92. _ding._ To belabour with blows. V-VI The first is from John of Gaunt’s dying speech (_King Richard II._, Act ii. sc. 1). _King Richard II._ was probably written early in 1593. It was published anonymously in 1597. The second is from _King John_, Act v. sc. 7. 1594 is the date assigned to Shakespeare’s _King John_, which was first printed in the First Folio (1623). These and the two succeeding numbers follow the text of ‘The Globe Edition’ of Shakespeare’s Works. I am indebted to the publishers of that edition, Messrs. Macmillan & Co., and to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, Oxford, for kindly extending to readers of this volume the benefits of the scientific labours of Dr. W. G. Clark and Mr. W. A. Wright. VII From various parts of _King Henry V._ The play was written in 1598, and performed for the first time early in 1599. The first complete version was published in the First Folio (1623). l. 23. _rivage._ The shore. 27. _sternage._ (To sternage of=astern of, so as to follow.) 40. _puissance._ Strength. 87. _battle._ An army, or division of an army. 90. _accomplishing._ Equipping. 144. _Crispian._ ‘The daie following,’ says Holinshed, ‘was the five and twentieth of October in the year 1415, being then fridaie, and the feast of Crispine and Crispinian, a daie faire and fortunate to the English, but most sorrowfull and unluckie to the French.’ 174. _Whiffler._ Herald or usher. 183. _ostent._ Clear, visible. VIII _King Henry VIII._, Act ii. sc. 3. IX