The sweetness of affiance!' Show men dutiful? Why, so didst thou: Or are they spare in diet; Exe. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard earl of Cambridge. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry lord Scroop of Masham. 'O, how hast thou with jealousy infected The sweetness of affiance!] Shakspeare uses this aggravation of the guilt of treachery with great judgment. One of the worst consequences of breach of trust is the diminution of that confidence which makes the happiness of life, and the dissemination of suspicion, which is the poison of society. JOHNSON. Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement;] Complements, in the age of Shakspeare, meant the same as accomplishments in the present one. Not working with the eye, without the ear,] The king means to say of Scroop, that he was a cautious man, who knew that fronti nulla fides, that a specious appearance was deceitful, and therefore did not work with the eye, without the ear, did not trust the air or look of any man till he had tried him by enquiry and conversation. —and so finely bolted,] Bolted is the same with sifted, and has consequently the meaning of refined. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight of Northumberland. Scroop. Our purposes God justly hath discover'd; And I repent my fault, more than my death; Which I beseech your highness to forgive, Although my body pay the price of it. Cam. For me, the gold of France did not seduce; Although I did admit it as a motive, My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign. sentence. You have conspir'd against our royal person, coffers Receiv'd the golden earnest of our death; 5 Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,] Cambridge means to say, at which prevention, or, which intended scheme that it was prevented, I shall rejoice. Shakspeare has many such elliptical expressions. The intended scheme that he alludes to, was the taking off Henry, to make room for his brother-in-law. Poor miserable wretches, to your death: Of all your dear offences!-Bear them hence. [Exeunt Conspirators, guarded. Now, Lords, for France; the enterprize whereof Shall be to you, as us, like glorious. We doubt not of a fair and lucky war; Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance: [Exeunt. SCENE III. London. Mrs. Quickly's House in Eastcheap. Enter PISTOL, Mrs. QUICKLY, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy. Quick. Pr'ythee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines." Pist. No; for my manly heart doth yearn.Bardolph, be blithe;-Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins; Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead, And we must yearn therefore. Bard. 'Would, I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in heaven or in hell! let me bring thee to Staines.] i. e. let me attend, or accompany thee. Quick. Nay, sure, he's not in hell; he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child;' 'a parted even just between twelve and one, e'en at turning o' the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields. How now, sir John? quoth I: what, man! be of good cheer. So 'a cried out-God, God, God! three or four times: now I, to comfort him, bid him, 'a should not think of God; I hoped, there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet: So, 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed, and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upward, and upward, and all was as cold as any stone. 8 7 an it had been any christom child;] i. e. child that has wore the chrysom, or white cloth put on a new baptised child. turning o' the tide:] It has been a very old opinion, which Mead, de imperio solis, quotes, as if he believed it, that nobody dies but in the time of ebb: half the deaths in London confute the notion; but we find that it was common among the women of the poet's time. JOHNSON. 9 cold as any stone.] Such is the end of Falstaff, from whom Shakspeare had promised us, in his epilogue to King Henry IV. that we should receive more entertainment. It happened to Shakspeare, as to other writers, to have his imagination crowded with a tumultuary confusion of images, which, while they were yet unsorted and unexamined, seemed sufficient to furnish a long train of incidents, and a new variety of merriment: but which, when he was to produce them to view, shrunk suddenly from him, or could not be accommodated to his general design. That he once designed to have brought Falstaff on the scene again, we know from himself; but whether he could contrive no train of adventures suitable to his character, or could match him with no companions likely to quicken his humour, or could open no new vein of pleasantry, and was afraid to continue the same strain lest it should not find the same reception, he has here for ever discarded him, and made haste to despatch him, perhaps for the same reason for |