Of wounds and scars; and that his forward spirit
Would lift him where most trade of danger rang'd;
Yet did you say, Go forth; and none of this,
Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
The stiff-borne action: What hath then befallen,
Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,
More than that being which was like to be?

Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss,
Knew that we ventur'd on such dangerous seas,
That, if we wrought out life, 'twas ten to one :
And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd
Chok'd the respect of likely peril fear'd ;
And, since we are o'erset, venture again.
Come, we will all put forth; body, and goods.

Mort. 'Tis more than time: And, my most noble lord,
I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,
The gentle archbishop of York is up,
With well-appointed powers; he is a man,
Who with a double surety binds his followers.
My lord your son had only but the corps,
But shadows, and the shows of men, to fight:
For that same word, rebellion, did divide
The action of their bodies from their souls ;
And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,
As men drink potions; that their weapons only
Seem'd on our side, but, for their spirits and souls,
This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
As fish are in a pond: But now the bishop
Turns insurrection to religion :

Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He's follow'd both with body and with mind;
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood

Of fair king Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret stones :
Derives from heaven his quarrel, and his cause;
Tells them, he doth bestride a bleeding land, 5
Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
And more, and less, do flock to follow him.6

North. I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
This present grief had wip'd it from my mind.
Go in with me; and counsel every man

The aptest way for safety, and revenge :

(5) That is, stands over his country to defend her as she lies bleeding on the ground. So Falstaff before says to the prince, "If thou see me down, Hal, and bestride me, so; it is an office of friendship." JOHNS. (6) More and less means greater and less. STEEV.

Get posts, and letters, and make friends with speed; Never so few, and never yet more need.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt.

London. A Street. Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, with his Page, bearing his sword and buckler.

Fal. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?7

Page. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water: but for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for.

Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to vent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee, like a sow, that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now :9 but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel; the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. Í will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand, than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say, his face is a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said master Dumbleton about the satin for my short cloak, and slops?

(7) The method of investing diseases by the inspection of urine only, was once so much the fashion, that Linacre, the founder of the College of Physicans, formed a statute to restrain apothecaries from carrying the water of their patients to a doctor, and afterwards giving medicines, in consequence of the opinions they received concerning it. STEEV.

(8) Mandrake is a root supposed to have the shape of a man; it is now counterfeited with the root of briony. JOHNS.

(9) That is, I never before had an agate for my man. JOHNS. Alluding to the little figures cut in agates, and on the other hard stones, for seals; and therefore he says, I will set you neither in gold nor silver. WARB.

Page. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his bond and yours; he liked not the security.

2

Fal. Let him be damned like the glutton! may his tongue be hotter!'-A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security !-The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security.— I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. I looked he should have sent me two and twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lantern to light him.-Where's Bardolph ?

Page. He's gone into Smithfield, to buy your worship.

a horse.

Fal. I bought him in Paul's ;4 and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the Stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

Enter the Lord Chief Justice, and an Attendant. Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph.

Fal. Wait close, I will not see him.

Ch. Just. What's he that goes there?

Atten. Falstaff, an't please your lordship.

Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery? Atten. He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the lord John of Lancaster.

Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again.
Atten. Sir John Falstaff!

Fal. Boy, tell him, I am deaf.

Page. You must speak louder, my master is deaf.

(2) An allusion to the fate of the rich man, who had fared sumptuously every day, when he requested a drop of water to cool his tongue, being tormented with the flames. HENLEY.

(3) That is, if a man by taking up goods is in their debt. To be thorough seems to be the same with the present phrase,-To be in with a tradesman. JOHNS.

(4) At that time the resort of idle people, cheats, and knights of the post. In an old collections of proverbs. I find the following: Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to St. Paul's for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a whore, a knave, and a jade."

STEEV.

C.Jus. I am sure,he is,to the hearing of any thing good. -Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him. Atten. Sir John,

Fal. What a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars? Is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.

Atten. You mistake me, sir.

Fal. Why, sir, did I say yon were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so.

Atten. pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man.

Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou gett'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt-counter, hence! avaunt !

Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you.
Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

Fal. My good lord-God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard say, your lordship was sick: I hope, your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship, to have a reverend care of your health. Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear, his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty :—You would not come when I sent for you.

Fal. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let me speak with you.

Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling.

(5) It is not impossible this word may be found to signify a catchpole or bum-bailiff. He was probably the judge's tipstaff. RITSON.

Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain : I have read the cause of his effects in Galen ; it is a kind of deafness.

Ch. Just. I think, you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you.

Fal. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

Ch. Just. To pumish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I do become your physician.

Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord; but not so patient: your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some drachm of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself.

Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me.

Fal. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come.

Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, sir John, you live in great infamy.

Fal. He that buckles him in my belt,cannot live in less. Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

Fal. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer.

Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince.

Fal. The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.

Ch. Just. Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound; your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gads-hill: You may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting that action. Fal. My lord?

Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so wake not a sleeping wolf.

Fal. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a fox.

Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.

Fal. A wassel-candle, my lord; all tallow : if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

(7) A wassel candle is a large candle lighted up at a feast. There is a poor quibble upon th word wax, which signifies increase as well as the matter of the honeycomb. JOHNS.