Fal. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, an I brandish any thing but my bottle, I would I might never spit white again 23. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it: Well, I cannot last for ever: But it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you will needs say, I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God, my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with rust, than to be scour'd to nothing with perpetual motion.

Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; And God bless your expedition!

Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth?

Ch. Just. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses 29. Fare you well: Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland.

[Exeunt Chief Justice and Attendant. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle 3o.A man can no more separate age and covetousness, than he can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout galls one, and the pox pinches the other; and so both the degrees prevent my curses.-Boy!Page. Sir?

VOL. VII.

Fal. What money is in my purse?
Page. Seven groats and two-pence.

Fal. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.-Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this to the earl of Westmoreland; and this to old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin: About it; you know where to find me. [Exit Page.] A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one, or the other, plays the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter, if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable: A good wit will make use of any thing; I will turn diseases to commodity. [Exit.

SCENE HI.

York. A Room in the Archbishop's Palace.

Enter the Archbishop of York, the Lords HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH.

Arch. Thus have you heard our cause, and known

our means;

And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes:-
And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?

Mowb. I well allow the occasion of our arms;

But gladly would be better satisfied,

How, in our means, we should advance ourselves,
To look with forehead bold and big enough
Upon the power and puissance of the king.

Hast. Our present musters grow upon the file
To five and twenty thousand men of choice;
And our supplies live largely in the hope
Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
With an incensed fire of injuries.

Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth thus ;

Whether our present five and twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland.
Hast. With him we may.

Bard.

Ay, marry there's the point;

But if without him we be thought too feeble,

My judgment is, we should not step too far
Till we had his assistance by the hand:
For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this,
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise

Of aids uncertain, should not be admitted.

Arch. 'Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed,

It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.

Bard. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,

Flattering himself with project of a power

Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts:

And so, with great imagination,

Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,

And, winking, leap'd into destruction.

Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt, To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope. Bard. Yes, in this present quality of war ;Indeed the instant action, (a cause on foot,) Lives so in hope, as in an early spring

We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit, Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair,

That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model;

And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection:
Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then, but draw anew the model
In fewer offices; or, at least, desist

To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
(Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down,
And set another up,) should we survey

The plot of situation, and the model;
Consent upon a sure foundation;

Question surveyors; know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,
To weigh against his opposite; or else,
We fortify in paper, and in figures,
Using the names of men instead of men:

Like one, that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost

A naked subject to the weeping clouds,
And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.

Hast. Grant, that our hopes (yet likely of fair

birth,)

Should be stillborn, and that we now possess'd

The utmost man of expectation;

I think, we are a body strong enough,

Even as we are, to equal with the king.

Bard. What is the king but five and twenty thousand?

Hast. To us, no more; nay, not so much, lord Bardolph.

For his divisions, as the times do brawl,

Are in three heads; one power against the French, And one against Glendower; perforce, a third Must take up us: So is the unfirm king

In three divided; and his coffers sound

With hollow poverty and emptiness.

Arch. That he should draw his several strengths

together,

And come against us in full puissance,

Need not be dreaded.

Hast.

If he should do so,

He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh Baying him at the heels: never fear that.

Bard. Who, is it like, should lead his forces hi

ther?

Hast. The duke of Lancaster, and Westmoreland: Against the Welsh, himself, and Harry Monmouth: But who is substituted 'gainst the French,

I have no certain notice.

Arch.

31 Let us on;