thur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom2 child; 'a parted even just between twelve and one, e'en at turning o'the tide 3 ; 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.

Nym. They say, he cried out of sack.
Quick. Ay, that 'a did.

Bard. And of women.

Quick. Nay, that 'a did not.

Boy. Yes, that'a did; and said, they were devils incarnate.

2 i. e. chrisom child: which was one that died within the month of birth, because during that time they wore the chrisom cloth, a white cloth put upon a child newly christened, wherewith women used to shroud the child, if dying within the month; otherwise it was brought to church at the day of purification.

3 Even at the 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.

4 And 'a babbled of green fields.' The first folio reads For his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a Table of green fields.' Theobald gave the present reading of the text, which, though entirely conjectural, is better than any thing which has been offered in the idle babble of the numerous notes on this passage.

Quick. 'A could never abide carnation; 'twas a colour he never liked.

Boy. 'A said once, the devil would have him about women.

Quick. 'A did in some sort, indeed, handle women: but then he was rheumatick5; and talked of the whore of Babylon.

Boy. Do you not remember, 'a saw a flea stick upon Bardolph's nose; and 'a said, it was a black soul burning in hell-fire?

Bard. Well, the fuel is gone, that maintained that fire; that's all the riches I got in his service. Nym. Shall we shog off? the king will be gone from Southampton.

Pist. Come, let's away.-My love, give me thy lips.

Look to my chattels, and my moveables:

Let senses rule; the word is, Pitch and Pay;
Trust none;

For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes,
And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck6;
Therefore, caveto be thy counsellor.

Go, clear thy crystals7.-Yoke-fellows in arms, Let us to France! like horse-leeches, my boys; To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!

Boy. And that is but unwholesome food, they

say.

Pist. Touch her soft mouth, and march.
Bard. Farewell, hostess.

[Kissing her. Nym. I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but adieu.

5 Rheumatick. Mrs. Quickly means lunatick.

6 Pistol puts forth a string of proverbs. Pitch and pay, and go your way,' is one in Florio's Collection; Brag is a good dog, and Holdfast a better,' is one of the others to which he alludes.

7 i. e. dry thine eyes.

Pist. Let housewifery appear; keep close3, I

thee command.

Quick. Farewell; adieu.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

France. A Room in the French King's Palace. Enter the French King, attended; the Dauphin, the DUKE of BURGUNDY, the Constable, and Others. Fr. King. Thus come the English with full power upon us;

And more than carefully it us concerns,

To answer royally in our defences.

Therefore the dukes of Berry and of Bretagne,
Of Brabant, and of Orleans, shall make forth,-
And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift despatch,
To line, and new repair, our towns of war,
With men of courage, and with means defendant:
For England his approaches makes as fierce,
As waters to the sucking of a gulf.

It fits us then, to be as provident

As fear may teach us, out of late examples
Left by the fatal and neglected English
Upon our fields.

Dau.

My most redoubted father, It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe:

For peace itself should not so dull1 a kingdom (Though war, nor no known quarrel, were in question),

8 The quartos read 'Keep fast thy buggle boe.' The meaning of which may be gathered from the following passage in Shirley's Gentleman of Venice :

the courtisans of Venice

Shall keep their bugle bowes for thee, dear uncle.'

For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom.' To dull is to render torpid, insensible, or inactive; to dispirit. 'In idleness to wax dull and without spirit: Torpescere.'—Baret.

But that defences, musters, preparations,
Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,
As were a war in expectation.

Therefore, I say, 'tis meet we all go forth,
To view the sick and feeble parts of France:
And let us do it with no show of fear:

No, with no more, than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance:
For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,
Her sceptre so fantastically borne

By a vain, giddy, shallow humorous youth,
That fear attends her not.

Con.
O peace, Prince Dauphin!
You are too much mistaken in this king:
Question your grace the late ambassadors,-
With what great state he heard their embassy,
How well supplied with noble counsellors,
How modest in exception, and, withal,
How terrible in constant resolution,-
And you shall find, his vanities fore-spent
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus 3,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly;
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
That shall first spring, and be most delicate.

Dau. Well, 'tis not so, my lord high constable,

2 How modest in exception.' How diffident and decent in making objections.

36

the outside of the Roman Brutus.'

Warburton has a strained explanation of this passage. Shakspeare's meaning is explained by the following lines in The Rape of Lucrece :'Brutus, who pluck'd the knife from Lucrece' side, Seeing such emulation in their woe,

Began to clothe his wit in state and pride,

Burying in Lucrece' wound his folly's show.

he throws that shallow habit by?

But the best comment (as Mr. Boswell observes) will be found in Prince Henry's soliloquy in the First Part of King Henry IV. Act i. Sc. 2.

But though we think it so, it is no matter:
In cases of defence, 'tis best to weigh
The enemy more mighty than he seems,
So the proportions of defence are fill'd;
Which, of a weak and niggardly projection*,
Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat, with scanting
A little cloth.

Fr. King.

Think we King Harry strong; And, princes, look, you strongly arm to meet him. The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us; And he is bred out of that bloody strain5, That haunted us in our familiar paths: Witness our too much memorable shame, When Cressy battle fatally was struck, And all our princes captiv'd, by the hand

Of that black name, Edward Black Prince of Wales; Whiles that his mountain sire,-on mountain stand

ing,

Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun,
Saw his heroical seed, and smil❜d to see him
Mangle the work of nature, and deface

The patterns that by God and by French fathers
Had twenty years been made. This is a stem

4 Which, of a weak and niggardly projection.' The construction of this passage is perplexed, and the grammatical eoncord not according to our present notions; but its meaning appears to be, 'So the proportions of defence are filled; which, to make of a weak and niggardly projection (i. e. contrivance), is to do like a miser who spoils his coat with scanting a little cloth.

5 Strain is lineage.

6 < Whiles that his mountain sire,-on mountain standing, Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun.'

There is much childish misunderstanding of this passage in the notes. Steevens is right when he says that, divested of its poetical finery, it means that the king stood upon a hill, with the sun shining over his head, to see the battle; as before described in the first scene of the play.