And would be glad he met with some mischance,

I'd have him poisoned with a pot of ale.

Why, look you, I am whipped and Scourged with rods,

Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hear

Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke. In Richard's time, - What do you call the place?

A plague upon't! it is in Gloucestershire;

'Twas where the madcap duke his uncle kept;

His uncle York; - where I first bowed my knee

Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke,

When you and he came back from Ravenspurg.

Why, what a candy deal of courtesy This fawning greyhound then did proffer me!

Look, when his infant fortune came to age,

And,-gentle Harry Percy, - and kind cousin,

The devil take such cozeners!-
Heaven forgive me!-
Good uncle, tell your tale, for I have

done.

SHAKSPEARE: King Henry IV.

Or break it all to pieces: or there we'll sit,

Ruling in large and ample empery, O'er France, and all her almost kingly dukedoms,

Orlay these bones in an unworthy urn, Tombless, with no remembrance over them:

Either our history shall, with full mouth,

Speak freely of our acts; or else our grave,

Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,

Not worshipped with a waxen epitaph.

Enter AMBASSADORS OF FRANCE. Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure

Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear

Your greeting is from him, not from the king.

[And as the Dauphin sends us tennis-balls,]

We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us:

His present, and your pains, we thank you for:

When we have matched our rackets to these balls,

We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set,

Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard:

Tell him, he hath made a match with such a wrangler,

That all the courts of France will be disturbed

With chaces. And we understand him well,

How he comes o'er us with our wild

er days,

Not measuring what use we made of them.

We never valued this poor seat of England;

And therefore, living hence, did give ourself

To barbarous license; as 'tis ever common,

That men are merriest when they are from home.

But tell the Dauphin, -I will keep my state;

Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness,

When I do rouse me in my throne of France:

For that I have laid by my majesty, And plodded like a man for workingdays;

But I will rise there with so full a glory,

That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,

Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.

And tell the pleasant prince, — this mock of his

Hath turned his balls to gun-stones; and his soul

Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance

That shall fly with them: for many a thousand widows Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands:

Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;

And some are yet ungotten, and unborn,

That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn.

But this lies all within the will of God,

To whom I do appeal; and in whose