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have you provided me here half a dozen sufficient

men?

Shal. Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit?
Ful. Let me see them, I beseech you.

Shal. Where's the roll? where's the roll? where's the roll?-Let me see, let me see, let me see. So, so, so, so: Yea, marry, sir:-Ralph Mouldy-let them appear as I call; let them do $0. Let me see; Where is Mouldy?

Moul. Here, an't please you.

Shal. What think you, Sir John? a good-limb'd fellow: young, strong, and of good friends. Fal. Is thy name Mouldy?

Moul. Yea, an't please you.

Fal. 'Tis the more time thou wert us'd.

Shal. Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i' faith! things, that are mouldy, lack use: Very singular good!-Well said, Sir John; very well said." Ful. Prick him.

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make as many holes in an enemy's battle, as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat?

Feeble. I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more.

Fal. Well said, good woman's taylor! well said, courageous Feeble! Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove, or most magnanimous mouse.— Prick the woman's taylor well, master Shallow: deep, master Shallow.

Feeble. I would, Wart might have gone, sir. Fal. I would, thou wert a man's taylor; that thou might'st mend him, and make him fit to go. I cannot put him to a private soldier, that is the leader of so many thousands: Let that suffice, most 15 forcible Feeble.

Moul. I was prick'd well enough before, an 20 you could have let me alone: my old dame will be undone now, for one to do her husbandry, and her drudgery: you need not to have prick'd me ;) there are other men fitter to go out than I.

Fal. Go to; peace, Mouldy, you shall go. 25 Mouldy, it is time you were spent.

Moul. Spent!

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Fal. Thou art a very ragged wart.
Shal. Shall I prick him, Sir John?

Fal. It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon his back, and the whole frame stands upon pins: prick him no more.

Feeble. It shall suffice, sir.

Fal. I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble.
Who is next?

Shal. Peter Bull-calf of the green!
Fal. Yea, marry, let us see Bull-calf.
Bull. Here, sir.

Fal. Trust me, a likely fellow!-Come, prick me Bull-calf, till he roar again.

Bull. Oh! good my lord captain,—
Fat. What, dost thou roar before thou art prick'
Bull. O lord, sir! I am a diseas'd man.

Fal. What disease hast thou?

Bull. A whoreson cold, sir; a cold, sir; which I caught with ringing in the king's affairs, upon 30 his coronation day, sir.

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Fal. Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown; we will have away thy cold; and I will take such order, that thy friends shall ring for thee.-Is here all?

Shal. There is two more call'd than your num ber, you must have but four here, sir;—and so, I pray you, go in with me to dinner.

Fal. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry dinner. I am glad to see you, in 40 good troth, master Shallow.

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Shal. O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the wind-mill in St. George's-fields ? Fal. No more of that, good master Shallow, no more of that.

Shal. Ha, it was a merry night. And is Jane Night-work alive?

Fal. She lives, master Shallow.

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Shal. Ha, ha, ha!-you can do it, sir: you can 55 do it. I commend you well.-Francis Feeble! Feeble. Here, sir.

Fal. What trade art thou, Feeble?

Feeble. A woman's taylor, sir.

Shal. Shall I prick him, sir?

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Ful. You may: but if he had been a man's

taylor, he would have prick'd you.-Wilt thou

Shal. By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?

Ful. Old, old, master Shallow.

Shul. Nay, she must be old; she cannot chuse but be old; certain, she's old; and had Robin Night-work by Old Night-work, before I came to Clement's-inn.

Sil. That fifty-five years ago.

Shal. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight and I have seen!-Ha, Sir John, said I well?

That is, we have in the muster-book many names for which we receive pay, though we have not

the men.

2 This is an expression of dislike.

Fal.

Fal. We have heard the chimes at midnight, master Shallow.

Shul. That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, Sir John, we have; our watchword was, Hem, boys!-Come, let's to dinner; 5 come, let's to dinner :-O, the days that we have seen!-Come,come. [Exeunt Falstaff,andJustices.

Bull. Good master corporate Bardolph, stand my friend; and here is four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you. In very truth, sir, had 10 as lief be hang'd, sir, as go: and yet for mine own part, sir, I do not care: but, rather, because I amn unwilling, and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends; else, sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so much.

Bard. Go to; stand aside.

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Moul. And, good master corporal captain, for my old dame's sake, stand my friend: she has nobody to do any thing about her, when I am gone; and she is old, and cannot help herself: you shall 20 have forty, sir.

Bard. Go to; stand aside.

Feeble. I care not a man can die but once:we owe God a death;-I'll ne'er bear a base mind:-an't be my destiny, so: an't be not, so: 25 No man's too good to serve his prince: and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year, is quit for the next.

Bard. Well said; thou'rt a good fellow.
Feeble. 'Faith, I'll bear no base mind.

[Re-enter Falstaff, and Justices.

Fal. Come, sir, which men shall I have?
Shal. Four of which you please.

Bard. Sir, a word with you:--I have three pound to free Mouldy and Bull-calf.

Fal. Go to; well.

Shal. Come, Sir John which four will you have?
Fal. Do you chuse for me.

Shal. Marry then,-Mouldy, Bull-calf, Feeble, and Shadow.

Ful. Mouldy, and Bull-calf: For you, Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service:-and, for your part, Bull-calf,-grow 'till you come unto it; I will none of you.

And this same half-fac'd fellow Shadow,-giveme this man; he presents no mark to the enemy; the fore-man may with as great aim level at the edge of a pen-knife: And, for a retreat,-how swiftly will this Feeble, the woman's taylor, run off? O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones.-Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph.

Bard. Hold, Wart, traverse; thus, thus, thus. Fal. Come, manage me your caliver. So:very well:-goto:-very good:-exceeding good: -Ó, give me always a little, lean, old, chopp'd, bald shot-Well said, Wart; thou'rt a good scab: hold, there's a tester for thee.

Shal. He is not his craft's master, he doth not do it right. I remember at Mile-end green, when I lay at Clement's-inn, (I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show) there was a little quiver fellow, and 'a would manage you his piece thus: and 'a would about, and about, and come you in, and come you in: rah, tah, tah, would 'a say; bounce. would 'a say; and away again would 'a go, and again would 'a come; I shall never see such fellow.

Fal. These fellows will do well, mnaster Shallow.-God keep you, master Silence; I will not use many words with you:-Fare you well, gentlemen both: I thank you: I must a dozen mile to-night.Bardolph, give the soldiers

30 coats.

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Shal. Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong; 45 they are your likeliest men, and I would have you

serv'd with the best.

Shal. Sir John, heaven bless you, and prosper your affairs, and send us peace! As you return, visit my house; let our old acquaintance be renew'd: peradventure I will with you to the court. Fal. I would you would, master Shallow. Shal. Go to; I have spoke, at a word. Fare you well. [Exeunt Shallow and Silence. Fal. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.- -On, Bardolph; leadthe men away.-[Exeunt Bardolph, Recruits, &c.]-As I return, I will fetch off these justices; I do see the bottom of justice Shallow. Lord, lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbull-street"; and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at Clement's-inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring; when he was naked, he was, for

Fal. Will you tell me, master Shallow, how to chuse a man? Care I for the limb, the thewes', the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man? 50 all the world, like a fork'd radish, with a head fangiveme the spirit, master Shallow.-Here's Wart; -you see what a ragged appearance it is: he shall charge you, and discharge you, with the motion of a pewterer's hammer; come off, and on, swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket.

tastically carv'd upon it with a knife: he was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible; he was the very Genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores call'd him 55-mandrake: he came ever in the rear-ward of

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1i. e. the muscular strength or appearance of manhood. 2 That is, swifter than he who carries beer from the vat to the barrel, in buckets hung upon a gibbet or beam crossing his shoulders. hand-gun. 4 Shot is used for shooter, one who is to fight by shooting. 'Dr. Johnson observes, that the story of Sir Dagonet is to be found in La Mort d' Arthure, an old romance much celebrated in our author's time, or a little before it. In this romance Sir Dagonet is king Arthur's fool (Dr. Warburton says, his squire). Shakspeare would not have shewn his Justice capable of representing any higher cha racter. "Turnbull or Turnmill-street is near Cow-Cross, West Smithfield, which was formerly called Ruffian's Hall, where turbulent fellows met to try their skill at sword and buckler, and was notorious for the number of its houses of ill-fame,

the

the fashion; and sung those tunes to the overscutcht huswives, that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware-they were his fancies, or his good-nights. And now is this vice's' dagger become a squire; and talks as familiarly of John of 5 Gaunt, as if he had been sworn brother to him: and I'll be sworn he never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head, for crouding among the marshal's men. I saw it; and told John of Gaunt, he beat his own name': for you 10

might have truss'd him, and all his apparel, into an eel-skin: the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a court: and now he hath land and beeves. Well; I will be acquainted with him, if I return: and it shall go hard, but I will make him a philosopher's' two stones to me: If the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason, in the law of nature, but I may snap at him2. Let time shape, and there an end. [Exeunt.

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IV.

1201 Mess. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile, In goodly form comes on the enemy:

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My friends and brethren in these great affairs,
I must acquaint you, that I have receiv'd
New-dated letters from Northumberland;
Their cold intent, tenour, and substance, thus:-35
Here doth he wish bis person, with such powers
As might hold sortance with his quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retir'd, to ripe his growing fortunes,
To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers,
That your attempts may over-live the hazard,
And fearful meeting of their opposite. [ground,
Mowb. Thus do the hopes we had in him touch
And dash themselves to pieces.

Enter a Messenger.

Hast. Now, what news?

And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number
Upon, or near, the rate of thirty thousand. [out,
Mowb. The just proportion that we gave them
Let us sway on, and face them in the field.
Enter Westmoreland.

York. What well-appointed leader fronts us here?
Mowb. I think, it is ney lord of Westmoreland.
West. Health and fair greeting from our general,
The prince, lord John, and duke of Lancaster.
York. Say on, my lord of Westmoreland,in peace;
What doth concern your coming?

West. Then, my lord,

Unto your grace
do I in chief address
The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
Led on by bloody youth', guarded" with rage,
And countenanc'd by boys, and beggary;

say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd,
40 In his true, native, and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords,
Had not been here, to dress the ugly form
Of base and bloody insurrection

With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop,→ 45 Whose see is by a civil peace maintain❜d ;

Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd;

1i. e. according to Mr. Pope, whipt, carted; though Dr. Johnson rather thinks that the word means dirty or grimed; and that the word huswives agrees better with this sense. Ray, however, among his north-country words, confirms Pope's meaning, by saying that an overswitch'd'huswife is a strumpet. Fancies and Goodnights were the titles of little poems. Vice was the name given to a droll figure, heretofore much shewn upon our stage, and brought in to play the fool and make sport for the popu lace. His dress was always a long jerkin, a fool's cap with asses' ears, and a thin wooden dagger, such as is still retained in the modern figures of Harlequin and Scaramouch. The word is an abbrevation of device; for in our old dramatic shows, where he was first exhibited, he was nothing more than an artificial figure, a puppet moved by machinery, and then originally called device or vice. The smith's machine called a vice, is an abbreviation of the same sort. It was very satirical in Falstaff to compare Shallow's activity and impertinence to such a machine as a wooden dagger in the hands and management of a buffoon. To break and to burst were, in our poet's time, synonimously used. To brast had the same meaning. That is, beat gaunt, a fellow so slender, that his name might have been Gaunt. "One of which was an universal medicine, and the other a transmuter of base metals into gold. "That is, if it be the law of nature that the stronger may seize upon the weaker, Falstaff may, with great propriety, devour Shallow, Dr. Johnson thinks this word, which is used in Holinshed, was intended to express the uniform and forcible motion of a compact body. Well-appointed is completely accoutred. 10 Bloody youth means only sanguine youth, or youth full of blood, and of those passions which blood is supposed to incite or nourish. Guarded is an expression taken from dress and means the same as faced, turned up.

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Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd:
Whose white investments figure innocence,
The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,-
Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself
Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war?
Turning your books to graves', your ink to blood,
Your pens to lances; and your tongue divine
To a loud trumpet, and a point of war?

West. When ever yet was your appeal deny'd?
Wherein have you been galled by the king?
What peer
hath been suborn'd to grate on you?
That you should seal this lawless bloody book
5 Of forg'd rebellion with a seal divine,

And consecrate commotion's civil edge'?
York. My brother-general, the common-wealth,
To brother born an household cruelty,
I make my quarrel in particular*.

York. Wherefore do I this so the question 10 West. There is no need of any such redress;

stands.

Briefly, to this end :-We are all diseas'd;
And, with our surfeiting, and wanton hours,
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it: of which disease
Our late king, Richard, being infected, dy'd.
But, my most noble lord of Westmoreland,
I take not on me here as a physician :
Nor do I, as an enemy to peace,
Troop in the throngs of military men:
But, rather, shew a while like fearful war,
To diet rank minds, sick of happiness;
And purge the obstructions, which begin to stop
Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
I have in equal balance justly weigh'd
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we
suffer,

And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We see which way the stream of time doth run,
And are enforc'd from our most quiet sphere
By the rough torrent of occasion;
And have the summary of all our griefs,
When time shall serve, to shew in articles;
Which, long ere this, we offer'd to the king,
And might by no suit gain our audience:
When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs,
We are deny'd access unto his person
Even by those men that most have done us wrong.
The danger of the days but newly gone,
(Whose memory is written on the earth
With yet appearing blood), and the examples
Of every minute's instance, (present now)
Have put us in these ill-beseeming arms;
Not to break peace, or any branch of it;
But to establish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.

Or, if there were, it not belongs to you.

Mowb. Why not to him, in part; and to us all,
That feel the bruise, of the days before;
And suffer the condition of these times

15 To lay a heavy and unequal hand
Upon our honours?

West. O my good lord Mowbray,
Construe the times to their necessities,
And you shall say indeed, it is the time,
20 And not the king, that doth you injuries.
Yet, for your part, it not appears to me,
Either from the king, or in the present time,
That you shall have an inch of any ground
To build a grief on: Were you not restor❜d
25 To all the duke of Norfolk's seigniories,
Your noble and right-well-remember'd father's?
Mowb. What thing, in honour, had my father
lost,

That need to be reviv'd, and breath'd in me?
30The king, that lov'd him as the state stood then,
Was, force perforce, compell'd to banish him:
And then, when Harry Bolingbroke, and he,-
Being mounted, and both roused in their seats,
Their neighing coursers daing of the spur,
35 Their armed staves in charge', their beavers down,
Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of

40

steel,

And the loud trumpet blowing them together;
Then, then, when there was nothing could have
staid

My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,
O, when the king did throw his warder down,
His own life hung upon the statt he threw :
Then threw he down himself, and all their lives,
45 That, by indictment, and by dint of sword,
Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.

1 Formerly, all bishops wore white even when they travelled. The white investment meant the episcopal rochet. For graves Dr.Warburton very plausibly reads gloves, and is followed by Sir Thomas Hanmer. Mr. Steevens says, "We might perhaps as plausibly read greaves, which is spelled graves in Warner's Albion's England,” i, e. armour for the legs, a kind of boots: and adds, that the metamorphoss oflea horn covers of books into greaves, i.e. boots, seems to be more appositethan the conversion of them into instruments of war. Glave is the Erse word for a broad-sword, and glaif is Welsh for a hook. 3 It was an old custom, continued from the time of the first croisades, for the pope to consecrate the general's sword, which was employed in the service of the church. To this custom the line in question alludes. * Dr. Warburton explains this passage thus: "My brother general the commonwealth, which ought to distribute its benefits equally, is become an enemy to those of his own house, to brothers born, by giving some all, and others none; and this (says he). I make my quarrel or grievance, that honours are unequally distributed;" the constant birth of male-contents, and source of civil commotions. Dr. Johnson, however, believes there is an error in the first line, which perhaps may be rectified thus: "My quarrel general, the common-wealth, &c. That is, my general cause of discontent is public mismanagement; my particular cause a domestic injury done to my natural brother, who had been beheaded by the king's order;" a circumstance mentioned in the First Part of the Play. An armed staff is a lance. To be in charge, is to be fixed in the rest for the encounter. Or, the visiers, e. the perforated part of their helmets, through which they could see to direct their aim.

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West.

494

SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV.

West. You speak, lord Mowbray, now you know

not what :

The earl of Hereford was reputed then

In England the most valiant gentleman :

[Act 4. Scene 2.

That no conditions of our peace can stand.
Hast.Fear you not that: if we can make our peace
Upon such large terms, and so absolute,
As our conditions shall insist upon,

Who knows, on whom fortune would then have 5 Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

smil'd?

10

But, if your father had been victor there,
He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry:
For all the country, in a general voice,
Cry'dhate upon him; andall their prayers, and love,
Were set on Hereford, whom they doated on,
And bless'd, and grac❜d'indeed, more than the king.
But this is mere digression from my purpose.—
Here come I from our princely general,
To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace,
That he will give you audience: and wherein
It shall appear, that
You shall enjoy them; every thing set off,
demands are just,
That might so much as think you enemies.
Mowb.But he hath torc'd us to compel this offer; 20
And it proceeds from policy, not love.

your

West. Mowbray, you over-ween, to take it so;
This offer comes from mercy, not from fear:
For, lo! within a ken, our army lies;
Upon mine honour, all too confident
To give admittance to a thought of fear.
Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;
Then reason wills, our hearts should be as good:
Say you not then, our offer is compell'd.
Mowb. Well, by my will, we shall admit no
parley.

West. That argues but the shame of your offence:
A rotten case abides no handling.

Hast. Hath the prince John a full commission,
In very ample virtue of his father,
To hear, and absolutely to determine
Of what conditions we shall stand upon ?

West. That is intended' in the general's name:
I muse, you make so slight a question.

York. Then take, my lord of Westmoreland,
this schedule;

For this contains our general grievances:-
Each several article herein redress'd;

All members of our cause, both here and hence,
That are insinew'd to this action,

Acquitted by a true substantial form2;

And present execution of our wills

To us, and to our purposes, confin'd';

We come within our awful banks' again,

And knit our powers to the arm of peace.

West. This will I shew the general. Please

you, lords,

In sight of both our battles we may meet;
And either end in peace, which heaven so frame!
Or to the place of difference call the swords
Which must decide it.

3

York. My lord, we will do so.

[Exit West.

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Mowb. Ay, but our valuation shall be such,
That every slight and false-derived cause,
Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason,
Shall, to the king, taste of this action:

That, were our loyal faiths martyrs in love,
We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind,
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff,
And good from bad find no partition.

York. No, no, my lord; Note this,—the king
'is weary

Of dainty and such picking grievances:
For he hath found,-to end one doubt by death,
Revives two greater in the heirs of life,
And keep no tell-tale to his memory,
And therefore will he wipe his tables clean;
That may repeat and history his loss
To new remembrance: For full well he knows,
He cannot so precisely weed this land,
As his misdoubts present occasion:
25 His foes are so enrooted with his friends,
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfasten so, and shake a friend:
So that this land, like an offensive wife,
30 As he is striking, holds his infant up,
That hath enrag'd him on to offer strokes;

And hangs resolv'd correction in the arm
That was uprear'd to execution.

Hast. Besides, the king hath wasted all his rods
On late offenders, that he now doth lack
35 The very instruments of chastisement:
So that his power, like to a fangless lion,
May offer, but not hold.

York. 'Tis very true;

40 If we do now make our atonement well,
Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
Grow stronger for the breaking.

And therefore be assured, my good lord marshal,

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Mowb. There is a thing within my bosom 60 tells me,

Meaning, included in the office of a general.

Mowb. Be it so.

Here is return'd my lord of Westmoreland.
Re-enter Westmoreland.

West. The prince is here at hand: Pleaseth your

lordship,

To meet his grace just distance 'tween our armies? Mowb. Your grace of York, in heaven's name then set forward.

York. Before, and greet his grace:-my lord,

we come.

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Another part of the forest.
Enter on one side Mowbray, the Archbishop, Hast-
ings, and others: from the other side, Prince
John of Lancaster, Westmoreland, Officers, &c.
Lan. You are well encounter'd here my cousin

Mowbray :

That is, by a pardon of due form and legal validity.
Awful banks are the proper limits of reve-

For confined, Mr. Steevens proposes to read confirm'd.

4

rence. Perhaps we might read-lawful. i. e. piddling, insignificant grievances. Alluding to a table book of slate, ivory, &c.

Good

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