SECOND PART OP KING HENRY IV. LITERARY AND HISTORICAL NOTICE. SHAKSPEARE is supposed to have written this play in 1598. Its action comprehends a period of nine years, commencing with Hotspur's death, 1403, and terminating with the coronation of Henry V. 1412-13. Many of the tragic scenes in this second portion of the history are forcible and pathetic; but the comedy is of a much looser and more indecent character, than any in the preceding part. Shallow is an odd though pleasing por trait of a brainless magistrate; and a character, it is to be feared, not peculiar to Glostershire only. In thus exhibiting his worship to the ridicule of an audience, Shakspeare amply revenged himself on his old WarOn the character of Falstaff, as exhibited in the two plays, Dr. Johnson makes the wickshire prosecutor. following admirable remarks: "Falstaff unimitated, unimitable Falstaff, how shall I describe thee; thou compound of sense and vice; of sense which may be admired, but not esteemed; of vice which may be despised, but hardly detested. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and with those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief and a glutton, a coward and a boaster; always ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous, and insult the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, be satirizes in their absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the prince, only as an agent of vice; but of this familiarity he is so proud, as not only to be supercilious and haughty with common men, but to think his interest of importance to the Duke of Lancaster. Yet the man thus corrupt, thus despicable, makes himself necessary to the prince that despises him, by the most pleasing of all qualities, perpetual gaity; by an unfailing power of exciting laughter, which is the more freely indulged, as his wit is not of the splendid or ambitious kind, but consists in easy scapes and sallies of levity, which make sport, but raise no envy. It must be observed, that he is stained with no enormous or sanguinary crimes, so that his licentiousness is not so offensive but that it may be borne for his mirth," Make fearful musters and prepar'd defence; grief, Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war, That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, Among my household? Why is Rumour here ? Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury, North. Here comes my servant, Travers On Tuesday last to listen after news. North. Now, Travers, what good tidings come Tra. My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd, Hath beaten down young Hotspur, and his A gentleman almost forspent with speed, That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him North. Ha!——Again. Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold! Bard. My lord, I'll tell you what ;- Give then such instances of loss? Bard. Who, he? He was some hilding fellow, that had stol'a North. What news, lord Bardolph ? every To fright our party. minute now Should be the father of some stratagem : + Bard. Noble earl, I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. Kill'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field; North. How is this deriv'd? Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury 1 A gentleman well bred, and of good name, Northumberland eastle. North. How doth my son and brother? burn'd: But Priam found the fire, ere he bis tongue, thus, Your brother, thus; so fought the noble Doug. Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds: North. Why, he is dead. See, what a ready tongue suspicion hath ? KING HENRY And I will take it as a sweet disgrace, And make thee rich for doing me such wrong. ragged'st hour that time and spite dare Mor. You are too great to be by me gain-To frown upon the enrag'd Northumberland! said: Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain. I see a strange confession in thine eye: Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead. lieve Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not nature's And let this world no longer be a stage, Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from Mor. The lives of all your loving complices o'er Mor. I am sorry I should force you to be-To stormy passion, must perforce decay. That, which I would to heaven I had not seen: To Harry Monmouth: whose swift wrath beat The never-daunted Percy to the earth, From whence with life he never more sprung up. In few, his death (whose spirit lent a fire fear, That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim, cester Too soon ta'en prisoner: and that furious Scot, sword 'Gan vail his stomach, and did grace the shame Of those that turn'd their backs; and, in his Stambling in fear, was took. The sum of all inourn. In poison there is physic; and these news, Being sick, have in some measure made me well: Out of his keeper's arms; even so my limbs, Are thrice themselves: hence therefore, thou nice crutch; A sealy gauntlet now, with joints of steel, Thou art a guard too wanton for the head, bit. Now bind my brows with iron; and approach • Return of blows. ¡ Reported. Triling. Or what hath this bold enterprize brought forth, seas, The gentle archbishop of York is up, This word, rebellion, it had froze them up, In few words. • Distribution. [Exeunt. ↑ Greater. SCENE II.-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? 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 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. I 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? Page. He said, Sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his boud and your's; he liked not the security. now wear Attend. 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 you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so. Atten. I 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 get'st any leave of me, hang me: if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt-counter,' bence! avaunt! your health. Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury. 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, Fal. Let him be damned like a glutton! may hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish his tongue be botter!-A whoreson Achitophel! of the saltness of time; and I most humbly bea rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gen-seech your lordship, to have a reverend care of tleman in hand, and then stand upon security! -The whoreson smooth-pates do 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 born of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot be 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, 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 Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph. Ful. Wait close, I will not see him. Ch. Just. What's he that goes there? Fa.. Ant 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. Ful. 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. Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is. Fal. It hath its original from much grief: have read the cause of his effects in Galen; it from study, and perturbation of the brain: I 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 punish 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 dram of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself. bailiff. Scene II. Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were | John of Lancaster, against the archbishop and matters against you for your life, to come speak the earl of Northumberland. 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, live in great infamy. Fal. He that buckles him in my belt, not live in less. you can Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great. 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. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it: Well, I cannot last ever: But it was always yet the trick of Fal. I would it were otherwise; I would my our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you will needs say, I means were greater, and my waist slenderer. misled the youthful I am an old man, you should give me rest. Ch. Just. You have would to God, my name were not so terrible to I were better to be eaten misled me: Ithe enemy as it is. and he my to death with rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion. Ch. Just. Well, I am loath to gail a newbealed wound; your day's service at Shrewsbury bath 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? prince. Fal. The young prince hath am the fellow with the great belly, dog. Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf. Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; And Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand Ch. Just. Not a penny, not a penny; you are Fare you well: too impatient to bear crosses. Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland. Exeunt CHIEF JUSTICE and ATTENDANT. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate age and Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the bet-covetousness, than he can part young limbs and ter part burnt out. Fal. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a fox. Fal. A wassel candle, my lord; all tallow: if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth. Ch. Just. There is not a white hair on your Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. lechery: but the gout galls the one, and the pox Fal. What money is in my purse? Fal. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is-Go, bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster ; light; but, I hope, be that looks upon me, will take me without weighing: and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell Virtue is of so little regard in these costermonger times, that true valour is turned bear-herd: Pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young you measure the beat of our livers with the bitterness of your calls; and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too. Ch. Just. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing belly is not your voice broken? your wind short f your chin double? your wit single? and every part about you blasted with antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, ne, fie, Sir John! Fal. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. For my voice,-I have lost it with bollaing, and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for 2 thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box o'the ear that the prince gave you,-he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. have checked him for it; and the young lion repents = marry, not in ashes and sackcloth; but in new silk and old sack. -Ch. Just. Well, heaven send the prince a Heaven send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him. this to the prince; this to the earl of Westmore- SCENE 111.-York.-A Room in the Arch- HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH. known our means; And, my most noble friends, I pray you all, selves To look with forehead bold and big enough Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, Whether our present five and twenty thou May hold up head without Northumberland. A large wooden hammer so heavy as to require Ch. Just. Well, the king hath severed you and |