that bawl out the ruins of thy linen, fhall inherit his kingdom but the midwives fay, the children are not in the fault; whereupon the world encreases, and kindreds are mightily ftrengthen'd.

Poins. How ill it follows, after you have labour'd fo hard, you should talk fo idly? Tell me, how many good young princes would do fo, their fathers being fo fick as yours at this time is?

P. Henry. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

Poins. Yes; and let it be an excellent good thing. P. Henry. It fhall ferve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.

Poins. Go to; I ftand the push of your one thing that you will tell.

P. Henry. Why, I tell thee,-it is not meet that I fhould be fad, now my father is fick albeit I could tell to thee, (as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend) I could be fad, and fad indeed too.

Poins. Very hardly, upon fuch a subject.

P. Henry. By this hand, thou think'st me as far in the devil's book, as thou, and Falstaff, for obduracy But I and perfiftency: Let the end try the man. tell thee, my heart bleeds inwardly, that my father is fo fick and keeping fuch vile company as thou art, hath in reafon taken from me all oftentation of forrow.

Poins. The reason?

P. Henry. What would'ft thou think of me, if I fhould weep?

Poins. I would think thee a moft princely hypocrite. myfelf of the choice it offers; but otherwife do not think I have a right to expunge what Shakespeare fhould feem to have written, on the bare authority of the player-editors. I have therefore reftored the paffage in queftion, to the text. STEEVENS.

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all oflentation of forrow.] Oftentation is here not boastful fhew, but fimply fhew. Merchant of Venice: one well ftudied in a fad oftent "To please his grandame." JOHNSON.

P. Henry

P. Henry. It would be every man's thought: and thou art a bleffed fellow, to think as every man thinks; never a man's thought in the world keeps the roadway better than thine: every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful thought, to think fo?

Poins. Why, because you have been fo lewd, and fo much engraffed to Falstaff.

P. Henry. And to thee.

Poins. Nay, by this light, I am well spoken of, I can hear it with my own ears: the worst that they can fay of me is, that I am a second brother, and that I am a 7 proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I confefs, I cannot help. Look, look, here comes Bardolph.

P. Henry. And the boy that I gave Falstaff: he had him from me chriftian; and fee, if the fat villain have not transform'd him ape.

Enter Bardolph, and Page.

Bard. 'Save your grace!

P. Henry. And yours, moft noble Bardolph!

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Bard. [to the page.] Come, you virtuous afs, you bashful fool, muft you be blufhing? wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man at arms are you become? Is it fuch a matter, to get a pottle-pot's maidenhead?

Page. He call'd me even now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I could difcern no part of his face

-proper fellow of my hands;] A tall or proper fellow of his hands was a stout fighting man. JOHNSON. Poins. Come, you virtuous afs, &c.] Though all editions give this fpeech to Poins, it feems evident, by the page's immediate reply, that it must be placed to Bardolph: for Bardolph had called to the boy from an ale-houfe, and, 'tis likely, made him half-drunk; and, the boy being afhamed of it, it is natural for Bardolph, a bold unbred fellow, to banter him on his aukward bafhfulness. THEOBALD.

VOL. V.

I i

from

from the window: at laft, I fpy'd his eyes; and, methought, he had made two holes in the ale-wife's new petticoat, and peep'd through.

P. Henry. Hath not the boy profited?

Bard. Away, you whorefon upright rabbet, away! Page. Away, you rafcally Althea's dream, away! P. Henry. Inftruct us, boy: What dream, boy? Page. Marry, my lord, Althea dream'd the was deliver'd of a firebrand; and therefore I call him her dream.

P. Hemy. A crown's-worth of good interpretation. -There it is, boy. [Gives him money. Poins. O,that this good bloffom could be kept from cankers!-Well, there is fix-pence to preferve thee. Bard. An you do not make him be hang'd among you, the gallows fhall have wrong.

P. Henry. And how doth thy mafter, Bardolph ? Bard. Well, my good lord. He heard of your grace's coming to town; there's a letter for you. P. Henry. Deliver'd with good refpect.-And how doth the martlemas your mafter?

Bard. In bodily health, fir?

Poins. Marry, the immortal part needs a phyfician : but that moves not him; though that be fick, it dies

not.

P. Henry. I do allow this wen to be as familiar

9-Althea dream'd &c.] Shakespeare is here mistaken in his mythology, and has confounded Althea's firebrand with Hecuba's. The firebrand of Althea was real: but Hecuba, when he was big with Paris, dreamed that she was delivered of a firebrand that confumed the kingdom. JOHNSON.

the martlemas, your mafter?] That is, the autumn, or rather the latter fpring. The old fellow with juvenile paffions. JOHNSON. Martlemas is corrupted from Martinmas, the feaft of St. Martin, the eleventh of Novembera The corruption is general in all the old plays. So, in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599:

"A piece of beef hung up fince Martlemas." STEEVENS. this wen] This fwoln excrefcence of a man.

JOHNSON.

with me as my dog: and he holds his place; for, look you, how he writes.

Poins reads. John Falstaff, knight,Every man muft know that, as oft as he hath occafion to name himfelf. Even like thofe that are kin to the king; for they never prick their finger, but they fay, There is fome of the king's blood fpilt: How comes that? fays he, that takes upon him not to conceive: the answer is as ready as a borrower's cap; I am the king's poor coufin, fir.

P. Henry. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But to the letter :

:

Poins. Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the fon of the king, neareft his father, Harry prince of Wales, greeting.-Why, this is a certificate.

P. Henry. Peace!

Poins. I will imitate the honourable Roman in brevity:-fure he means brevity in breath; fhort-winded.-I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he mifufes thy favours fo much, that he fears, thou art to marry his fifter Nell. Repent at idle times as thou may'ft, and fo farewel. Thine, by yea and no, (which is as much as to

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the anfver is as ready as a borrow'd cap;-] But how is a borrow'd cap fo ready? Read a borrower's cap, and then there is fome humour in it: for a man that goes to borrow money, is of all others the most complaifant; his cap is always at hand. WARBURTON.

P. Henry.] All the editors, except Sir Thomas Hanmer, have left this letter in confufion, making the prince read part, and Poins part. I have followed his correction.

JOHNSON.

I will imitate the honourable Roman in brevity:-] The old copy reads Romans, which Dr. Warburton very properly corrected, though he is wrong when he appropriates the character to M. Brutus, who affected great brevity of ftyle. I fuppofe by the honourable Roman is intended Julius Cæfar, whofe veni, vidi, vici, feems to be alluded to in the beginning of the letter. I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. The very words of Cæfar are afterwards quoted by Falstaff. REVISAL.

Jay, as thou useft him) Jack Falstaff, with my familiars; John, with my brothers and fifters; and fir John, with all Europe.

My lord, I will fteep this letter in fack, and make him eat it.

P. Henry. That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your fifter?

Poins. May the wench have no worse fortune! but I never faid fo.

P. Henry. Well, thus we play the fool with the time; and the spirits of the wife fit in the clouds, and mock us. Is your mafter here in London ?

Bard. Yes, my lord.

P. Henry. Where fups he? doth the old boar feed in the old frank?

Bard. At the old place, my lord; in East-cheap.
P. Henry. What company?

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Page. Ephefians, my lord; of the old church.

That's to make him eat twenty of his words.] Why juft twenty, when the letter contained above eight times twenty We fhould read plenty; and in this word the joke, as ilender as it is, confifts. WARBURTON.

It is not furely uncommon to put a certain number for an uncertain one. Thus in the Tempeft, Miranda talks of playing for a fcore of kingdoms." Bulby, in K. Richard II. obferves that each fubftance of a grief has twenty fhadows." In Julius Cafar, Cæfar fays that the flave's hand did burn like twenty torches." In K. Lear we meet with "twenty filly ducking obfervants," and "not a nose among twenty."

Robert Green, the pamphleteer, indeed obliged an apparitor to at his citation, wax and all. In the play of Sir John Oldcaffle the Sumner is compelled to do the like: and fays on the occafion,

"Ill eat my word." Harpoole replies, "I meane you shall eat more than your own cord, I'll make you eate all the words in the proceffe." STEEVENS.

7-frank?] Frank is fty. POPE.

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Ephefians, &c.] Ephefian was a term in the cant of these times, of which I know not the precife notion: it was, perhaps, a toper. So the hott in The Merry Wives of Windfor:

“It is thine host, thine Ephefian calls." JOHNSON.

P. Henry