Glend. My daughter weeps; she will not part
with you,

She'll be a soldier too, she'll to the wars.
Mort. Good father, tell her, that she, and my
aunt Percy,

Shall follow in your conduct' speedily.

[GLEND. speaks to hs daughter in Welsh, and she answers tim in the same.

Glend. She's desperate h tre; a peevish self-will'd harlotry,

One that no persuasion can do good upon.

[LADY M. speaks to MORTIMER in Welsh. Mort. I understand thy locks: that pretty Welsh Which thou pourest down from these swelling hea

vens,'

I am too perfect in; and, but for shame,
In such a parley would I answer thee.

Hot. I had rather hear Lady, my brach," howi in Irish.

Lady P. Would'st thou have thy head broken?
Hot. No.

Lady P. Then be still.

Hot. Neither; 'tis a woman's fault."
Lady P. Now God help thee!
Hot. To the Welsh lady's bed.
Lady P. What's that?
Hot. Peace! she sings.

[A Welsh song sung by LADY M.
Hot. Come, Kate, I'll have your song too.
Lady P. Not mine, in good sooth.
Hot. Not yours, in good sooth! 'Heart, you swear
like a comfit-maker's wife! Not you, in good sooth:
and, As true as I live; and, As God shall mend
me; and, As sure as day:

[LADY M. speaks. And giv'st such sarcenet surety for thy oaths, As if thou never walk'st further than Finsbury.' Swear me, Kate, like a lady, as thou art,

I understand thy kisses, and thou mine,
And that's a feeling disputation:
But I will never be a truant, love,

Till I have learn'd thy language; for thy tongue
Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn'd,
Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower,
With ravishing division, to her lute.*
Glend. Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad.
[LADY M. speaks again.
Mort. O, I am ignorance itself in this.
Glend. She bids you on the wanton rushes lay
you down,

And rest your gentle head upon her lap,
And she will sing the song that pleaseth you,
And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep,
Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness;
Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep,
As is the difference betwixt day and night,
The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team
Begins his golden progress in the east.

Mort. With all my heart I'll sit, and hear her sing:
By that time will our book,' I think, be drawn.
Glend. Do so;

And those musicians that shall play to you,
Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence;
And straight they shall be here: sit, and attend.
Hot. Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down:
Come, quick, quick; that I may lay my head in
thy lap.

Lady P. Go, ye giddy goose.

GLENDOWER speaks some Welsh words, and
then the Music plays.
Hot. Now I perceive the devil understands
Welsh;

And 'tis no marvel, he's so humorous.
By'r-lady, he's a good musician.

Lady P. Then should you be nothing but musical; for you are altogether governed by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh.

1 Guard, escort.

2 Capulet, in Romeo and Juliet, reproaches his daughter in the same words:

A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.'

3 It seems extraordinary that Steevens could for a moment conceive that Mortimer meant his lady's two prominent lips! It is obvious, as Mr. Douce has remarked, that her eyes swollen with tears are meant, whose language he is too perfect in, and could answer with the like if it were not for shame.

4 A compliment to Queen Elizabeth was perhaps here intended, who was a performer on the lute and virginals. See Melvil's Memoirs, folio, p. 50. Divisions, which were then uncommon in vocal music, are variations of melody upon some given fundamental harmony.

5 It has been already remarked, that it was long the custom in this country to strew the floors with rushes, as we now cover them with carpets.

So in Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster:-
who shall take his lute,

And touch it till he crown a silent sleep
Upon my eyelid.

The God of Sleep is not only to sit on Mortimer's
eyelids, but to sit crowned, that is, with sovereign do-
minion.

7 It was usual to call any manuscript of bulk a book in ancient times, such as patents, grants, articles, cove

A good mouth-filling oath; and leave in sooth,
And such protest of pepper-gingerbread,
To velvet-guards," and Sunday-citizens.
Come, sing.

Lady P. I will not sing.

Hot. 'Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be red-
breast teacher.12 An the indentures be drawn, I'll
away within these two hours; and so come in when
ye will.
[Exit.
Glend. Come, come, Lord Mortimer; you are as
slow,

As hot lord Percy is on fire to go.
By this our book's drawn; we'll but seal, and then
To horse immediately.

Mort.

With all my heart. [Exeunt. SCENE II. London. A Room in the Palace. Enter KING HENRY, Prince of Wales, and Lords. K. Hen. Lords, give us leave: the Prince of Wales and I

Must have some private conference: But be near at hand,

For we shall presently have need of you.

[Exeunt Lords

I know not whether God will have it so,
For some displeasing service13 I have done,
That in his secret doom, out of my blood
He'll breed revengement and a scourge for me;
But thou dost, in thy passages of life,
Make me believe, that thou art only mark'd
For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven,
To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else,
Could such inordinate, and low desires,
Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean at.
tempts,14

Such barren pleasures, rude society,

As thou art match'd withal, and grafted to,

nants, &c.—In a MS. letter from Sir Richard Sackville, in 1560, to Lady Throckmorton, announcing a grant of some land to her husband Sir Nicholas, he says, 'It hath pleased the queen's majesty to sign Mr. Frogmorton's book.-Conway Papers.

8 Hound.

9 That this is spoken ironically is sufficiently obvious, as Mr. Pye has observed; but the strange attempts to misunderstand the passage made by some commentators, make the observation in some measure necessary. 10 Finsbury, being then open walks and helds, was the common resort of the citizens, as appears from many old plays.

11 Velvet-guards, or trimmings of velvet, being the city fashion in Shakspeare's time, the term was used metaphorically to designate such persons.

12 Tailors, like weavers, have ever been remarkable for their vocal skill. Percy is jocular in his mode of persuading his wife to sing, and this is a humorous turn which he gives to his argument, Come, sing.'-'I will not sing.'Tis the next (i. e. readiest, nearest) way to turn tailor or redbreast teacher.' The meaning is, to sing is to put yourself upon a level with tailors and teachers of birds.'

13 Service, for action.

14 Mean attempts are mean, unworthy undertakings Verod, in this place, has its original signification of idle, gracious. naughty.

That being daily swallow'd by men's eyes,
They surfeited with honey; and began
To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
So, when he had occasion to be seen,
He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
Heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes,
hear,-As, sick and blunted with community,
Afford no extraordinary gaze,

Such as is bent on sunlike majesty,
When it shines seldom in admiring eyes:

But rather drowz'd, and hung their eyelids down,

K. Hen. God pardon thee!—yet let me wonder, Slept in his face, and render'd such aspect

1 The construction of this passage is somewhat obscure. Johnson thus explains it:-'Let me beg so much extenuation, that upon confutation of many false charges, I may be pardoned some which are true. Re-lighting fires. proof means disproof.

2 A sycophant, a flatterer, one who is studious to gain favour, or to pick occasions for obtaining thanks.

3 This appears to be an anachronism. The prince's removal from council, in consequence of his striking the Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, was some years after the battle of Shrewsbury, (1403.) His brother the duke of Clarence was appointed presilent in his room, and he was not created a duke till 1411.

4 True to him that had then possession of the crown. 5 Massinger, in The Great Duke of Florence, has adopted this expression:

11 Interest to the state. We should now write in the state; but this was the phraseology of the poet's time. Mr. Gifford, in the following note on this passage, gives So in The Winter's Tale, he is less frequent to his the best explanation of the phrase, which the commen-princely exercises than formerly Thou hast but the tators have altogether mistaken:-The plain meaning shadow of succession, compared with the more worthy of the phrase is, that the affability and sweetness of Gio-interest in the state (i. e. great popularity) which he pos vanni were of a heavenly kind, i. e. more perfect than was usually found among men, resembling that divine condescension which excludes none from its regard, and, therefore, immediately derived or stolen from heaven, from whence all good proceeds. The word stolen here

Why, Harry, do tell thee of my foes,
Which art my near'st and dearest' enemy?
Thou that art like enough,-through vassal fear,
Base inclination, and the start of spleen-
To fight against me under Percy's pay,
To dog his heels, and court'sy at his frowns,
To show how much degenerate thou art.

P. Hen. Do not think so, you shall not find it so;
And God forgive them, that have so much sway'd
Your majesty's good thoughts away from me!
I will redeem all this on Percy's head,
And, in the closing of some glorious day,
Be bold to tell you, that I am your son;
When I will wear a garment all of blood,
And stain my favours in a bloody mask,

Shall march through Glostershire; by watch ac

count,

Our business valued, some twelve days hence
Our general forces at Bridgnorth shall meet.
Our hands are full of business: let's away;
Advantage feeds him' fat, while men delay.

[Exeuni. SCENE III. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar's

Head Tavern. Enter FALSTAFF and BAR

DOLPH.

Fal. Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? do I not bate? do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady's loose gown; I am wither'd like an old apple-John.

Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame with it. Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in

And that shall be the day, whene'er it lights,
That this same child of honour and renown,
This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,
And your unthought-of Harry, chance to meet:
For every honour sitting on his helm,

'Would they were multitudes; and on my head
My shames redoubled! for the time will come,
That I shall make this northern youth exchange
His glorious deeds for my indignities.
Percy is but my factor, good my lord,
To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;
And I will call him to so strict account,
That he shall render every glory up,
Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,
Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.
This, in the name of God, I promise here:
The which if he be pleas'd I shall perform,
I do beseech your majesty, may salve
The long-grown wounds of my intemperance:
If not, the end of life cancels all bands;3
And I will die a hundred thousand deaths,
Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.

K. Hen. A hundred thousand rebels die in this :-
Thou shalt have charge, and sovereign trust, herein.
Enter BLUNT.

How now, good Blunt? thy looks are full of speed.
Blunt. So hath the business that I come to
speak of.

Lord Mortimer of Scotland' hath sent word,→→→
That Douglas, and the English rebels, met,
The eleventh of this month, at Shrewsbury:

A mighty and a fearful head they are,
If promises be kept on every hand,

As ever offer'd foul play in a state.

K. Hen. The earl of Westmoreland set forth day:

some liking; I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church. is made of, I am a pepper-corn, a brewer's horse: the inside of a church! Company, villanous company, hath been the spoil of me.

Bard. Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.

Fal. Why, there is it :-come, sing me a bawdy song; make me merry. I was as virtuously given, as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough: swore little; diced, not above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house, not above once in a quarter-of an hour; paid money that I borrowed, three or four times; lived well, and in good compass: and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.

Bard. Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass; out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.

Fal. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life: Thou art our admiral, 1o thou bearest the lantern in the poop,-but 'tis in the nose of thee: thou art the knight of the burning lamp.

Bard. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm. Fal. No, I'll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death's head, or a memento mori: I never see thy face, but I think upon hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be, By this fire: but thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran'st up Gads-hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis to-fatuus, or a ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but the sack that thou hast drunk me, would have bought me lights as good cheap, 12 at the dearest chandler's in liquor on his back, and the other in his belly.' Malt horse, which is the same thing, was a common term of reproach, and is used elsewhere by Shakspeare, and by Ben Jonson.

With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster;
For this advertisement is five days old :-
On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set
Forward; on Thursday, we ourselves will march:
Our meeting is Bridgnorth: and, Harry, you

1 See p. 119, note 5.

2 Favours is probably here used for colours; the scarf by which a knight of rank was distinguished. 3 Bonds. 4 Part.

5 There was no such person as Lord Mortimer of Scotland; but there was a Lord March of Scotland, (George Dunbar,) who having quitted his own country In disgust, attached himself so warmly to the English, and did them such signal services in their wars with Scotland, that the parliament petitioned the king to be stow some reward on him. He fought on the side of King Henry in this rebellion, and was the means of saving his life at the battle of Shrewsbury. The poet recollected that there was a Scottish lord on the king's side, who bore the same title with the English family on the rebels' side, (one being earl of March in England, the other earl of March in Scotland,) but his memory deceived him as to the particular name which was common to both. He took it to be Mortimer instead of March.

7 Feeds himself fat. 8 Liking is condition, plight of body. better plight of body, or better liking.

9 That Falstaff was unlike a brewer's horse may be collected from a conundrum in The Devil's Cabinet Opened: What is the difference between a drunkard and a brewer's horse- Because one carries all his

10 So Decker, in his Wonderful Year, 1605:- An antiquary might have pickt rare matter out of his nose.The Hamburghers offered I know not how many dollars for his company in an East Indian voyage, to have stood a nights in the poope of their admiral, only to save the charges of candles. That it was an old joke appears from a passage in Bullein's Dialogue against the Fever Pestilence, 1578, cited by Malone.

11 Steevens has taken occasion here to mention that candles and lanterns to let were then cried about Lon. don, the streets not being then lighted.

12 Cheap being derived from KAVPON, Gothic, is the past participle of cypan, Sax. to traffic, to bargain, to buy and sell. Good cheap was therefore a good bargain. Our ancestors not only used good cheap, but better cheap, in the sense which we now use cheap and cheaper. Tooke thinks that bad-cheap was also used. but has adduced no example. Baret translates the ova vilia of Horace by good cheap eggs; and the minoris vendere aliquid, of Plautus, by to scil better-cheap. Cheap and cheaping therefore came to signify a murket, which led Johnson to suppose that good-cheap was de rived from a bon marche. All the northern dialects

Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire, any time this two and thirty years; Heaven reward me for it!

Bard. 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!

Ful. God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burned.

Enter Hostess.

How now, dame Partlet the hen? have you inquired yet, who picked my pocket?

Host. Why, Sir John! what do you think, Sir John? Do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, I have inquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant the tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.

Fal. You lie, hostess; Bardolph was shaved and lost many a hair: and I'll be sworn, my pocket was picked: Go to, you are a woman, go.

Host. Who II defy thee: I was never called so in mine own house before.

Fal. Go to, I know you well enough.

Host. No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John I know you, Sir John: you owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it: I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back. Fal. Dowlas, filthy dowlas: I have given them away to bakers' wives, and they have made bolters of them.

Host. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell.' You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet, and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four and twenty pound.

Fal. He had his part of it; let him pay. Host. He? alas, he is poor; he hath nothing. Fal. How! poor? look upon his face; What call you rich? let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks; I'll not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring of my grandfather's worth forty mark.

Host. O Jesu! I have heard the prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper.

Fal. How! the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup; and, if he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so.

Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS, marching FALSTAFF meets the Prince, playing on his truncheon like a fife.

Fal. How now, lad? is the wind in that door, 'faith? must we all march?

Bard. Yea, two and two, Newgate-fashion?
Host. My lord, I pray you, hear me.

P. Hen. What sayest thou, mistress Quickly? How does thy husband? I love him well, he is an honest man.

Host. Good my lord, hear me.

Fal. Pr'ythee, let her alone, and list to me.
P. Hen. What sayest thou, Jack?

have the same form of speech that our ancestors used;
thus god-kop, betre kop, in Swedish; got kiob, better
kioh, in Danish, &c. Florio has buon mercato, good-
cheupe, a good bargaine.'

1 Eight shillings an ell, for holland linen, appears a high price for the time, but hear Stubbes in his Anatomie of Abuses: In so much as I have heard of shirtes that have cost some ten shillinges, some twentie, some fortie, some five pound, some twentie nobles, and (which is horrible to heare) some ten pound a peece, yea the meanest shirte that commonly is worn of any doest cost a crowne or a noble at the least; and yet that is scarsely thought fine enough for the simplest person.'.

2 Younker is here used for a novice, a dupe, or a person thoughtless through inexperience.

3 This was a common phrase for enjoying one's self in quiet, as if at home; not very different in its application from that maxim, Every man's house is his castle. Inne originally signified a house or habitation. When the word began to change its meaning, and to be used for a house of public entertainment, the proverb still continuing in force, was applied in the latter sense. Falstaff puns uvon the word inn in order to represent

Fal. The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras, and had my pocket picked: this house is turned bawdy-house, they pick pockets.

P. Hen. What didst thou lose, Jack?

Fal. Wilt thou believe me, Hal? three or four bonds of forty pound a-piece, and a seal-ring of my grandfather's.

P. Hen. A trifle, some eight-penny matter.

Host. So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your grace say so: And, my lord, he speaks must vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is; and said, he would cudgel you.

P. Hen. What! he did not?

Host. There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.

Fal. There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune; nor no more truth in thee, than in a drawn fox; and for womanhood, maid Marian3 may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go.

Host. Say, what thing? what thing?

Fal. What thing? why a thing to thank God on. Host. I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou should'st know it; I am an honest man's wife: and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so.

Fal. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.

Host. Say, what beast, thou knave thou?
Fal. What beast? why an otter.

P. Hen. An otter, Sir John! why an otter?
Fal. Why she's neither fish, nor flesh; a man
knows not where to have her.

Host. Thou art an unjust man in saying so; thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave thou.

P. Hen. Thou sayest true, hostess; and he slanders thee most grossly.

Host. So he doth you, my lord; and said this other day, you ought him a thousand pound.

P. Hen. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound. Fal. A thousand pound, Hal? a million: thy love is worth a million; thou owest me thy love. Host. Nay, my lord, he called you Jack, and said, he would cudgel you.

Fal. Did I, Bardolph ?

Bard. Indeed, Sir John, you said so.
Fal. Yea; if he said, my ring was copper.
good as thy word now?
P. Hen. I say, 'tis copper: Darest thou be as

Fal. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare: but, as thou art prince, I fear thee, as I fear the roaring of the lion's whelp.

P. Hen. And why not, as the lion?

Fal. The king himself is to be feared as the lion: Dost thou think, I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? nay, an I do, I pray God, my girdle break?

P. Hen. O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But, sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty, in this bosom of thine; it is filled up with guts, and midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket! Why, thou whorethe wrong done him the more strongly. Old Heywood has one or two epigrams which turn upon this phrase.

4 Steevens has been toe abundantly copious on the subject of stewed prunes. They were a relection particularly common in brothels in Shakspeare's time, per haps from mistaken notions of their antisyphilitic properties. It is not easy to understand Falstaff's similes, perhaps he means as faithless as a strumpet or a bawd, A drawn for is surely neither an exenterated for! nor a fox drawn over the grounds to exercise the hounds; but a hunted for, a fox drawn from his cover, whose cunning in doubling and deceiving the hounds makes the simile perfectly appropriate.

5 One of the characters in the ancient morris dance, generally a man dressed like a woman, sometimes à strumpet; and therefore forms an allusion to describe women of a masculine character. A curious tract, en titled Old Meg of Herefordshire for a Mayd Marian, and Hereford Town for a Morris-dance, 1609,' was reprinted by Mr. Triphook in 1816.

6 This imprecation is supposed to have reference to the old adage, Ungirt, unblest.' It appears to have been also proverbial.

P. Hen. Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lan

caster, my brother John;-this to my lord of Westmoreland.-Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou, and I, have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.—Jack, meet me to-morrow 'the Templenall at two o'clock i'the afternoon: there shalt thou know thy charge, and there receive money, and

2 I have followed Mr. Douce's suggestion in printing thus much of this speech in prose. No correct ear will ever receive it as blank verse, notwithstanding the efforts by omission, &c. to convert it into metre.

9 Quailing is fainting, slackening, flagging; or fail 3 This expression is frequent in Holinshed, and is ap-ing in vigour or resolution; going back. Cotgrave plied by way of preeminence to the head of the Douglas family.