Are at this hour asleep!-O Sleep, O gentle Sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody?
O, thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds; and leav'st the kingly couch,
A watch-case,' or a common 'larum bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude, imperious surge;
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafening clamors in the slippery clouds,2
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial Sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And, in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low,3 lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Enter WARWICK and SURREY.

War. Many good morrows to your majesty!
K. Hen. Is it good morrow, lords?

War. 'Tis one o'clock, and past.

1 A watch case here may mean the case of a watch-light; but the following article, cited by Strutt in his Manners and Customs, vol. iii. p. 70, from an old inventory, may throw some light upon it:-"Item, a laume (larum) or watche of iron, in an iron case, with two leaden plumets."

2 Some commentators propose to read shrouds instead of clouds.

3 Warburton conjectures, that this is a corrupt reading for happy lowly clown.

K. Hen. Why then, good morrow to you all,' my lords. Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you? War. We have, my liege.

K. Hen. Then you perceive, the body of our kingdom How foul it is; what rank diseases grow, And with what danger, near the heart of it.

War. It is but as a body, yet, distempered; Which to his former strength may be restored, With good advice, and little medicine.

My lord Northumberland will soon be cooled.

K. Hen. O Heaven! that one might read the book of fate,

And see the revolution of the times

Make mountains level, and the continent

Weary of solid firmness) melt itself

Into the sea! and, other times, to see

The beachy girdle of the ocean

Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,

And changes fill the cup of alteration

With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,

2

The happiest youth-viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue―
Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
'Tis not ten years gone,

Since Richard, and Northumberland, great friends,
Did feast together, and, in two years after,
Were they at wars. It is but eight years since
This Percy was the man nearest my soul;
Who, like a brother, toiled in my affairs,
And laid his love and life under my foot;
Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard,
Gave him defiance. But which of you was by,3
(You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember,)

[TO WARWICK.

1 This mode of phraseology, where only two persons are addressed, is used again in King Henry VI. Part 2.

2 This and the three following lines are from the quarto copy.

3 The reference is to King Richard II. Act iv. Sc. 2: but neither Warwick nor the king were present at that conversation. Henry had then ascended the throne.

4 The earldom of Warwick was at this time in the family of Beauchamp,

When Richard with his eyes brimfull of tears,
Then checked and rated by Northumberland-
Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?
Northumberland, thou ladder, by the which
My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;
Though then, Heaven knows, I had no such intent,
But that necessity so bowed the state,

That I and greatness were compelled to kiss :-—
The time shall come, thus did he follow it,
The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption;-so went on,
Foretelling this same time's condition,
And the division of our amity.

War. There is a history in all men's lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life; which in their seeds,
And weak beginnings, lie intreasured.

Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And, by the necessary form of this,

King Richard might create a perfect guess,
That great Northumberland, then false to him,
Would, of that seed, grow to a greater falseness;
Which should not find a ground to root upon,
Unless on you.

K. Hen.

Are these things then necessities?

Then let us meet them like necessities:

And that same word even now cries out on us;

They say, the bishop and Northumberland

Are fifty thousand strong.

War.

It cannot be, my lord;

Rumor doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the feared :-Please it your grace
To go to bed; upon my life, my lord,

The powers that you already have sent forth,

and did not come into that of the Nevils till many years after; when Anne, the daughter of this earl, married Richard Nevil, son of the earl of Salisbury, who makes a conspicuous figure in the Third Part of King Henry VI. under the title of earl of Warwick.

Shall bring this prize in very easily.
To comfort you the more, I have received.
A certain instance, that Glendower is dead.1
Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill;
And these unseasoned hours, perforce, must add
Unto your sickness.

K. Hen.

I will take your counsel;

And, were these inward wars once out of hand,
We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. Court before Justice Shallow's House in Gloucestershire.

Enter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting; MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULL-CALF, and Servants, behind.

Shal. Come on, come on, come on; give me your hand, sir, give me your hand, sir: an early stirrer, by the rood. And how doth my good cousin Silence?

Sil. Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.

Shal. And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow? and your fairest daughter, and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?

Sil. Alas, a black ouzel, cousin Shallow.

Shal. By yea and nay, sir, I dare say, my cousin William is become a good scholar. He is at Oxford, still, is he not?

Sil. Indeed, sir; to my cost.

Shal. He must then to the inns of court shortly. I was once of Clement's inn, where, I think, they will talk of mad Shallow yet.

Sil. You were called-lusty Shallow, then, cousin. Shal. By the mass, I was called any thing; and I would have done any thing, indeed, and roundly too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and

1 Glendower did not die till after king Henry IV. Shakspeare was led into this error by Holinshed.

2 The rood is the cross or crucifix (rode, Sax.).

2

black George Bare, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele, a Cotswold man,'-you had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the inns of court again: and, I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas 3 were; and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk.

Sil. This sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers?

4

Shal. The same sir John, the very same. I saw him break Skogan's head at the court gate, when he was a crack, not thus high; and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn. O, the mad days that I have spent! and to see how many of mine old acquaintance are dead!

Sil. We shall all follow, cousin.

Shal. Certain, 'tis certain; very sure, very sure: death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all: all shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair? Sil. Truly, cousin, I was not there.

Shal. Death is certain.-Is old Double of your town living yet?

Sil. Dead, sir.

Shal. Dead-See, see!-he drew a good bow:And dead!-he shot a fine shoot:-John of Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead! he would have clapped i' the clout at twelve score; and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a half, that it would have done a

1 The Cotswold hills in Gloucestershire were famous for rural sports of all kinds.

2 Swinge-bucklers and swash-bucklers were terms implying rakes and rioters.

3"Buona-roba as we say, good stuff; a good, wholesome, plump-cheeked wench." Florio.

4 Shakspeare probably got his idea of Scogan from his jests, which were published by Andrew Borde in the reign of king Henry VIII. 5 A crack is a boy.

6 Hit the white mark at twelve score yards. By the statute 33 Hen. VIII. c. 9, every person turned of seventeen years of age, who shoots at a less distance than twelve score, is to forfeit six shillings and eight pence.