I saw young Harry,—with his beaver on,
His cuisses * on his thighs, gallantly arm’d, -
Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,
And witch t the world with noble horsemanship.
Hot. No inore, no more; worse than the sun in

March,
This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come;
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoky war,
All hot, and bleeding, will we offer them :
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit,
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,
And yet not ours :-Come, let me take my horse,
Who is to bear me, like a thunderbolt,
Against the bosom of the prince of Wales :
Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,
Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a corse.
0, that Glendower were come !
Ver.

There is more news : I learn’d in Worcester, as I rode along, He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.

Doug. That's the worst tidings that I hear of yet. Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound. Hot. What may the king's whole battle reach

unto ? Ver. To thirty thousand. Hot.

Forty let it be; My father and Glendower being both away, The powers of us may serve so great a day. Come, let us make a muster speedily: Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.

Doug. Talk not of dying ; I am out of fear Of death, or death's hand, for this one half year.

(Exeunt, Armour.

SCENE II.

A publick road near Coventry.

Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.

Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack; our soldiers shall march through ; we'll to Sutton-Colfield to-night.

Bard. Will you give me money, captain ?
Fal. Lay out, lay out.
Bard. This bottle makes an angel.

Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it make twenty, take them all, I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. Bard. I will, captain : farewell.

(Exit. Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a souced gurnet*. I have misused the king's press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen's sons : inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the bans; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as lief hear the devil as a drum ; such as fear the report of a caliver t, worse than a struck fowl, or a hurt wild-duck, I pressed me none but such toasts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores: and such as, indeed, were never soldiers; but discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world, and a long peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient* : and such have I, to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think, that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swinekeeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me, I had unloaded all the gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies. No eye

hath seen such scare-crows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat :-Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyvest on; for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half shirt is two napkins, tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders, like a herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's, or the red nose inn-keeper of Daintry 1. But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on every hedge.

Enter Prince Henry and Westmoreland.
P. Hen. How now, blown Jack? how now, quilt ?

Fal. What, Hal? How now, mad wag? what a devil dost thou in Warwickshire ?-My good lord of Westmoreland, I cry your mercy; I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury.

West. 'Faith, sir John, 'tis more than time that I were there, and you too; but my powers are there already: The king, I can tell you, looks for us all; we must away all night.

Fal. Tut, never fear me; I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.

P. Hen. I think, to steal cream indeed; for thy theft hath already made thee butter. But tell me,

Whose fellows are these that come after ?
Fal. Mine, Hal, mine.
P. Hen. I did never see such pitiful rascals.

Jack ;

Fal. Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder; they'll fill a pit, as well as better : tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.

West. Ay, but, sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare ; too beggarly.

Fal. 'Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that: and for their bareness, I am sure, they never learned that of me.

P. Hen. No, I'll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on the ribs, bare. But, sirrah, make haste; Percy is already in the field.

Fal. What, is the king encamped ?

West. He is, sir John ; I fear, we shall stay too long

Fal. Well,
To the latter end of a fray, and the beginning of a

feast,
Fits a dull fighter, and a keen guest. [Exeunt.

Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas, and Vernon.

Hot. We'll fight with him to-night.
Wor.

It may not be.
Doug. You give him then advantage.
Ver.

Not a whit.
Hot. Why say you so ? looks he not for supply?
Ver. So do we.
Hot.

His is certain, ours is doubtful.
Wor. Good cousin, be advis'd; stir not to-night.
Ver. Do not, my lord.
Doug.

You do not counsel well;
Yon speak it out of fear, and cold heart.

Ver. Do me no slander, Douglas : by my life (And I dare well maintain it with my life,)