Haul'd thither by mechanick dirty hands.

Rouze up revenge from Ebon den, with fell Alecto's fnake,

For Dol is in.

Pistol fpeaks nought but truth.

Fal. I will deliver her.

Pift. There roar'd the fea; and trumpet clangour founds.

The Trumpets found. Enter the King, and his train. Fal. God fave thy Grace, King Hal, my royal Hal! Pift. The heav'ns thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!

Fal. God fave thee, my fweet boy!

King. My Lord Chief Juftice, speak to that vain

man.

Ch. Juft. Have you your wits? know you, what 'tis you speak?

Fal. My King, my Jove, I fpeak to thee, my heart! King. I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers: How ill white hairs become a fool and jefter! I have long dream'd of such a kind of man, So furfeit-fwell'd, fo old, and fo * profane; But, being awake, I do defpife my dream. Make lefs thy body hence, and more thy grace; Leave gormandizing. Know, the Grave doth gape

For

For thee, thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest,
Prefume not, that I am the thing I was,

For heav'n doth know, fo fhall the world perceive,
have turn'd away my former self,

The

r

Will I thofe that kept me company.

6

When thou doft hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou fhalt be as thou waft,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots;
Till then I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the reft of my mif-leaders,
Not to come near our perfon by ten miles.
For competence of life, I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to Evil;
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will according to your ftrengths and qualities
Give you advancement. Be't your charge, my Lord,
To fee perform'd the tenour of our word.

Set on.

fearing Sir John fhould take the
advantage of it, checks both him-
felf and the knight, with
Reply not to me with a feel-born
jeft;

and fo refumes the thread of his
difcourfe, and goes moralizing
on to the end of the chapter.
Thus the poet copies nature with
great fkill, and fhews us how
apt men are to fall back into
their old cuftoms, when the change
is not made by degrees, and
brought into a habit, but deter-
mined of at once on the motives
of honour, interest or reason.

WARBURTON, 6 Mr. Rowe obferves, that many readers lament to fee Falfff fo hardly ufed by his old friend. But if it be confidered that the fat knight has never uttered one fentiment of generofity, and with all his power VOL. IV.

[Exit King, &c.

of exciting mirth, has nothing in him that can be efteemed, no great pain will be fuffered from the reflection that he is compelled to live honeftly, and maintained by the king, with a promife of advancement when he hall deferve it.

I think the poet more blameable for Poins, who is always reprefented as joining fome virtues with his vices, and is therefore treated by the prince with apparent diftinction, yet he does nothing in the time of action, and though after the bustle is over he is again a favourite, at lalt vanifhes without notice. ShakeSpeare certainly loft him by heedlefinefs, in the multiplicity of his characters, the variety of his action, and his eagerness to end the play.

A a

SCENE

Fal. Mafter Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. Shal. Ay, marry, Sir John, which I beseech you to let me have home with me,

Fal. That can hardly be, Mr. Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I fhall be fent for in private to him. Look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancement, I will be the man yet that shall make you great.

Shal. I cannot perceive how, unless you give me your doublet, and ftuff me out with ftraw. I befeech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand.

Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word. you heard, was but a colour.

This, that Shal. A colour, I fear, that you will die in, Sir John.

Fal. Fear no colours. Go with me to dinner. Come, lieutenant Piftol; come, Bardolph. I fhall be fent for foon at night.

Enter Chief Justice and Prince John.

Ch. Juft. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet.* Take all his company along with him.

Fal. My Lord, my Lord,

Ch. Juft. I cannot now fpeak. I will hear -Take them away.

you

foon.

Pift. Si fortuna me tormento, spera me contento.

I do not fee why Falftaff is carried to the Fleet. We have never loft fight of him fince his difmiffion from the king; he has committed no new fault, and therefore incurred no punishment; but the different agitations

[Exeunt.

Manent Lancaster, and Chief Justice.

Lan. I like this fair proceeding of the King's. He hath intent, his wonted followers

Shall all be very well provided for;

But they are banish'd, till their conversations
Appear more wife and modeft to the world.
Ch. Juft. And fo they are.

Lan. The King hath call'd his Parliament, my Lord. Ch. Juft. He hath.

Lan. I will lay odds, that ere this year expire, We bear our civil fwords and native fire

As far as France. I heard a bird fo fing,

Whose musick, to my thinking, pleas'd the King.
Come, will you hence? *

I fancy every reader, when he ends this play, cries out with Desdemona, O moft lame and impotent conclufion! As this play was not, to our knowledge, divided into acts by the authour, I could be content to conclude it with the death of Henry the fourth.

In that Jerufalem hall Harry dye. Thefe fcenes which now make the fifth act of Henry the fourth, might then be the firft of Henry the fifth; but the truth is, that they do unite very commodiously to either play. When these plays were reprefented, I believe they ended as they are now ended in the books; but Shakespeare feems to have defigned that the whole series of action from the beginning of Richard the fecond, to the end of Henry the fifth, fhould be confidered by the reader as one work, upon one plan, only broken into parts by the neceffity of exhibition.

[Exeunt.

None of Shakespeare's plays are more read than the first and fecond parts of Henry the fourth. Perhaps no authour has ever in two plays afforded fo much delight. The great events are interesting, for the fate of kingdoms depends upon them; the flighter occurrences are diverting, and, except one or two, fufficiently probable; the incidents are multiplied with wonderful fertility of invention, and the characters diverfified with the utmofl nicety of difcernment, and the profoundest skill in the nature of man.

The prince, who is the hero both of the comick and tragick part, is a young man of great abi lities and violent paffions, whose fentiments are right, though his actions are wrong; whofe virtues are obfcured by negligence, and whofe understanding is diffipated by levity. In his idle hours he is rather loofe than wicked, and when the occafion forces out his latent qualities, he is great withA a 2