your master, for a jewel; the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand, than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is a face-royal: nature may finish it when she will, it is not a hair amiss yet he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never, earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said master Dumbleton about the satin for my short cloak, and slops?

Page. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his bond and yours; he liked not the security.

Fal. A rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security! The smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. I looked he should have sent me two-and-twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security. Well, Where's Bardolph ?

Page. He's gone into Smithfield, to buy your worship a horse.

Fal. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, were manned, horsed, and wived.

Enter the Lord Chief Justice, and an Attendant. Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph. Fal. Wait close, I will not see him. Ch. Just. What's he that goes there? Atten. Falstaff, an't please your lordship. Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery?

Atten. He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the lord John of Lan

Atten. Sir John, Fal. What! a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars? is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worse side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.

Atten. You mistake me, sir.

Fal. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so.

Alten. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man.

Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside 5 Alluding to an old proverb.

In their debt.

that which grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt-counter 6, hence! avaunt! Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you. Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. Fal. My good lord! give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard say, your lordship was sick: I hope, your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humby beseech your lordship, to have a reverend care of your health

Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales. Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty: - You would not come when I sent for you.

Fal. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into this same apoplexy.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let me speak with you.

Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood, a tingling.

Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is. Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of deafness.

Ch. Just. I think, you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you.

Fal. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I do become your physician.

Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord; but not so patient; your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself.

Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me. Fal. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come. Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, sir John, you live in great infamy.

Fal. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot live in less.

Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

Fal. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer.

Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince. Fal. The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.

Ch. Just. Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound: your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gads-hill : you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'erposting that action.

Fal. My lord?

Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.

Fal. To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox. 6 A catch-pole or bailiff.

Fal. A wassel candle7, my lord: all tallow: if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth. Ch. Just. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy, Ch. Just. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.

Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me without weighing: and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell 9: Virtue is of so little regard in these coster-monger times, that true valour is turned bear-herd: Pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young: you measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls; and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

Ch. Just. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing body? Is not your voice broken? your wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and every part about you blasted with antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fye, fye, fye, sir John!

Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; And hea ven bless your expedition!

Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth?

Ch. Just. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well: Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland.

[Exeunt Chief Justice and Attendant. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. 3— Boy! Page. Sir?

Fal. What money is in my purse? Page. Seven groats and two-pence. Fal. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this to the earl of Westmoreland; and this to old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin: About it; you know where to find me. [Exit Page.] This gout plays the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable : A good wit will make use of any thing; I will turn diseases to commodity.+ [Exit.

SCENE III.— York. A Room in the Archbishop's Palace.

Arch.

MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH.

Thus have you heard our cause, and known

our means;

And, my most noble friends, I pray you all, Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes: And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?

Ch. Just. Well, heaven send the prince a better companion!

Fal. Heaven send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

Ch. Just. Well, the king hath severed you and prince Harry: I hear you are going with lord John of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland.

Fal. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day! for, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, an I brandish any thing but my bottle, I would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it: Well, I cannot last ever; But it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you will needs say, I am an old man, you should give me rest. would to heaven, my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to

7 A large candle for a feast. Pass current

I

8 The coin called an angel. Readiness. 2 Forepart.

Mowb. I well allow the occasion of our arms; But gladly would be better satisfied, How, in our means, we should advance ourselves To look with forehead bold and big enough Upon the power and puissance of the king.

Hast. Our present musters grow upon the file To five-and-twenty thousand men of choice; And our supplies live largely in the hope Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns With an incensed fire of injuries.

L. Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, stand. eth thus;

Whether our present five-and-twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland.
Hast. With him, we may.
L. Bard.
Ay, marry, there's the point:
But if without him we be thought too feeble,
My judgment is, we should not step too far
Till we had his assistance by the hand;
For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this,
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Of aids uncertain, should not be admitted

Arch. 'Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed,
It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.
L. Bard. It was, my lord; who lined himself with
hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself with project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts:

3 A large wooden hammer, so heavy as to require three men to wield it. 4 Profit.

And so with great imagination,

Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,
And, winking, leap'd into destruction.

Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope.

L. Bard. Yes, in this present quality of war; — Indeed the instant action, (a cause on foot,) Lives so in hope, as in an early spring

We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair,

That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model,
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection;
Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then, but draw anew the model
In fewer offices; or, at least, desist

To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
(Which is, almost to pluck a kingdom down,
And set another up,) should we survey
The plot of situation, and the model;
Consent upon a sure foundation;
Question surveyors; know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,
To weigh against his opposite; or else,
We fortify in paper, and in figures,
Using the names of men, instead of men:
Like one, that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds,
And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.
Hast. Grant, that our hopes (yet likely of fair birth)
Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd
The utmost man of expectation;

I think, we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king,

L. Bard. What! is the king but five and twenty thousand?

Hast. To us, no more; nay, not so much, lord Bardolph.

And publish the occasion of our arms.

The commonwealth is sick of their own choice,
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited: —
An habitation giddy and unsure

Hath he, that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
O thou fond many!8 with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
Before he was what thou wouldst have him be?
And being now trimm'd 9 in thine own desires,
They that, when Richard liv'd, would have him die,
Are now become enamour'd on his
grave:
Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head,
When through proud London he came sighing cn
After the admired heels of Bolingbroke,
Cry'st now, O earth, yield us that king again,
And take thou this! O thoughts of men accurst
Past, and to come, seem best; things present, worst.
Mowb. Shall we go draw our numbers, and set on?
Hast. We are time's subjects, and time bids be
gone.
[Exeunt.

SCENE I. London. A Street.

-

Fang. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.

and

Host. Master Fang, have you entered the action? Fang. It is entered.

Host. Where is your yeoman?6 Is it a lusty

man? will a' stand to't?

Fang. Sirrah, where's Snare?

Host. O, good master Snare.
Snare. Here, here.

Fang. Snare, we must arrest sir John Falstaff. Host. Yea, good master Snare; I have entered him and all.

Snare. It may chance cost some of us our lives,

for he will stab.

Host. Alas the day! take heed of him; in good faith, a' cares not what mischief he doth, if his weapon be out: he will foin like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.

man should be made an ass, and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong.