Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth thus :

Whether our present five and twenty thousand May hold up head without Northumberland. Hast. With him, we may.

Bard. Ay, marry, there's the point: But if without him we be thought too feeble, My judgement 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. Bard. It was, my lord; who lin'd 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:
And so, with great imagination,
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,
And, winking, leap'd into destruction.

Hust. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt,

To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope. Burd. Yes, in this present quality of war;Indeed the instant action, (a cause on foot,) Lives so in hope, as in an early spring [fruit, We see the appearing buds; which, to prove Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair, That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,

[work,

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
(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 for
fair birth,)

[sess'd

Should be still-born, and that we now pos-
The utmost man of expectation;
I think, we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king.
Bard. What! is the king but five and twenty
thousand?

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

lord Bardolph.

For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
Are in three heads: one power against the
French,

And one against Glendower; perforce, a third
Must take up us: So is the unfirm king
In three divided; and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness.

Arch. That he should draw his several strengths together,

And come against us in full puissance.
Need not be dreaded.

▲ Agree

broke,

[be?

Before he was what thou would'st have him
And being now trimm'd in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him,
That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.
So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;
And now thou would'st eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these
times?

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 After the admired heels of Bolingbroke, [on 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.

Moub. Shall we go draw our numbers, and

staff.

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; he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most beastly in good faith, a' cares not what mischief he doth, if his weapon be out: he will foing like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.

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

Host. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow.

Fang. An I but fist him once; an a' com but within my vice;||

Host. I am undone by his going; warrant you, he's an infinitive thing upon my score:Good master Fang, hold him sure;-good master Snare, let him not 'scape. He comes connuantly to Pie-corner, (saving your manhoods,) to buy a saddle; and he's indited to dinner to the lubbar's head in Lumbert-street, to master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long joan for a poor lone woman to bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and have been rubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass, and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong.

Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, PAGE, and BAR

DOLPH.

Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmseynose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices, master Fang, and inaster Snare; do me, do me, do me your offices. Fal. How now? whose mare's dead? what's

the matter?

Fang. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of mistress Quickly.

Fal. Away, variets!-Draw, Bardolph; cut me off the villain's head; throw the quean in the channel.

Host. Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue!-Murder, murder! O thou honey-suckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers, and the king's? O thou honey-seedt rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a man-queller, and a woman-queller.

Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph.
Fang. A rescue! a rescue!

Host. Good people, bring a rescue or two.Thou wo't, wo't thou? thou wo't, wo't thou? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!

Fal. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe.

Enter the Lord CHIEF JUSTICE, attended.

Ch. Just. What's the matter? keep the peace here, ho!

Host. Good my lord, be good to me! I beseech you, stand to me!

Ch. Just. How now, Sir John? what, are you brawling here?

Doth this become your place, your time, and business? [York. You should have been well on your way to Stand from him, fellow; Wherefore hang'st

thou on him?

to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own?

Fal. What is the gross sum that I owe thee?

Host. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself, and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a seacoal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us, she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee, they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people; saying, that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy bookbath; deny it, if thou canst.

Fal. My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says, up and down the town, that her eldest son is like you: she hath been in good case, and, the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish officers, I beseech you, I may have redress against them.

Ch. Just. Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level consideration; you have, as it appears to me, practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and person Host. Yea, in troth, my lord.

Ch. Just. Pr'ythee, peace:-Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villany you have done with her; the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repent

ance.

Fal. My lord, I will not undergo this sneapt without reply. You call honourable boldness, impudent sauciness: if a man will make court'sy, and say nothing, he is virtuous: No, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will not be your suitor; I say to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs.

Ch. Just. You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer in the effect of your repu tation, and satisfy the poor woman

Fal. Come hither, hostess. [Taking her aside.

Enter GoWER.

Ch. Just. Now, master Gower; What news?
Gow. The king, my lord, and Harry prince
of Wales

Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells.
Ful. As I am a gentleman;-

Host. Nay, you said so before. Ful. As I am a gentleman;-Come, no more words of it.

Host. By this heavenly ground I tread on, 1 must be fain to pawn both my plate, and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.

Ful. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking

*Party gilt. + Snub, check. Suitable to your character.

and for thy walls,-a pretty slight drollery, or | the story of the prodigal, or the German hunting in water-work, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings, and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an it were not for thy humours, there is not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and 'draw thy action: Come, thou must not be in this humour with me; dost not know me? Come, come, I know thou wast set on to this.

*

Host. Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles; i'faith I am loath to pawn my plate, in good earnest, la.

Fal. Let it alone; I'll make other shift: you'll be a fool still.

Host. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope, you'll come to supper: You'll pay me all together?

Fal. Will I live?-Go, with her, with her; [To BARDOLPH.] hook on, hook on. Host. Will you have Doll Tear-sheet meet you at supper?

Fal. No more words; let's have her.

[Exeunt HOSTESS, BARDOLPH, Officers,
and PAGE.

Ch. Just. I have heard better news.
Fal. What's the news, my good lord?
Ch. Just. Where lay the king last night?
Gow. At Basingstoke, my lord.

Ful. I hope, my lord, all's well: What's the news, my lord?

Ch. Just. Come all his forces back? Gow. No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,

Are march'd up to my lord of Lancaster, Against Northumberland, and the archbishop. Fai. Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord?

Ch. Just. You shall have letters of me presently: Come, go along with me, good master Gower.

Fal. My lord!

Ch. Just. What's the matter?

Fal. Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?

Gow. I must wait upon my good lord here: I thank you, good Sir John.

Ch. Just. Sir John, you loiter here too long, seeing you are to take soldiers up in counties as you go.

Fal. Will you sup with me, master Gower? Ch. Just. What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John?

Fal. Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that taught them me.-This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part fair.

Ch. Just. Now the Lord lighten thee! thou art a great fool. [Exeunt. SCENE 11-The same.-Another Street.

Enter Prince HENRY and POINS. P. Hen. Trust me, I am exceeding weary. Poins. Is it come to that? I had thought, weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood.

P. Hen. 'Faith, it does me; though it discolours the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me, to desire small beer?

Puins. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied, as to remember so weak a composi

tion.

P. Hen. Belike then, my appetite was not

Withdraw.

princely got; for, by my troth, I do now re member the poor creature, small beer. But, indeed, these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace is it to me, to remember thy name? or to know thy face to-morrow? or to take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast; viz. these, and those that were the peach-colour'd ones? or to bear the inventory of thy shirts; as, one for superfluity, and one other for use?-but that, the tennis-court-keeper knows better than I; for it is a low ebb of linen with thee, when thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast not done a great while, because the rest of thy lowcountries have made a shift to eat up thy Holland: and God knows, whether those that bawl out the ruins of thy linen, shall inherit his kingdom: but the midwives say, the children are not in the fault; whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily strength

ened.

Poins. How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, you should talk so idly? Tell me, how many good young princes would do so, their fathers being so sick as yours at this

time is?

P. Hen. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins? Poins. Yes; and let it be an excellent good thing.

P. Hen. It will serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.

Poins. Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell.

P. Hen. Why, I tell thee,-it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father is sick : albeit I could tell to thee, (as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend,) I could be sad, and sad indeed too.

Poins. Very hardly, upon such a subject.

P. Hen. By this hand, thou think'st me as far in the devil's book, as thou, and Falstaff, for obduracy and persistency: Let the end try the man. But I tell thee,-my heart bleeds inwardly, that my father is so sick and keep ing such vile company as thou art, hath in rea son taken from me all ostentation of sorrow. Poins. The reason?

P. Hen. What would'st thou think of me, if I should weep?

Poins. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

P. Hen. It would be every man's thought: and thou art a blessed fellow, to think as every man thinks; never a man's thought in the world keeps the road-way better than thine: every man would think me a hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful thought, to think so?

Poins. Why, because you have been so lewd, and so much engraffed to Falstaff. P. Hen. And to thee.

Poins. By this light, I am well spoken of, can hear it with my own ears: the worst that they can say of me is, that I am a second brother, and that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I confess, I can not help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph.

P. Hen. And the boy that I gave Falstaff: he had him from me Christian; and look, if the fat villain hath not transformed him ape.

Enter BARDOLPH and PAGE. Bara. 'Save your grace. P. Ilen. And yours, most noble Bardolph! Bard. Come, you virtuous ass, [To the PAGE.

Children wrapped up in his old shirre,

you bashful fool, must you be blushing? whereLore blush you now? What a maidenly man at arms are you become? Is it such a matter, to get a pottle-pot's maidenhead.

Puge. He called me even now, my lord, through a red lattice,* and I could discern no part of his face from the window: at last, I spied his eyes; and, methought, he had made two holes in the ale-wife's new petticoat, and peeped through.

P. Hen. Hath not the boy profited?

Bard. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!

Page. Away, you rascally Althea's dream, away!

P. Hen. Instruct us, boy: What dream, boy? Fage. Marry, my lord, Althea dreamed she was delivered of a fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream.

P. Hen. A crown's worth of good interpretation. There it is, boy. [Gives him money. Poins. O, that this good blossom could be kept from cankers!-Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.

Bard. An you do not make him be hanged among you, the gallows shall have wrong. P. Hen. And how doth thy master, Bardolph?

Bard. Well, my lord. He heard of your grace's coming to town; there's a letter for you. Poins. Delivered with good respect.-And how doth the martlemas,+ your master? Bard. In bodily health, Sir.

Bard. Yes, my lord.

P. Hen. Where sups he? doth the old boar feed in the old frank?*

Bard. At the old place, my lord; in Eastcheap.

P. Hen. What company?

Puge. Ephesians, my lord; of the old church P. Hen. Sup any women with him? Page. one, my lord, but old mistress Quickly, and mistress Doll Tear-sheet. P. Hen. What Pagan may that be? Page. A proper gentlewoman, Sir, and a kinswoman of my master's.

P. Hen. Even such kin, as the parish heifers are to the town bull.-Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?

Poins. I am your shadow, my lord; I'll fol. low you.

P. Hen. Sirrah, you boy,-and Bardolph;no word to your master, that I am yet come to town: There's for your silence.

Burd. I have no tongue, Sir.

Page. And for mine, Sir, I will govern it. P. Hen. Fare ye well; go. [Exeunt BARDOLPH and PAGE.]-This Doll Tear-sheet should be some road.

Poins. I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Alban's and London.

P. Hen. How might we see Falstaff bestow

P. Hen. I do allow this went to be as familiar with me as my dog: and he holds his place; for, look you, how he writes.

Poins. [Reads.] John Falstaff, knight,Every man must know that, as oft as he has occasion to name himself. Even like those that are kin to the king; for they never prick their finger, but they say, There is some of the king's blood spilt: How comes that? says he, that takes upon him not to conceive: the answer is as ready as a borrower's cap; I am the king's Dour cousin, Sir.

P. Hen. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But the letter:Poins. Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the king, nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting.--Why, this is a certificate. P. Hen. Peace!

Poins. I will imitate the honourable Roman in brevity--he sure means brevity in breath; short-winded.-I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he misuses thy favours so much, that he swears, thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou may'st, and so fure

well.

Thine, by yea and no, (which is as much as to say, as thou usest him, ) Jack Falstaff, with my familiars; John, with my brothers and sisters; and Sir John, with all Europe. My lord, I will steep this letter in sack, and

make him eat it.

P. Hen. That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister?

Poins. May the wench have no worse fortune! but I never said so.

An ale-house window.

+ Martinmas, St. Martin's day is Nov. 11.

↑ Swoln excrescence.

ourselves be seen?

Poins. Put on two leather jerkins, and aprons, and wait upon him at his table as drawers.

P. Hen. From a god to a bull? a heavy descension! it was Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice? a low transformation! that shall be mine: for, in every thing, the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned.

[Exeunt.