Too soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
Had three times slain th' appearance of the king,
'Gan vail his stomach, and did grace the shame
Of those that turn'd their backs; and in his flight,
Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
Is, that the king hath won, and hath sent out
A speedy power, to encounter you, my lord,
Under the conduct of young Lancaster,
And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.

North. For this I shall have time enough to mourn.

In poison there is physic; and these news,

Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well:
And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints,
Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life',
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire

Out of his keeper's arms; even so my limbs,
Weaken'd with grief, being now enrag'd with grief,
Are thrice themselves.

crutchR!

Hence, therefore, thou nice

A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel,

Must glove this hand and hence, thou sickly quoif!
Thou art a guard too wanton for the head,
Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.
Now bind my brows with iron; and approach
The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring,
To frown upon th' enrag'd Northumberland.

6

th' appearance of the king,] These elisions are not very frequent in the folio impression of Shakespeare's plays, and are unusual in the quarto editions. We give them wherever authorized by the old copies.

7 BUCKLE under life,] "Buckle" here means bend, and has been derived from the Sax. bugan. We find it used in the same sense in no other author of the time that I am aware of: buckles of hair, for curls, may have the same etymology, though traced no higher than the Fr. boucle.

8 Hence, therefore, thou NICE crutch !] speare in the sense of insignificant, trifling.

"Nice" is often used by ShakeIn "Romeo and Juliet," Act iii.

sc. 1, we have "Bid him bethink how nice the quarrel was ;" and in Act v. sc. 2, of the same tragedy, "the letter was not nice, but full of charge." Other instances from other authors are needless.

Let heaven kiss earth: now, let not nature's hand
Keep the wild flood confin'd: let order die;
And let this world no longer be a stage,
To feed contention in a lingering act,
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead!

[Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord'.]

Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

Mor. The lives of all your loving complices

Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er

To stormy passion, must perforce decay.

You cast the event of war, my noble lord',

And summ'd the account of chance, before you said,
Let us make head. It was your presurmise,

That, in the dole of blows' your son might drop:
You knew, he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,
More likely to fall in, than to get o'er:
You were advis'd, his flesh was capable

Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit
Would lift him where most trade of danger rang'd;
Yet did you say,-Go forth; and none of this,
Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
The stiff-borne action: what hath then befallen,
Or what hath this bold enterprize brought forth,
More than that being which was like to be?

Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss,

9 [This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.] This line is omitted in the folio in the quarto it is mistakenly assigned to Umfr. or Umfrevile, who is not upon the stage. This mistake perhaps led the editors of the folio to exclude the line, as of little importance to the scene. It probably, as Steevens suggested, belongs to Travers.

10 You cast the event of war, my noble lord,] This and the thirteen lines following are not in the quarto; but were first printed in the folio, 1623.

1 That in the DOLE of blows-] The "dole" of blows is the dealing of blows, the distribution of them. See Vol. iii. pp. 123. 439.

Knew that we ventur'd on such dangerous seas,
That, if we wrought out life, 'twas ten to one;
And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd
Chok'd the respect of likely peril fear'd,
And, since we are o'erset, venture again.
Come, we will all put forth; body, and goods.

Mor. "Tis more than time: and, my most noble lord,
I hear for certain, and dare speak the truth',
The gentle archbishop of York is up,
With well-appointed powers: he is a man,
Who with a double surety binds his followers.
My lord your son had only but the corps,
But shadows, and the shows of men, to fight;
For that same word, rebellion, did divide
The action of their bodies from their souls,
And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd
As men drink potions, that their weapons only
Seem'd on our side; but, for their spirits and souls,
This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,

As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop.
Turns insurrection to religion:

Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He's follow'd both with body and with mind,
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
Of fair king Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret stones;
Derives from heaven his quarrel, and his cause;
Tells them, he doth bestride a bleeding land,
Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke,
And more, and less, do flock to follow him.
North. I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
This present grief had wip'd it from my mind.
Go in with me; and counsel every man

2 I hear for certain, and DARE speak the truth,] So the quarto; meaning, that Morton ventures to say that what he speaks is true. The folio reads, "and do speak the truth." The twenty-one lines following the above are only in the folio, and it will be observed that the sense requires the addition. It seems that the quarto, having been brought out in haste, perhaps to avoid rivalry, was printed from a defective manuscript.

The aptest way for safety, and revenge.

Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed:
Never so few, and never yet more need3.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

London. A Street.

Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his Sword and Buckler.

Fal. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

Page. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water; but for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for.

Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent any thing that tends to laughter', more than I invent, or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee, like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one: if the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then, I have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now: but I will in-set you neither in gold nor silver3, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel; the juvenal, the prince your mas

3 AND never yet more need.] The folio has nor for "and." any thing that TENDS to laughter,] The quarto has intends.

4

S

- but I will IN-SET you neither in gold nor silver,] The folio alters "in-set" of the quarto to set. When Falstaff just above calls his page "mandrake" and 66 agate," ," he uses the words in reference to the small size of the boy. A mandrake was a vegetable production, which, being forked in the root, was said to resemble a human creature, and to utter a cry when it was extracted from the earth. Agates were often worn in rings, and were of old supposed to possess the virtue of preventing the wearer from suffering misfortune.

ter, 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. God may finish it when he will, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still as a faceroyal', 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 batchelor. 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 my 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. Let him be damned like the glutton: may his tongue be hotter !-A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally yea-forsooth knave, to bear a gentleman in hand3, and then stand upon security!—The whoreson 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 must they 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, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it:

6 - get one on his cheek ;] The quarto less intelligibly reads "get one off his cheek." Perhaps, we ought to read, "get one of his cheek :" the use of prepositions at this date was often different from the modern practice.

7 - he may keep it still as a face-royal,] The quarto, 1600, and the folio, 1623, have it "at a face-royal" it was corrected in the folio, 1632. The allusion seems to be to the coin called a royal, having a face upon it which produced no beard profitable to a barber.

8

The

a RASCALLY yea-forsooth knave, to bear a gentleman IN HAND,] quarto has rascal for "rascally" of the folio: "to bear a gentleman in hand,” meant to be in treaty with a gentleman, and to lead him to expect compliance with his wishes.

9 - honest taking up,] i. e. honest dealing for purchasing goods: to take up a commodity" is a phrase of frequent occurrence.