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SCENE V.-Another Part of the Field.

would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure: yea, and I'll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise, as well as I? Nothing con- The trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Prince futes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, [stabbing him.] with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me.

[Takes Hotspur on his back. Re-enter Prince Henry and Prince John. P. Hen. Come, brother John, full bravely hast

thou flesh'd

Thy maiden sword. P. John.

But, soft! whom have we here? Did you not tell me this fat man was dead? P. Hen. I did; I saw him dead, breathless and bleeding

Upon the ground.

Art thou alive? or is it phantasy

That plays upon our eyesight? I pr'ythee, speak; We will not trust our eyes, without our ears :Thou art not what thou seem'st.

Fal. No, that's certain; I am not a double man: but if I be not Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There is Percy: [throwing the body down.] if your father will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.

P. Hen. Why, Percy I killed myself, and saw

thee dead.

Fal. Didst thou ?-Lord, lord, how is this world given to lying!-I grant you I was down, and out of breath; and so was he: but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them, that should reward valour, bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh: if the man were alive, and would deny it, I would make him eat a piece of my sword.

P. John. This is the strangest tale that heard.

e'er I

P. Hen. This is the strangest fellow, brother
John.-

Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back:
For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,
I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have.
[4 retreat is sounded.
The trumpet sounds retreat, the day is ours.
Come, brother, let's to the highest of the field,
To see what friends are living, who are dead.

[Exeunt Prince Henry and Prince John. Fal. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him! If I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.

[Exit, bearing off the body.

Henry, Prince John, Westmoreland, and others, with Worcester and Vernon, prisoners.

K. Hen. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.-
IH-spirited Worcester! did we not send grace,
Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?
And would'st thou turn our offers contrary
Misuse the tenor of thy kinsman's trust?
Three knights upon our party slain to-day,
A noble earl, and many a creature else,
Had been alive this hour,

If, like a christian, thou hadst truly borne
Betwixt our armies true intelligence.

Wor. What I have done, my safety urg'd me to;
And I embrace this fortune patiently,
Since not to be avoided it falls on me.

K. Hen. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too:

Other offenders we will pause upon.[Exeunt Worcester, and Vernon, guarded. How goes the field?

P. Hen. The noble Scot, lord Douglas, when he

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"BLISH AUGUST 1.1825. BY JOHN CUMBERLAND. 19. LUDGATE HILLA.

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Warkworth. Before Northumberland's Castle.

Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues.

Rum. Open your ears; For which of you will stop

The vent of hearing, when loud Rumour speaks?
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride;
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
I speak of peace, while covert enmity,
Under the smile of safety, wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful musters, and prepar'd defence:
Whilst the big year, swol'n with some other grief,
Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
And no such matter! Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures;
And of so easy and so plain a stop,
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it. But what need I thus
My well-known body to anatomize

Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
I run before king Harry's victory;
Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,
Hath beaten down young Hotspur, and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
To speak so true at first? my office is
To noise abroad,-that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword;
And that the king before the Douglas' rage
Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news

Than they have learn'd of me; From Rumour's tongues

They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs. [Exit,

ACT I.

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I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. North. Good, an heaven will!

Bard.

As good as heart can wish:-The king is almost wounded to the death; And, in the fortune of my lord your son, Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts Kill'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince John, And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field; And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk sir John, Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day, So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won, Came not, till now, to dignify the times, Since Cæsar's fortunes!

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And he is furnish'd with no certainties,
More than he haply may retail from me."

Enter Travers.

North. Now, Travers, what good tidings come with you?

Tra. My lord, sir John Umfrevile turn'd me
back

With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd,
Out-rode me. After him, came spurring hard,
A gentleman almost forspent with speed,
That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse:
He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him
I did demand, what news from Shrewsbury,
He told me, that rebellion had bad luck,
And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold:
With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head; and starting so,
He seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.
Ha! Again.
Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
Of Hotspur, coldspur? that rebellion

North.

Had met ill luck!

Bard.

My lord, I'll tell you what

If my young lord your son have not the day,
Upon mine honour, for a silken point

I'll give my barony: never talk of it.

And he doth sin, that doth belie the dead;
Not he, which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knolling a departing friend.
Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
Mor. I am sorry, I should force you to believe
That, which I would to heaven I had not seen:
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rend'ring faint quittance, wearied
and out-

breath'd,

To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down
The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
From whence with life he never more sprung up..
In few, his death (whose spirit lent a fire
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,)
Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
From the best-temper'd courage in his troops:
For from his metal was his party steel'd:
Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.
And as the thing that's heavy in itself,
Upon enforcement, flies with greatest speed;
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear
;-Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim,

Fly from the field: Then was that noble Wor-
cester

North. Why should the gentleman, that rode by Too soon ta'en prisoner: and that furious Scot,

Travers,

Give then such instances of loss?

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North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragick volume:
So looks the strond, whereon the imperious flood
Hath left a witness'd usurpation,

Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
Mor. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask,
To fright our party.
North.
How doth my son, and brother?
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was burn'd:
But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy's death, ere thou report'st it.
This thou would'st say,-Your son did thus, and

thus:

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Tell thou thy earl, his divination lies;,
And I will take it as a sweet disgrace,
And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.
Mor. You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.
North. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.
I see a strange confession in thine eye.
Thou shak'st thy head; and hold'st it fear, or sin,
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so:
'i he tongue offends not, that reports his death:

The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
Had three times slain the 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 physick; 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: hence therefore, thou nice

crutch:

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 the enrag'd Northumberland!
Let heav'n 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!

L

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 ofer
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:

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