P. Hen. How might we see Falstaff bestow1 himself to-night in his true colors, and not 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.

SCENE III. Warkworth. Before the Castle.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, LADY NORTHUMBErland, and LADY PERCY.

North. I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter, Give even way unto my rough affairs;

Put not you on the visage of the times,

And be, like them, to Percy troublesome.

Lady N. I have given over; I will speak no more. Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide. North. Alas, sweet wife, my honor is at pawn; And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.

Lady P. O, yet, for God's sake, go not to these

wars!

The time was, father, that you broke your word,
When you were more endeared to it than now;
When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,
Threw many a northward look, to see his father
Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.
Who then persuaded you to stay at home?
There were two honors lost; yours, and your son's.
For yours,-may heavenly glory brighten it!

1 i. e. act. In a MS. letter from secretary Conway to Buckingham, at the Isle of Ree, "also what the lords have advanced for the expedition towards you, since Saturday that they returned from Windsor with charge to bestowe themselves seriously in it."-Conway Papers.

2 The folio reads declension.

For his, it stuck upon him, as the sun

In the gray vault of heaven; and, by his light,
Did all the chivalry of England move

To do brave acts; he was, indeed, the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
He had no legs, that practised not his gait ;1

And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
Became the accents of the valiant;

For those that could speak low, and tardily,

Would turn their own perfection to abuse,

To seem like him. So that, in speech, in gait,

In diet, in affections of delight,

In military rules, humors of blood,

He was the mark and glass, copy and book,

That fashioned others. And him,-O wondrous him!

O miracle of men !-him did you leave.

(Second to none, unscconded by you)
To look upon the hideous god of war
In disadvantage; to abide a field,

Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name
Did seem defensible;3-so you left him.
Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong,
To hold your honor more precise and nice
With others, than with him; let them alone;
The marshal, and the archbishop, are strong;
Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,
Have talked of Monmouth's grave.

North.

Beshrew your heart,

Fair daughter! you do draw my spirits from me,
With new lamenting ancient oversights.

But I must go, and meet with danger there ;
Or it will seek me in another place,

And find me worse provided.

1 The twenty-two following lines were first given in the folio.

2 Speaking thick is speaking quick, rapidity of utterance.

lates the anhilitus creber of Virgil, thicke-breathing.

Baret trans

3 Defensible does not in this place mean capable of defence, but bearing strength, furnishing the means of defence; the passive for the active participle.

Lady N.

O, fly to Scotland,

Till that the nobles, and the armed commons,
Have of their puissance made a little taste.

Lady P. If they get ground and vantage of the king,

Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,
To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
First let them try themselves. So did your son;
He was so suffered; so came I a widow;
And never shall have length of life enough,
To rain upon remembrance1 with mine eyes,
That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,
For recordation to my noble husband.

North. Come, come, go in with me; 'tis with my

mind,

As with the tide swelled up unto its height,
That makes a still-stand, running neither way.
Fain would I go to meet the archbishop,
But many thousand reasons hold me back.-
I will resolve for Scotland; there am I,
Till time and vantage crave my company.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. London. A Room in the Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap.

Enter two Drawers.

1 Draw. What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-Johns? Thou know'st sir John cannot endure an apple-John.2

2 Draw. Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a dish of apple-Johns before him, and told him,

1 Alluding to the plant rosemary, so called because it was the symbol of remembrance.

2 This apple, which was said to keep two years, is well described

by Philips :

"Nor John-apple, whose withered rind, entrenched
By many a furrow, aptly represents
Decrepid age."

there were five more sir Johns; and, putting off his hat, said, I will now take my leave of these six dry, round, old, withered knights. It angered him to the heart; but he hath forgot that.

1

1 Draw. Why, then, cover, and set them down; and see if thou canst find out Sneak's noise; mistress Tear-sheet would fain hear some music. Despatch.The room where they supped is too hot; they'll come in straight.

2 Draw. Sirrah, here will be the prince, and master Poins anon and they will put on two of our jerkins, and aprons; and sir John must not know of it. Bardolph hath brought word.

I Draw. By the mass, here will be old utis." It will be an excellent stratagem.

2 Draw. I'll see if I can find out Sneak.

Enter Hostess and DOLL TEAR-SHEET.

[Exit.

Host. I'faith, sweet heart, methinks now you are in an excellent good temperality; your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your color, I warrant you, is as red as any rose. But, i' faith, you have drunk too much canaries; and that's a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere one can say,-What's this? How do you now?

Dol. Better than I was. Hem.

Host. Why, that's well said; a good heart's worth gold. Look, here comes sir John.

1 A noise, or a consort, was used for a set or company of musicians. Sneak was a street minstrel, and therefore the drawer goes out to listen for his band. Falstaff addresses them as a company in another scene. In the old play of King Henry IV. "There came the young prince, and two or three more of his companions, and called for wine good store, and then sent for a noyce of musitians," &c.

2 Old utis is old festivity, or merry doings. Utis, or utas, being the eighth day after any festival, any day between the feast and the eighth day was said to be within the utas, from the French huit.

Enter FALSTAFF, singing.

Fal. When Arthur first in court.'-Empty the jordan. -And was a worthy king. How now, mistress Doll? [Exit Drawer.]

Host. Sick of a calm; yea, good sooth. Fal. So is all her sect; 2 an they be once in a calm, they are sick.

Dol. You muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me ?

Fal. You make fat rascals,3 mistress Doll.

Dol. I make them! gluttony and diseases make them; I make them not.

Fal. If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make the diseases, Doll; we catch of you, Doll, we catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue, grant that.

Dol. Ay, marry; our chains, and our jewels.

Fal. Your brooches, pearls, and owches;-for to serve bravely, is to come halting off, you know: To come off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and to surgery bravely; to venture upon the charged chambers bravely:

4

Dol. Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!

5

Host. By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never meet, but you fall to some discord: you are both, in good truth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts; you cannot one bear with another's confirmities. What the good-year! one must bear, and that must be you;

1 The entire ballad is in the first volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry.

2 Sect and sex were anciently synonymous; the instances of the use of the one for the other are too numerous for it to have been a mere corruption.

3 "Rascall (says Puttenham, p. 150) is properly the hunting term given to young deer leane and out of season, and not to people."

4 To understand this quibble, it is necessary to remember that a chamber signifies not only an apartment, but a small piece of ordnance.

5 Mrs. Quickly means splenetic. It should be remarked, however, that rheum seems to have been a cant word for spleen.