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Fal. O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news?
Let king Cophetua know the truth thereof.
Sil. And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.

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Fal. Well said, master Silence.
Sil. And we shall be merry;-now comes in the
sweet of the night.

Fal. Health and long life to you, master Silence.
Sil. Fill the cup, and let it come;

[Sings.
And shall good news be baffled?
Pist. Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons?

Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap.
Shal. Honest gentleman, I know not your breed-
ing.

Pist. Why then, lament therefore.

Shal. Give me pardon, sir;-If, sir, you come with news from the court, I take it, there is but two ways; either to utter them, or to conceal them. I am, sir, under the king, in some authority. Pist. Under which king, Bezonian? speak, or die. Shal. Under king Harry.

Pist.

Harry the fourth? or fifth?

Shal. Harry the fourth.
Pist.

I'll pledge you a mile to the bottom. Shal. Honest Bardolph, welcome: If thou wantA foutra for thine office !est any thing, and will not call, beshrew thy heart. Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king; -Welcome, my little tiny thief; [To the Page.] Harry the fifth's the man. I speak the truth: and welcome, indeed, too.—I'll drink to master When Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like Bardolph, and to all the cavaleroes3 about London. The bragging Spaniard. Davy. I hope to see London once ere I die. Bard. An I might see you there, Davy. Shal. By the mass, you'll crack a quart together. Ha! will you not, master Bardolph?

Bard. Yes, sir, in a pottle-pot.

Shal. I thank thee:-The knave will stick by thee, I can assure thee that: he will not out; he is true bred.

Bard. And I'll stick by him, sir.

Shal. Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing: be merry. [Knocking heard.] Look who's at door there: Ho! who knocks? [Exit Davy. Fal. Why, now you have done me right. [To Silence, who drinks a bumper. Sil. [Singing.] Do me right, And dub me knight:4

Is't not so?

Samingo.

Fal. 'Tis so.

Fal. What is the old king dead?

Pist. As nail in door: The things I speak are just. Fal. Away, Bardolph; saddle my horse.-Master Robert Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine.-Pistol, I will double-charge thee with dignities.

Bard. O joyful day!—I would not take a knighthood for my fortune.

Pist. What? do bring good news?

Fal. Carry master Silence to bed.-Master Shallow, my lord Shallow, be what thou wilt, I am fortune's steward. Get on thy boots; we'll ride all night:-0, sweet Pistol :-Away, Bardolph. [Exit Bardolph.1-Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and, withal, devise something, to do thyself good.Boot, boot, master Shallow; I know, the young king is sick for me. Let us take any man's horses; the laws of England are at my commandment. Happy are they which have been my friends; and

Sil. Is't so? Why, then say, an old man can do wo to my lord chief justice! somewhat.

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Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base!
Sir John, I am thy Pistol, and thy friend,
And helter-skelter have I rode to thee;
And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys,
And golden times, and happy news of price.
Fal. I pr'ythee now, deliver them like a man of
this world.

Pist. A foutra for the world, and worldlings base!
I speak of Africa, and golden joys.

(1) Apples commonly called russetines.
(2) Sweetheart.
(3) Gay fellows.

(4) He who drank a bumper on his knees to the health of his mistress, was dubbed a knight for the evening.

Pist. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also! Where is the life that late I led? say they: Why, here it is; Welcome these pleasant days. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-London. A street. Enter Beadles, dragging in Hostess Quickly, and Doll Tear

sheet.

Host. No, thou arrant knave; I would I might die, that I might have thee hanged: thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint.

1 Bead. The constables have delivered her over to me; and she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her: There hath been a man or two lately killed about her.

Doll. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on ; I'H tell thee what, thou damned tripe-visaged rascal; an the child I now go with, do miscarry, thou hadst better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou paper-faced villain.

Host. O the Lord, that sir John were come! he would make this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb miscarry!

1 Bead. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions" again; you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for the man is dead, that you and Pistol beat among you.

(5) It should be Domingo; it is part of a song in one of Nashe's plays.

(6) A term of reproach for a catchpoll.

To stuff her out to counterfeit pregnancy.

Scene V.

SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV.

Doll. I'll tell thee what, thou thin man in a censer! I will have you as soundly swinged for this, you blue-bottle rogue! you filthy famished correctioner! if you be not swinged, I'll forswear halfkirtles.2

1 Bead. Come, come, you she knight-errant,

come.

Host. O, that right should thus overcome might! Well; of sufferance comes ease.

Doll. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a justice.

Host. Ay; come, you starved blood-hound.
Doll. Goodman death! goodman bones!
Host. Thou atomy, thou!

Doll. Come, you thin thing; come, you rascal!
[Exeunt.
1 Bead. Very well.
SCENE V. A public place near Westminster
Abbey. Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes.
1 Groom. More rushes, more rushes.
2 Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice.
1 Groom. It will be two o'clock ere they come
from the coronation: Despatch, despatch.

Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most
royal imp of fame!

Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy!

King. My lord chief justice, speak to that vain

man.

Ch. Just. Have you your wits? know you what
'tis you speak?

Fal. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my
heart!

King. I know thee not, old man: Fall to thy

prayers;

How ill white hairs become a fool, and jester! I have long dream'd of such a kind of man, So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane; dream. But, being awake, I do despise my Make less thy body, hence, and more thy grace; Leave gormandizing; know, the grave doth gape For thee thrice wider than for other men :Reply not to me with a fool-born jest ; Presume not, that I am the thing I was: For heaven doth know, so shall the world perceive, That I have turn'd away my former self; So will I those that kept me company. When thou dost hear I am as I have been, Approach me; and thou shalt be as thou wast, The tutor and the feeder of my riots: Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,As I have done the rest of my misleaders,Not to come near our person by ten mile. For competence of life, I will allow you; That lack of means enforce you not to evil : And, as we hear you do reform yourselves, Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me.-O, We will, according to your strength, and qualiif I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. [To Shallow.] But 'tis no matter; this show doth better: this doth infer the zeal poor I had to see him.

[Exeunt Grooms. Enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph, and the Page.

Fal. Stand here by me, master Robert Shallow; I will make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him, as 'a comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me.

Pist. God bless thy lungs, good knight.

Shal. It doth so.

Fal. It shows my earnestness of affection.
Shal. It doth so.

Fal. My devotion.

Shal. It doth, it doth, it doth.

Fal. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me.

Shal. It is most certain.

ties,-
Give you advancement.-Be it your charge, my
lord,

To see perform'd the tenor of our word.-
Set on.
[Exeunt King, and his train.
Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.
Shal. Ay, marry, sir John; which I beseech
you to let me have home with me.

Fal. That can hardly be, master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him: look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancement; I will be the man yet, that shall make you great.

dred of my thousand.

Shal. I cannot perceive how; unless you give Fal. But to stand stained with travel, and sweat-me your doublet, and stuff me out with straw. I ing with desire to see him thinking of nothing beseech you, good sir John, let me have five hunelse: putting all affairs else in oblivion; as if there were nothing else to be done, but to see him. Pist. 'Tis semper idem, for absque hoc nihil est : 'Tis all in every part.

Shal. 'Tis so, indeed.

Pist. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver,

And make thee rage.

Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
Is in base durance, and contagious prison;
Haul'd thither

By most mechanical and dirty hand :

Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's

snake,

For Doll is in; Pistol speaks nought but truth.
Fal. I will deliver her.

[Shouts within, and the trumpets sound.
Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor
sounds.

Enter the King and his train, the Chief Justice
among them.

Fal. God save thy grace, king Hal! my royal Hal!

(1) Beadles usually wore a blue livery.
(2) Short cloaks.

Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard, was but a colour.

Shal. A colour, I fear, that you will die in, sir John.

Fal. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner.

Come, lieutenant Pistol; come, Bardolph :-I shall be sent for soon at night.

Re-enter P. John, the Chief Justice, Officers, &c.

Ch. Just. Go, carry sir John Falstaff to the Fleet; Take all his company along with him.

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Take them away.

Pist. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta.
[Exe. Fal. Shal. Pist. Bard. Page, and officers.
P. John. I like this fair proceeding of the king's:
He hath intent, his wonted followers
Shall all be very well provided for ;
But all are banish'd, till their conversations

(3) 'Tis all in all, and all in every part.
(4) Child, offspring. (5) Henceforwadr.

SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV.

Appear more wise and modest to the world.
"Ch. Just. And so they are.

P. John. The king hath call'd his parliament,
my lord.

the First and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth. so much delight. The great events are interesting, Perhaps no author has ever, in two plays, afforded for the fate of kingdoms depends upon them; the slighter occurrences are diverting, and, except one

P. John. I will lay odds,-that, ere this year or two, sufficiently probable; the incidents are

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multiplied with wonderful fertility of invention; and the characters diversified with the utmost nicety of discernment, and the profoundest skill in the nature of man.

The prince, who is the hero both of the comic and tragic part, is a young man of great abilities, and violent passions, whose sentiments are right, though his actions are wrong; whose virtues are obscured by negligence, and whose understanding

FIRST, my fear; then, my court'sy; last, my is dissipated by levity. In his idle hours he is speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my court'sy, rather loose than wicked; and when the occasion my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If forces out his latent qualities, he is great without you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for effort, and brave without tumult. The trifler is what I have to say, is of mine own making; and roused into a hero, and the hero again reposes in what, indeed, I should say, will, I doubt, prove the trifler. The character is great, original, and just. mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, (as it is very some, and has only the soldier's virtues, generosity Percy is a rugged soldier, choleric and quarrelwell,) I was lately here in the end of a displeasing and courage.

play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise. But Faistaff! unimitated, unimitable Falstaff! you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with how shall I describe thee? thou compound of sense this; which if, like an ill venture, it come unluck- and vice; of sense which may be admired, but not ily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, esteemed; of vice which may be despised, but lose. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here hardly detested. Falstaff is a character loaded I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some, with faults, and with those faults which naturally and I will pay you some, and, as most debtors do, produce contempt. He is a thief and a glutton, a promise you infinitely. If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timocoward and a boaster; always ready to cheat the will you command me to use my legs? and yet rous, and insult the defenceless. At once obsequithat were but light payment,-to dance out of your ous and malignant, he satirizes in their absence debt. But a good conscience will make any possi- those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar ble satisfaction, and so will I. All the gentlewo- with the prince only as an agent of vice; but of men here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will this familiarity he is so proud, as not only to be not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gen- supercilious and haughty with common men, but tlewomen, which was never seen before in such an to think his interest of importance to the duke of assembly. Lancaster. Yet the man thus corrupt, thus despi

One word more, I beseech you. If you be not cable, makes himself necessary to the prince that too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author despises him, by the most pleasing of all qualities, will continue the story, with sir John in it, and perpetual gaiety; by an unfailing power of exciting make you merry with fair Katharine of France: laughter, which is the more freely indulged, as his where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a wit is not of the splendid or ambitious kind, but sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard consists in easy scapes and sallies of levity, which opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is make sport, but raise no envy. It must be obnot the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you;-but, indeed, to pray for the

I fancy every reader, when he ends this play, that neither wit nor honesty ought to think themcries out with Desdemona, 'O most lame and im-selves safe with such a companion, when they see potent conclusion!' As this play was not, to our Henry seduced by Falstaff. knowledge, divided into acts by the author, I could be content to conclude it with the death of Henry called the First and Second Parts of Henry the JOHNSON. Mr. Upton thinks these two plays improperly 'In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.' Fourth. The first play ends, he says, with the These scenes, which now make the fifth act of the defeat of the rebels. This is hardly true; for peaceful settlement of Henry in the kingdom by Henry the Fourth, might then be the first of Henry the rebels are not yet finally suppressed. The the Fifth; but the truth is, that they do not unite second, he tells us, shows Henry the Fifth in the very commodiously to either play. When these various lights of a good-natured rake, till, on his plays were represented, I believe they ended as they father's death, he assumes a more manly character. areow ended in the books; but Shakspeare seems This is true; but this representation gives us no to have designed that the whole series of action, idea of a dramatic action. These two plays will from the beginning of Richard the Second, to the appear to every reader, who shall peruse them end of Henry the Fifth, should be considered by without ambition of critical discoveries, to be so the reader as one work upon one plan, only broken connected, that the second is merely a sequel to into parts by the necessity of exhibition. None of Shakspeare's plays are more read than long to be one. the first; to be two, only because they are too JOHNSON.

KING HENRY V.

King Henry the Fifth.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Duke of Gloster, brothers to the king.

Duke of Bedford, }

Duke of Exeter, uncle to the king.

Duke of York, cousin to the king.

Charles the Sixth, king of France.
Lewis, the dauphin.

Dukes of Burgundy, Orleans, and Bourbon.
The Constable of France.

Rambures, and Grandpre, French lords.

Earls of Salisbury, Westmoreland, and Warwick. Governor of Harfleur. Montjoy, a French herald. Archbishop of Canterbury.

Bishop of Ely.

Earl of Cambridge,
Lord Scroop,
Sir Thomas Grey,
Sir Thomas Erpingham, Gower, Fluellen, Mac-
morris, Jainy, officers in king Henry's army.
Bates, Court, Williams, soldiers in the same.
Nym, Bardolph, Pistol, formerly servants to Fal-
staff, now soldiers in the same.
Boy, servant to them. A Herald. Chorus.

conspirators against the king,

Enter Chorus.

O, FOR a muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and, at his heels,
Leash'd in, like hounds, should famine, sword, and
fire,

Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirit, that hath dar'd,
On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth
So great an object: Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden 0,1 the very casques,2
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest, in little place, a million;
And let us, cyphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work:
Suppose, within the girdle of these walls
Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,
Whose high-upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous, narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts:
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance:

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i'the receiving earth:
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our
kings,

Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times;
Turning the accomplishments of many years
Into an hour-glass; For the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

(1) An allusion to the circular form of the theatre.

Ambassadors to the king of England.
Isabel, queen of France.

Katharine, daughter of Charles and Isabel.
Alice, a lady allending on the princess Katharine.
Quickly, Pistol's wife, a hostess.

Lords, ladies, officers, French and English soldiers.
messengers, and attendants.

The Scene, at the beginning of the play, lies in
England; but afterwards, wholly in France.

ACT I.

SCENE I-London. An ante-chamber in the King's palace. Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of Ely.

Canterbury.

MY lord, I'll tell you,-that self bill is urg'd,
Which, in the eleventh year o'the last king's reign
Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,
But that the scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of further question.4

Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
Cant. It must be thought on. If it pass against us,
We lose the better half of our possession:
For all the temporal lands, which men devout
By testament have given to the church,
Would they strip from us; being valued thus,-
As much as would maintain, to the king's honour,
Full fifteen earls, and fifteen hundred knights;
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
And, to relief of lazars, and weak age,
Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil,
A hundred alms-houses, right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the king beside,

A thousand pounds by the year: Thus runs the bill.
Ely. This would drink deep.

Cant.

"Twould drink the cup and all.
Ely. But what prevention?
Cant. The king is full of grace, and fair regard.
Ely. And a true lover of the holy church.
Cant. The courses of his youth promis'd it not.
The breath no sooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem'd to die too: yea, at that very moment,
Consideration like an angel came,
And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise,

To envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made:

(2) Helmets. (3) Powers of fancy. (4) Neb

Never came reformation in a flood,
With such a heady current, scouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.

Ely.
We are blessed in the change.
Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity,
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
You would desire, the king were made a prelate:
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say,-it hath been all-in-all his study:
List' his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music:
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences;
So that the art and practic part of life
Must be the mistress to this theoric:2
Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain :
His companies3 unletter'd, rude, and shallow;
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.

Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the
tle;

And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best,
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality;
And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive4 in his faculty.

net

Cant. It must be so: for miracles are ceas'd; And therefore we must needs admit the means, How things are perfected.

Ely.

But, my good lord,

How now for mitigation of this bill
Urg'd by the commons? Doth his majesty
Incline to it, or no?

Cant.

He seems indifferent;
Or, rather, swaying more upon our part,
Than cherishing the exhibiters against us:
For I have made an offer to his majesty,-
Upon our spiritual convocation;
And in regard of causes now in hand,
Which I have open'd to his grace at large,
As touching France,-to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.

Ely. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?
Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty ;
Save, that there was not time enough to hear
(As, I perceiv'd, his grace would fain have done,)
The severals, and unhidden passages,
Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms;
And, generally, to the crown and seat of France,
Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.
Ely. What was the impediment that broke this
off?

Cant. The French ambassador, upon that instant, Crav'd audience: and the hour, I think, is come, To give him hearing: Is it four o'clock? Ely.

It is. Cant. Then go we in, to know his embassy; Which I could, with a ready guess, declare, Before the Frenchman speak a word of it. Ely. I'll wait upon you; and I long to hear it. [Exeunt. (1) Listen to. (2) Theory. (3) Companions.

SCENE II.-The same. A room of state in the same. Enter King Henry, Gloster, Bedford. Exeter, Warwick, Westmoreland, and attendants.

K. Hen. Where is my gracious lord of Canterbury?

Exe. Not here in presence.

K. Hen. Send for him, good uncle.
West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?
K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin; we would be re-
solv'd,

Before we hear him, of some things of weight,
That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.
Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop
of Ely.

Cant. God, and his angels, guard your sacred
throne,
And make you long become it!
K. Hen.
Sure, we thank you.
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed;
And justly and religiously unfold,"
Why the law Salique, that they have in France,
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim.
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth;
For God doth know, how many, now in health,
Shall drop their blood in approbation

Of what your reverence shall incite us to:
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
How you awake the sleeping sword of war;
We charge you in the name of God, take heed:
For never two such kingdoms did contend,
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
Are every one a wo, a sore complaint,
'Gainst him, whose wrongs give edge unto the swords
That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord:
And we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
As pure as sin with baptism.

Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign,-and

you peers,

That owe your lives, your faith, and services,
To this imperial throne ;-There is no bar
To make against your highness' claim to France,
But this, which they produce from Pharamond,
In terram Salicam mulieres nè succedant,
No woman shall succeed in Salique land:
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze,
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm,
That the land Salique lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe:
Where Charles the great, having subdued the
Saxons,

There left behind and settled certain French;
Who, holding in disdain the German women,
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Establish'd there this law,-to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land;
Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
Is at this day in Germany call'd-Meisen.
Thus doth it well appear, the Salique law
Was not devised for the realm of France:
Nor did the French possess the Salique land
Until four hundred one and twenty years
After defunction of king Pharamond,

(4) Increasing. (5) Spurious. (6) Explain.

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