Give you advancement.-Be it your charge, my lord,
To fee 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, fir 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 fhall be fent 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.

Shal. I cannot perceive how; unless you give me your doublet, and stuff me out with ftraw. I beseech you, good fir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand. 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, fir John. Fal. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, lieutenant Piftol;-come, Bardolph :-I shall be fent for foon at night.

Re-enter Prince JOHN, the Chief Juftice, Officers, &c.

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

Fal. My lord, my lord,

Ch. Juft. I cannot now speak: I will hear you foon.

Take them away.

Pilt. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta.

[Exeunt 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 converfations
Appear more wife and modeft to the world.
Ch. Juft. And fo they are.

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

P. John. I will lay odds,-that, ere this year expire, We bear our civil fwords, and native fire,

As far as France: I heard a bird so sing,
Whofe mufick, to my thinking, pleas'd the king.
Come, will you hence ?

[Exeunt.

EPILOGUE.

Spoken by a Dancer.

FIRST, my fear; then, my court'fy: Laft, my speech. My fear is, your difpleasure; my court'fy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to fay, is of mine own making ; and what, indeed, I should say, will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and fo to the venture.-Be it known to you, (as it is very well,) I was lately here in the end of a difpleafing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this; which, if, like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lofe. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me fome, and I will pay you fome, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.

If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment, -to dance out of your debt. But a good confcience will make any poffible fatisfaction, and so will I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in fuch an affembly.

One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloy'd with fat meal, our humble author will continue the ftory, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff fball die of a fweat, unless already he be kill'd with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and fo kneel down before you ;-but, indeed, to pray for the queen.