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Enter Rumour, painted full of tonguesa.

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,

• Painted full of tongues. This direction for the appearance of Rumour is found only in the quarto of 1600. The direction explains the sixth line:

"Upon my tongues continual slanders ride."

Rumour appears to have been exhibited in a similar manner in the masques preceding Shakspere's time, and subsequently. Of the speech of Rumour Dr. Johnson says, "It is wholly useless." The object of the poet was evidently to connect this Part of Henry IV. with the First Part.

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Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride1;
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, swoln with some other griefs,
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 anatomise

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 the royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone2,
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.

The. So the folio; quarto, that.

[Exit.

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The Porter before the Gate; Enter LORD BARDOLPH.

L. BARD. Who keeps the gate here, ho?-Where is the earl? PORT. What shall I say you are?

L. BARD.

Tell thou the earl, That the lord Bardolph doth attend him here. PORT. His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard.

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NORTH. What news, lord Bardolph? every minute now
Should be the father of some stratagem:

The times are wild; contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.

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L. 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!
NORTH.

How is this deriv'd?

Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?

L. BARD. I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence;

A gentleman well bred, and of good name,

That freely render'd me these news for true.

NORTH. Here comes my servant, Travers, whom I sent
On Tuesday last to listen after news.

L. BARD. My lord, I over-rode him on the way;

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?
TRAV. 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,

"Stratagem-some military movement, according to the Greek derivation of the word;-some enterprise; some decisive act on one part or the other, resulting from the wild times of contention.

A gentleman almost forspent a 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 ill 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-head3; and starting so,
He seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.

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L. BARD.

If

my young lord

My lord, I'll tell you what ;

your son have not the day,

Upon mine honour, for a silken point

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

NORTH. Why should the gentleman that rode by Travers
Give then such instances of loss?

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Forspent. For, as a prefix to a verb, is used to give it intensity. Forwearied, in 'King John,' and forspent, here, mean wearied out, outspent. The prefix, according to Tooke, is identical with forth.

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Ill. So the folio; the quarto, bad.

Hilding-an expression of contempt for a cowardly spiritless person. Some derive it from the Anglo-Saxon hyldan, to bend;—from which hilding, hireling. We find it several times in Shakspere. Capulet calls Juliet a hilding. In Henry V.' we have "a hilding foe."

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Adventure. So the folio. The common reading is, at a venture.

Title-leaf. Poems of lament-elegies, in the restricted sense of the word-were distinguished by a black title-page.

Whereon, in the quarto; the folio, when.

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