FAL. My good lord!-God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard say, your lordship was sick: I hope, your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship, to have a reverend care of your health.

CH. JUST. Sir John, I sent fort you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

FAL. An't please your lordship, I hear, his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

CH. JUST. I talk not of his majesty :-you would not come when I sent for you.

FAL. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy.

CH. JUST. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let me speak with you.

FAL. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood," a whoreson tingling.

CH. JUST. What tell you me of it? be it as it is. FAL. It hath it original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of deafness.

CH. JUST. I think, you are fallen into the disease; for hear not what I say to you.

you

FAL. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

CH. JUST. To punish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I do become § your physician.

:

FAL. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself.

CH. JUST. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me.

FAL. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not

come.

CH. JUST. Well, the truth is, sir John, you live in great infamy.

FAL. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot live in less.

CH. JUST. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

*

FAL. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer.

CH. JUST. You have misled the youthful prince. FAL. The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.b

CH. JUST. Well, I am loth to gall a new-healed wound; your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gads-hill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting that action.

FAL. My lord?

CH. JUST. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.

fox.

FAL. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a

CH. JUST. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.

:

FAL. A wassel candle, my lord; all tallow if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

CH. JUST. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

FAL. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. CH. JUST. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill+ angel.

FAL. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light;" but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me without weighing; and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell: Virtue is of so little regard in these costar-mongers' times ‡, that true valour is turned bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young; you measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

CH. JUST. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing belly? Is not your

a An't please your lordship: a kind of sleeping in the blood, -] So the quarto, for which the folio reads only, "a sleeping of the blood."

b The fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.] A supposed allusion to a fat blind beggar, well known at the time, who was led by his dog.

e Your ill angel is light:] The Chief Justice means evil genius; Falstaff evades the application by alluding to the coin called

an angel, which was frequently made light enough by the process of clipping.

d I cannot tell:] This phrase usually signifies, as Gifford has shown, no more than, I cannot tell what to think of it, or I cannot account for it: but, in the present instance, the interpretation assigned to it by Johnson, "I cannot be taken; I cannot pass current," seems preferable.

e Pregnancy-] That is, Ready wit.

voice broken? your wind short? your chin double?* your wit single?" and every part about you blasted with antiquity; and will you yet† call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, sir John!

To

FAL. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. For my voice,-I have lost it with hollaing, and singing of anthems. approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box of the ear that the prince gave you,-he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it; and the young lion repents; marry, not in ashes, and sackcloth; but in new silk, and old sack.

CH. JUST. Well, God § send the prince a better companion!

FAL. God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

CH. JUST. Well, the king hath severed you and prince Harry: I hear, you are going with lord John of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland.

it.

FAL. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for

But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily : if it be a hot day, an** I brandish anything but my bottle, would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever; but it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. will needs say, I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God, my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

If ye

CH. JUST. Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition!

FAL. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth?

CH. JUST. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well. Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland.

[Exeunt Chief Justice and Attendant.

*) First folio omits, your chin double. (†) First folio omits, yet. (1) First folio omits, about three of the clock in the afternoon. (§) First folio, Heaven. () First folio, Yes.

() First folio omits, by the Lord, and inserts, if. (**) First folio, if. (tt) First folio, Heaven.

a Your wit single?] Single meant simple, silly, weak. b Never spit white again.] Steevens interprets this "never have my stomach inflamed again with liquor." Mr. Collier thinks the expression may have reference to his exertions and wounds in the expected conflicts, which might compel him to spit blood." The meaning is simply, may I never be thirsty again, want of

FAL. What money is in my purse?

PAGE. Seven groats and two-pence.

FAL. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.— Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this to the earl of Westmoreland; and this to old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin: about it; you know where to find me. [Exit Page.] A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. 'Tis no matter, if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of anything; I will turn diseases to commodity. [Exit.

SCENE III.-York. A Room in the
Archbishop's Palace.

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the Lords
HASTINGS, Mowbray, and Bardolph.

ARCH. Thus have you heard our cause,* and know our means;

And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes :-
And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?

MoWB. I well allow the occasion of our arms;
But gladly would be better satisfied,
How, in our means, we should advance ourselves,
To look with forehead bold and big enough
Upon the power and puissance of the king.

HAST. Our present musters grow upon the file To five and twenty thousand men of choice; And our supplies live largely in the hope Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns With an incensed fire of injuries.

BARD. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth thus ;

(*) First folio, causes.

drink being supposed to have the effect of making people spit white. Thus Spungius in Massinger's "Virgin Martyr," Act III. Sc. 3" Had I been a pagan still, I should not have spit white for want of drink."

c Well, I cannot last ever;] Falstaff's speech ends here in the folio, 1623.

d You are too impatient to bear crosses.] The same pun is met with in Love's Labour's Lost." See note (c), p. 56.

e. A three-man beetle. J An implement made of wood, and having two long handles and a short one, which was used for driving piles. f Prevent-] i. e. Anticipate, come before.

Whether our present five and twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland ?
HAST. With him we may.

BARD.
Ay, marry there's the point;
But if without him we be thought too feeble,
My judgment is, we should not step too far,"
Till we had his assistance by the hand:
For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this,
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Of aids incertain, should not be admitted.

ARCH. 'Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed,

It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury. BARD. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself in + project of a power

Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts:
And so, with great imagination,

Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,
And, winking, leap'd into destruction.

HAST. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt,

a We should not step too far,-] The remainder of this speech is omitted in the quarto.

b Yes, if this present quality of war ;

That frosts will bite them.] In this opening clause of Lord Bardolph's speech, something has apparently been lost or misprinted; and as the passage only occurs in the folio, the omission or error, it is to be feared, is irremediable.

At least,-] Capell proposed, and we think judiciously, to read, at lust.

To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope.
BARD. Yes, if this present quality of war,
Indeed the instant action: a cause on foot,
Lives so in hope, as in an early spring
We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair,

That frosts will bite them. When we mean to

build,

We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection;
Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then, but draw anew the model
In fewer offices; or, at least, desist

To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
(Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down,
And set another up,) should we survey

The plot of situation, and the model;
Consent upon a sure foundation;

Question surveyors; know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,

To weigh against his opposite; or else,

The only alteration required is to read "And weigh," instead of "7o weigh," in the last line.

We fortify in paper," and in figures,
Using the names of men instead of men:
Like one, that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds,
And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.

HAST. Grant, that our hopes (yet likely of fair
birth)

Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd
The utmost man of expectation;

I think we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king.

BARD. What is the king but five and twenty thousand?

HAST. To us, no more; nay, not so much, lord
Bardolph.

For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
Are in three heads; one power against the French,
And one against Glendower; perforce, a third
Must take up us: so is the unfirm king

In three divided; and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness.

ARCH. That he should draw his several strengths together,

And come against us in full puissance,

Need not be dreaded.

And publish the occasion of our arms.

The commonwealth is sick of their own choice,
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited :-
An habitation giddy and unsure

Hath he, that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
O thou fond many! with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
Before he was what thou would'st have him be?
And being now trimm'd in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him,
That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.
So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;
And now thou would'st eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these

and SNARE following.

HOST. Master Fang, have you entered the action?

FANG. It is entered.

HOST. Where's your yeoman? Is it a lusty yeoman? will a'* stand to't?

FANG. Sirrah, where's Snare?

HOST. O Lord, † ay; good master Snare.
SNARE. Here, here.

FANG. Snare, we must arrest sir John Falstaff. HOST. Yea, good master Snare; I have entered him and all.

SNARE. It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.

HOST. Alas the day! take heed of him: he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most

he doth, if his weapon be out: he will foin like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.

FANG. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.

HOST. No, nor I neither; I'll be at your elbow. FANG. Ant I but fist him once; ant a' come but within my vice ;

HOST. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an infinitive thing upon my score.— Good master Fang, hold him sure:-good master Snare, let him not 'scape. A' comes continuantly to Pye-corner, (saving your manhoods,) to buy a saddle; and he is indited to dinner to the lubbar's head in Lumbert || street, to master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be