rid suit of the camp, will do among foaming bottles, and ale-washed wits, is wonderful to be thought on! But you must learn to know such slanders of the age, or else you may be marvellous mistook.

Flu. I tell you what, captain Gower;- I do perceive he is not the man that he would gladly make show to the 'orld he is; if I find a hole in his coat, I will tell him my mind. [Drum heard.] Hark you, the king is coming; and I must speak with him from the pridge.

Enter King Henry, Gloster, and soldiers.

Flu. Got pless your majesty!

K. Hen. How now, Fluellen? camest thou from the bridge?

Flu. Ay, so please your majesty. The duke of Exeter has very gallantly maintained the pridge: the French is gone off, look you; and there is gallant and most prave passages: Marry, th'athversary was have possession of the pridge; but he is enforced to retire, and the duke of Exeter is master of the pridge: I can tell your majesty, the duke is a prave

man.

K. Hen. What men have you lost, Fluellen?

Flu. The perdition of th'athversary hath been very great, very reasonable great: marry, for my part, I think the duke hath lost never a man, but one that is like to be executed for robbing a church, one Bardolph, if your majesty know the man: his face is all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames of fire; and his lips plows at his nose, and it is like a coal of fire, sometimes plue, and sometimes red; but his nose is executed, and his fire's out.

K. Hen. We would have all such offenders so cut off:-and we give express charge, that in our marches through the country, there be nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for: none of the French upbraided, or abused in disdain

ful language; For when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest win

ner.

Tucket sounds. Enter Montjoy.

Mont. You know me by my habit*.

K. Hen. Well then, I know thee; What shall I know of thee?

Mont. My master's mind.

K. Hen. Unfold it.

Mont. Thus says my king:-Say thou to Harry of England, Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep; Advantage is a better soldier, than rashness. Tell him, we could have rebuked him at Harfleur; but that we thought not good to bruise an injury, till it were full ripe :-now we speak upon our cuet, and our voice is imperial: England shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him, therefore, consider of his ransome; which must proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which in weight to re-answer, his pettiness would bow under. For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for the effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person, kneeling at our feet, but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add-defiance and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose condemnatiou is pro. nounced. So far my king and master; so much my office.

K. Hen. What is thy name? I know thy quality. Mont. Montjoy.

K. Hen. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee

back,

And tell thy king,-I do not seek him now;

i. e. By his herald's coat.

In our turn.

But could be willing to march on to Calais,
Without impeachment*: for, to say the sooth
(Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage),
My people are with sickness much enfeebled;
My numbers lessen'd; and those few I have,
Almost no better than so many French;

Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,

I thought, upon one pair of English legs

Did march three Frenchmen.Yet, forgive me, God,
That I do brag thus !-this your air of France
Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent.
Go, therefore, tell thy master, here I am;
My ransome, is this frail and worthless trunk;
My army, but a weak and sickly guard ;
Yet, God beforet, tell him we will come on,

Though France himself, and such another neighbour,
Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.
Go, bid thy master well advise himself:

If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder'd,
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolour: and so, Montjoy, fare you well.
The sum of all our answer is but this:

We would not seek a battle, as we are;

Nor, as we are, we say, we will not shun it;
So tell your master.

Mont. I shall deliver so. Thanks to your high-
[Exit Montjoy.

ness..

Glo. I hope they will not come upon us now.

K. Hen. We are in God's hand, brother, not in

theirs.

March to the bridge; it now draws toward night :Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves;

And on to-morrow bid them march away.

Hinderance.

Then used for God being my guide.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII.

The French camp, near Agincourt.

Enter the Constable of France, the Lord Rambures, the Duke of Orleans, Dauphin, and others.

Con. Tut! I have the best armour of the world.'Would it were day.

Orl. You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due.

Con. It is the best horse of Europe.

Orl. Will it never be morning?

Duu. My lord of Orleans, and my lord high constable, you talk of horse and armour,—

Orl. You are as well provided of both, as any prince in the world.

Dau. What a long night is this! -I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Ca, ha! He bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus, qui a les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes. Orl. He's of the colour of the nutmeg.

Dau. And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus: he is pure air and fire; and the duil elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness, while his rider mounts him he is, indeed, a horse; and all other jades you may call-beasts.

Alluding to the bounding of tennis-balls, which were stuffed with hair.

Con. Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.

Dau. It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.

Orl. No more, cousin.

Dau. Nay, the man hath no wit, that cannot, from the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as fluent as the sea; turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all: 'tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign's sovereign to ride on; and for the world (familiar to us, and unknown), to lay apart their particular functions, and wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise, and began thus: Wonder of nature,

Orl. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mis

tress.

Dau. Then did they imitate that which I com posed to my courser; for my horse is my mistress. Orl. Your mistress bears well.

Dau. Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress.

Con. Ma foy! the other day, methought, your mistress shrewdly shook your back.

Dau. So, perhaps, did yours.

Con. Mine was not bridled.

Dau. O! then, belike, she was old and gentle; and you rode, like a kerne* of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your strait trossers t.

Con. You have good judgement in horsemanship. Dau. Be warned by me then: they that ride so, and ride not warily, fall into foul bogs; I had ra ther have my horse to my mistress.

Con. I had as lief have my mistress a jade. Dau. I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears her own hair.