Shal. By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?

Fal. Old, old, master Shallow.

Shal. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old; certain, she's old; and had Robin Night-work, by old Night-work, before I came to Clement's-inn.

Sil. That's fifty-five year ago.

Shal. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that, that this knight and I have seen!-Ha, sir John, said I well?

Fal. We have heard the chimes at midnight, master Shallow.

Shal. That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, sir John, we have; our watchword was, Hem, boys!-Come, let's to dinner; come, let's to dinner :-O, the days that we have seen!-Come, come.

[Exeunt Falstaff, Shallow, and Silence. Bull. Good master corporate Bardolph, stand my friend; and here is four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you. In very truth, sir, had as lief be hanged, sir, as go: and yet, for mine own part, sir, I do not care; but, rather, because I am unwilling, and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends; else, sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so much.

Bard. Go to; stand aside.

Moul. And good master corporal captain, for my old dame's sake, stand my friend: she has nobody to do any thing about her, when I am gone; and she is old, and cannot help herself: you shall have forty, sir.

Bard. Go to; stand aside.

Fee. By my troth I care not;-a man can die but once; we owe God a death;-I'll ne'er bear a base mind:-an't be my destiny, so; an't be not, so: No man's too good to serve his prince; and, let it go which way it will, he, that dies this year, is quit for the next.

Bard. Well said; thou'rt a good fellow.
Fee. 'Faith, I'll bear no base mind.

Re-enter FALSTAFF, and Justices.

Fal. Come, sir, which men shall I have? Shal. Four, of which you please. Bard. Sir, a word with you:-I have three pound to free Mouldy and Bull-calf. Fal. Go to; well.

to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit, master Shallow.-Here's Wart; you see what a ragged appearance it is: he shall charge you, and discharge you, with the motion of a pewterer's hammer; come off, and on, swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow, give me this man; he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife: And, for a retreat, how swiftly will this Feeble, the woman's tailor, run off? O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones.-Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph.

Bard. Hold, Wart, traverse; thus, thus, thus. Fal. Come, manage me your caliver. So:very well go to:-very good-exceeding good.-O, give me always a little, lean, old, chapped, bald shot.-Well said, i'faith, Wart; thou'rt a good scab: hold, there's a tester for thee.

Shal. He is not his craft's-master, he doth not do it right. I remember at Mile-end green, (when I lay at Clement's inn,-I was then sir Dagonet in Arthur's show,) there was a little quiver fellow, and 'a would manage you his piece thus: and 'a would about, and about, and come you in, and come you in; rah, tah, tah, would a say; bounce, would 'a say; and away again would 'a go, and again would 'a come :-I shall never see such a fellow.

Fal. These fellows will do well, master Shallow. God keep you, master Silence; I will not use many words with you :-Fare you well, gentlemen both: I thank you: I must a dozen mile to-night.-Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.

Shal. Sir John, heaven bless you, and prosper your affairs, and send us peace! As you return, visit my house; let our old acquaintance be renewed: peradventure, I will wish you to the

court.

you well.

Fal. I would you would, master Shallow. Shal. Go to; I have spoke, at a word. Fare [Exeunt Shallow and Silence. Fal. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. On, Bardolph; lead the men away. [Exeunt Bardolph, Recruits, &c.] As I return, I will fetch off these justices: I do see the bottom of justice Shallow. Lord, lord, how subject we old men

Fal. Do you choose for me. Shal. Marry then,-Mouldy, Bull-calf, Feeble, and Shadow,

Fal. Mouldy, and Bull-calf:-For you, Mouldy, stay at home still; you are past service:and, for your part, Bull-calf,-grow till you come unto it; I will none of you.

Shal. Sir John, sir John, do not yourself wrong; they are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best.

Fal. Will you tell me, master Shallow, how

tice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbull-street; and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at Clement's-inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when he was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife: he was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible: he was the very Genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called

of the fashion; and sung those tunes to the overscutched huswives that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware-they were his fancies, or his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger become a squire; and talks as familiarly of John of Gaunt, as if he had been sworn brother to him and I'll be sworn he never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head, for crouding among the marshal's men. I saw it; and told John of Gaunt, he beat his

all his apparel, into an eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a court; and now has he land and beeves. Well; I will be acquainted with him, if I return: and it shall go hard, but I will make him a philosopher's two stones to me: If the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason, in the law of nature, but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end, [Exit,

SCENE I.-A forest in Yorkshire. Enter the Archbishop of YORK, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and Others.

Arch. What is this forest call'd?

Hast. 'Tis Gualtree forest, an't shall please your grace.

Arch. Here stand, my lords; and send discoverers forth,

To know the numbers of our enemies.
Hast. We have sent forth already.
Arch. 'Tis well done.

My friends, and brethren in these great affairs,
I must acquaint you, that I have receiv'd
New-dated letters from Northumberland;
Their cold intent, tenour, and substance, thus:-
Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
As might hold sortance with his quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retir'd, to ripe his growing fortunes,
To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers,
That your attempts may overlive the hazard,
And fearful meeting of their opposite.
Mowb. Thus do the hopes we have in him
touch ground,

And dash themselves to pieces.

Enter a Messenger.

Hast. Now, what news?

Mess. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile, In goodly form comes on the enemy: And, by the ground they hide, I judge their

number

West. Health and fair greeting from our general,

The prince, lord John and duke of Lancaster. Arch. Say on, my lord of Westmoreland, in peace;

What doth concern your coming?

West. Then, my lord,

Unto your grace do I in chief address
The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rage,
And countenanc'd by boys, and beggary;
I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd,
In his true, native, and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords,
Had not been here, to dress the ugly form
Of base and bloody insurrection
With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop,-
Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd;
Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd;
Whose learning and good letters peace hath tu
tor'd;

Whose white investments figure innocence,
The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,-
Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself,
Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war?
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
Your pens to lances; and your tongue divine
To a loud trumpet, and a point of war?

Arch. Wherefore do I this ?-so the question stands.

Briefly to this end :-We are all diseas'd;
And, with our surfeiting, and wanton hours,
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it: of which disease
Our late king, Richard, being infected, died,
But, my most noble lord of Westmoreland,
I take not on me here as a physician;
Nor do I, as an enemy to peace,
Troop in the throngs of military men :
But, rather, show a while like fearful war,
To diet rank minds, sick of happiness;
And purge the obstructions, which begin to stop

We come within our awful banks again,
And knit our powers to the arm of peace.
West. This will I show the general. Please
you, lords,

In sight of both our battles we may meet:
And either end in peace, which heaven so frame!
Gr to the place of difference call the swords
Which must decide it.

Arch. My lord, we will do so.

[Exit Westmoreland. Mowb. There is a thing within my bosom, tells me,

That no conditions of our peace can stand.
Hast. Fear you not that: if we can make our
peace

Upon such large terms, and so absolute,
As our conditions shall consist upon,
Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
Mowb. Ay, but our valuation shall be such,
That every slight and false-derived cause,
Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason,
Shall, to the king, taste of this action:
That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,
We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind,
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff,
And good from bad find no partition.

Arch. No, no, my lord; Note this,-the king is weary

Of dainty and such picking grievances:
For he hath found, to end one doubt by death,
Revives two greater in the heirs of life.
And therefore will he wipe his tables clean;
And keep no tell-tale to his memory,
That may repeat and history his loss
To new remembrance: For full well he knows,
He cannot so precisely weed this land,
As his misdoubts present occasion:
His foes are so enrooted with his friends,
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfasten so, and shake a friend.
So that this land, like an offensive wife,
That hath enrag'd him on to offer strokes ;
As he is striking, holds his infant up,
And hangs resolv'd correction in the arm,
That was uprear'd to execution.

Hast. Besides, the king hath wasted all his

rods

SCENE II.-Another part of the forest.

Enter, from one side, MOWBRAY, the Archbishop, HASTINGS, and others; from the other side, Prince JOHN of LANCASTER, WESTMORELAND, Officers, and Attendants.

P. John. You are well encounter'd here, my
cousin Mowbray :-

Good day to you, gentle lord archbishop ;-
And so to you, lord Hastings,-and to all.-
My lord of York, it better show'd with you,
When that your flock, assembled by the bell,
Encircled you, to hear with reverence
Your exposition on the holy text;
Than now to see you here an iron man,
Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum,
Turning the word to sword, and life to death.
That man, that sits within a monarch's heart,
And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,
Would he abuse the countenance of the king,
Alack, what mischiefs might he set abroach,
In shadow of such greatness! With you, lord
bishop,

It is even so :-
:-Who hath not heard it spoken,
How deep you were within the books of God?
To us, the speaker in bis parliament;
To us, the imagin'd voice of God himself;
The very opener, and intelligencer,
Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven,
And our dull workings: O, who shall believe,
But you misuse the reverence of your place;
Employ the countenance and grace of heaven,
As a false favourite doth his prince's name,
In deeds dishonourable? You have taken up,
Under the counterfeited zeal of God,
The subjects of his substitute, my father;
And, both against the peace of heaven and him,
Have here up-swarm'd them.

Arch. Good my lord of Lancaster,
I am not here against your father's peace:
But, as I told my lord of Westmoreland,
The time misorder'd doth, in common sense,
Croud us, and crush us, to this monstrous form,
To hold our safety up. I sent your grace
The parcels and particulars of our grief;
The which hath been with scorn shov'd from
the court,

Whereon this Hydra son of war is born: Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep,

With grant of our most just and right desires; And true obedience, of this madness cur'd, Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.

Mowb. If not, we ready are to try our fortunes To the last man.

Hast. And though we here fall down, We have supplies to second our attempt; If they miscarry, theirs shall second them;