P. HEN. Give it me: what, is it in the case? FAL. Ay, Hal; 'tis hot, 'tis hot ; there's that will sack a city.

[The PRINCE draws out a bottle of sack. P. HEN. What, is it a time to jest and dally now? [Throws it at him and exit. FAL. Well, if Percy be alive, I'll pierce him. If he do come in my way, so; if he do not, if I come in his willingly, let him make a carbonado of me. I like not such grinning honour as sir Walter hath. Give me life; which if I can save, so; if not, honour comes unlooked for, and there's an end.

[Exit.

P. JOHN. We breathe too long:-come, cousin Westmoreland,

*

Our duty this way lies; for God's sake, come.
[Exeunt PRINCE JOHN and WESTMORELAND,
P. HEN. By heaven, thou hast deceiv'd me,
Lancaster;

I did not think thee lord of such a spirit:
Before, I lov'd thee as a brother, John;
But now, I do respect thee as my soul.

K. HEN. I saw him hold lord Percy at the point,

With lustier maintenance than I did look for
Of such an ungrown warrior.
P. HEN.

Lends mettle to us all!

O, this boy

[Erit.

Alarums. Enter DOUGLAS.

DOUG. Another king! they grow like Hydra's heads:

I am the Douglas, fatal to all those

That wear those colours on them.-What art thou,

That counterfeit'st the person of a king?

K. HEN. The king himself; who, Douglas,
grieves at heart,

So many of his shadows thou hast met,
And not the very king. I have two boys
Seek Percy, and thyself, about the field:
But seeing thou fall'st on me so luckily,
I will assay thee; so defend thyself.

DOUG. I fear, thou art another counterfeit ; And yet, in faith, thou bear'st thee like a king: But mine, I am sure, thou art, whoe'er thou be, And thus I win thee.

[They fight; the KING being in danger, enter PRINCE HENRY.

P. HEN. Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like

Never to hold it up again! the spirits
Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt, are in my

And show'd, thou mak'st some tender of my life, In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.

P. HEN. O God, they did me too much injury,
That ever said, I hearken'd for † your death.
If it were so, I might have let alone

The insulting hand of Douglas over you;
Which would have been as speedy in your end,
As all the poisonous potions in the world,
And sav'd the treacherous labour of your son.
K. HEN. Make up to Clifton, I'll to Sir Nicholas
Gawsey.
[Exit KING HENRY.

Enter HOTSPUR. HOT. If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.

P. HEN. Thou speak'st as if I would deny my

(*) First folio, Heaven. (t) First folio, the. with a faculty of prevision, is of high antiquity. Allusions to it are met with in the Scriptures, and in many of the early Greek writers. Shakespeare has before illustrated the superstition in "Richard II." Act II. Sc. 1, when John of Gaunt, upon his deathbed, predicts the downfal of the reckless King:

"Methinks, I am a prophet new inspir'd,
And thus, expiring, do foretell of him."

P. HEN. For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee* well, great heart !—

Ill-weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk!
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now, two paces of the vilest earth

Is room enough. This earth, that bears thee dead,

Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.
If thou wert sensible of courtesy,

I should not make so deart a show of zeal :
But let my favours hide thy mangled face,
And, even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself
For doing these fair rites of tenderness.
Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven!
Thy ignomy sleep with thee in the grave,
But not remember'd in thy epitaph!

b

[He sees FALSTAFF on the ground. What old acquaintance! could not all this flesh. Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell! I could have better spar'd a better man. O, I should have a heavy miss of thee, If I were much in love with vanity. Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day, Though many dearer, in this bloody fray: Embowell'd will I see thee by and by; Till then, in blood by noble Percy lie.

[Exit.

FAL. [Rising slowly.] Embowelled! if thou embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave to powder me, and eat me too, to-morrow. 'Sblood, 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I lie,§ I am no counterfeit: to die, is to be a counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man, who hath not the life of a man: but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is, discretion; in the which better part, I have saved my life. 'Zounds,|| I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How if he should counterfeit too, and rise? By my faith,¶ I am afraid, he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure: yea, and I'll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise, as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me therefore, sirrah, [Stabbing him.] with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with** me. [Takes HOTSPUR on his back.

Re-enter PRINCE HENRY and PRINCE JOHN.

P. HEN. Come, brother John; full bravely hast thou flesh'd

Thy maiden sword.

P. JOHN. But, soft! whom have we here? Did you not tell me this fat man was dead? P. HEN. I did; I saw him dead, Breathless and bleeding on the ground.Art thou alive? or is it fantasy

That plays upon our eyesight? I pr'ythee. speak;

We will not trust our eyes, without our ears:Thou art not what thou seem'st.

FAL. No, that's certain; I am not a double man but if I be not Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There is Percy: [Throwing the body down.] if your father will do me any honour, so; if not. let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you. P. HEN. Why, Percy I killed myself, and saw thee dead.

FAL. Didst thou?-Lord, Lord, how this+ world is given to lying!-I grant you, I was down, and out of breath; and so was he: but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them, that should reward valour, bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh: if the man were alive, and would deny it, 'zounds !§ I would make him eat a piece of my sword.

P. JOHN. This is the strangest tale that e'er I heard.

P. HEN. This is the strangest fellow, brother
John.-

Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back:
For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,
I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have.

[A retreat is sounded.

The trumpet sounds || retreat, the day is ours.
Come, brother, let's to the highest of the field,
To see what friends are living, who are dead.

[Exeunt PRINCE HENRY and PRINCE JOHN. FAL. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him!! If I do grow ,** I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do. [Exit, bearing off the body.

SCENE V. Another part of the Field.

The trumpets sound. Enter KING HENRY, PRINCE HENRY, PRINCE JOHN, WESTMORELAND, and others, with WORCESTER and VERNON, pri

soners.

K. HEN. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.-
Ill-spirited Worcester! did not we
* send grace,
Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?
And would'st thou turn our offers contrary?
Misuse the tenor of thy kinsman's trust?
Three knights upon our party slain to-day,
A noble earl, and many a creature else,
Had been alive this hour,

If, like a Christian, thou hadst truly borne,
Betwixt our armies, true intelligence.

WOR. What I have done, my safety urg'd me

power.

You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland, Towards York shall bend you, with your dearest speed,

To meet Northumberland, and the prelate Scroop,
Who, as we hear, are busily in arms :
Myself, and you, son Harry.-will towards Wales,
To fight with Glendower, and the earl of March.
Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway,*
Meeting the check of such another day:
And since this business so fair is done,
Let us not leave till all our own be won.

(*) First folio, way.

"I thank your grace for this high courtesy, Which I shall give away immediately."

[Exeunt.

(1) SCENE II.—An apartment in a Tavern.] According to the modern cditions, the action of this scene takes place in a room of the king's palace. Now, not to dwell upon the improbability of the prince of Wales surrounding himself with licentious companions, and planning a vulgar robbery in such a place, we are compelled to infer that he was not in the practice of making the court his home. In the last Act of "Richard II." King Henry asks :—

"Can no man tell of my unthrifty son?

'Tis full three months since I did see him last."

And in a subsequent scene in the present play, when Falstaff personates the monarch, one of his inquiries, founded upon his knowledge of the prince's habits, is"Where hast thou been this month?"

(2) SCENE II.-Or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.] Steevens acutely conceived that the " drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe," meant the dull croak of a frog, one of the native minstrels of that fenny county; but it is more credible that Lincolnshire was celebrated for the making or playing on this instrument. In "A Nest of Ninnies," by Robert Armin, 1608, a Lincolnshire bagpipe is mentioned in a way to show it was familiarly known :"At a Christmas time, when great logs furnish the hallfire-when brawne is in season, and, indeede, all reveling is regarded, this gallant knight kept open house for all commers, where beefe, beere, and bread was no niggard. Amongst all the pleasures prouided, a noyse of minstrells and a Lincolnshire bagpipe was prepared-the minstrels for the great chamber, the bagpipe for the hall--the minstrells to serue vp the knight's meat, and the bagpipe for the common dauncing."

(3) SCENE II.-The melancholy of Moor-ditch.] Moorditch was a part of the great ditch or moat, which, with the well-known wall, surrounded and formed the defence of London. This ditch was begun in 1211, and finished in 1213. That portion of it known as Moor-ditch, extending from the Postern called Moorgate, to Bishopsgate, was cleansed and widened in 1595; but Stowe relates that it soon filled again, and, flanked as it was on the one side with miserable dwellings, and on the other by an unwholesome and sometimes impassable morass, it is easy to understand how the sombre, melancholy aspect of this filthy stream should have become proverbial. Taylor in his "Pennylesse Pilgrimage," 1618, says-" Walking thus downe the street, (my body being tyred with trauell, and my mind attyred with moody, muddy, Moore-ditch melancholly,") &c.

(4) SCENE II.-Wisdom cries out in the streets.] In the first folio, this scriptural expression is omitted, in compliance, it has been thought, with the Act 3 Jac. I.; but that Act, which we append, was restricted to preventing the profane use of the sacred names. The numberless omissions of phrases like the above, as well as "by my faith," "by my troth," 'by the mass," &c. &c. in the folio, must therefore be attributed not to the Act of Parliament in question, but to the increasing influence of the Puritans.

3 JAC. I. c. 21. AN ACTE TO RESTRAIN THE ABUSES OF PLAYERS, (1605-6.)

For the preventing and avoyding of the greate Abuse of the Holy Name of God in Stageplayes, Interludes Maygames Shewes and such like;-Be it enacted by our Soveraigne Lorde the Kings Majesty, and by the Lordes Spirituall and Temporall, and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authoritie of the same, That if at any tyme or tymes, after the end of this present Session of Parliament any person or persons doe or shall in any Stage play Interlude Shewe Maygame or Pageant jest ingly or prophanely speake or use the holy Name of God or of Christ Jesus, or of the Holy Ghoste or of the Trinitie, which are not to be spoken but with feare and reverence, shall forfeite for everie such Offence by hym or them com itted Tenne Pounde, the one Moytie thereof to the Kings Majestie his Heires and Successors, the other Moytie thereof to hym or them that will sue for the same in any Courte of Recorde at Westminster, wherein no Essoigne Proteccion or Wager of Lawe shalbe allowed.

(5) SCENE II.-Gadskill.] This place, which is on the Kentish road near Rochester, appears at one time to have enjoyed the same kind of unenviable notoriety which ren dered Shooters Hill and Hounslow Heath the terror of travellers in later days. So early as 1558, a ballad was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company, entitled The Robbery at Gadshill, and there is still extant among the Lansdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum a cir cumstantial narrative in the handwriting of Sir Roger Manwood, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, dated July 3d. 1590, of the exploits of a daring gang of robbers, who at that period infested Gadshill and its vicinity. We extract a portion of this curious account; the whole of which may be seen in Boswell's edition of Malone's Shakespeare, vol. xvi. p. 432.

"In October, at begynninge of last Mychaelmas Terme. iij or iiij robberyes done at Gadeshill by certen foote theres, vppon hughe and crye, one of the Theves named Hachfeild flying and squatted in a bushe, was broughte to me, and vppon examynacion findinge a purse and things about him suspiciouse, and his cause of being there and his flyinge and other circumstances very suspiciouse, I commytted him to the Jayle, and he ys of that robberye indyted.

"In the course of that Michaelmas Terme, I being at London, many robberyes weare done in the hye waves at Gadeshill on the west parte of Rochester, and at Chatham downe on the east parte of Rochester, by horse theves, with suche fatt and lustye horses, as weare not lyke hackney horsses, nor farr jorneying horsses, and one of them sometyme wearing a vizarde greye bearde (by reason that to the persons robbed, the Theves did use to mynister an othe that there should bee no hue and crye made after, and also did gyve a watche woorde for the parties robbed, the better to escape other of their theves companye devyded vppon the hyghe-waye,) he was by common report in the country called Justice Greye Bearde; and no man durst travell that waye without great companye.

"After the end of that Mychaelmas Terme, iij or i gentn. from London rydinge home towardes Canterburye,