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 alway yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you 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.

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 Atten.

Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.—A man can no more separate age and covetousness than he can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and so both the diseases prevent my curses. -Boy!

Page. Sir?

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. It is 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 ARCH

BISHOP'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.

L. Bard. The question, then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus;

Whether our present five-and-twenty thousand

May hold up head without Northumberland?

Hast. With him, we may.

L. 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 uncertain, should not be admitted.

Arch. 'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for, indeed,

It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.

L. Bard. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,

Flattering himself with 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

To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.

L. Bard. Yes, in 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,
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.

L. 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.

Hast.

If he should do so,

He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh
Baying him at the heels: never fear that.

L. Bard. Who is it like should lead his forces hither?
Hast. The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland;
Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth:
But who is substituted 'gainst the French,

I have no certain notice.

Arch.

Let us on,

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 wouldst 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 wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,

And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these times?
They that, when Richard liv'd, would have him die,
Are now become enamour'd on his grave:

Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head,
When through proud London he came sighing on
After the admired heels of Bolingbroke,
Cry'st now, O earth, yield us that king again,
And take thou this! O thoughts of men accurst!
Past, and to come, seems best; things present, worst.
Mowb. Shall we go draw our numbers, and set on?
Hast. We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.
[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I.-LONDON. A Street.

Enter Hostess, FANG and his Boy with her, and SNARE

following.

Host. Master Fang, have you entered the action?

Fang. It is entered.

Host. Where is your yeoman?

will he stand to it?

Fang. Sirrah, where 's Snare?

Is it a lusty yeoman?

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 beastly: in good faith, he cares not what mischief 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. An I but fist him once; an he come but within my vice,

Host. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he is an infinitive thing upon my score:-good Master Fang, hold him sure;-good Master Snare, let him not scape. He comes continuantly to Piecorner, saving your manhoods, -to buy a saddle; and he is indited to dinner to the Lubber'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 brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought There is no honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong. Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices, Master Fang and Master Snare; do me, do me, do me your

on.

offices.

Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH.

Fal. How now! whose mare's dead? what's the matter?

Fang. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.

Fal. Away, varlets!-Draw, Bardolph: cut me off the villain's head; throw the quean in the channel.

Host. Throw me in the channel! I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue! -Murder, murder! O thou honeysuckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers and the king's? O thou honeyseed rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a man-queller and a woman-queller.

Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph.

Fang. A rescue! a rescue!

Host. Good people, bring a rescue or two.-Thou wo't, wo't thou? thou wo't, wo't thou? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!

Fal. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe.