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picked. [Knocking within.] More knock-
ing at the door!

Re-enter Bardolph.

How now! what's the matter?

Bard. You must away to court, sir, presently; A dozen captains stay at door for you. Fal. [To the Page] Pay the musicians, sirrah. Farewell, hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches, how men of merit are sought after: the undeserver may sleep, 420 when the man of action is called on. Farewell, good wenches: if I be not sent away post, I will see you again ere I go.

Dol. I cannot speak; if my heart be not ready to burst, well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.

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Fal. Farewell, farewell.

[Exeunt Falstaff and Bardolph. Host. Well, fare thee well: I have known thee these twenty nine years, come peascod-time; but an honester and truer-hearted man,- 430 well, fare thee well.

Bard. [Within] Mistress Tearsheet!
Host. What's the matter?

Bard. [Within] Bid Mistress Tearsheet come
to my master.

Host. O, run, Doll, run; run, good Doll: come. [She comes blubbered.] Yea, will you come, Doll?

[Exeunt.

ACT THIRD

SCENE I

Westminster. The palace.

Enter the King in his nightgown, with a Page.

King. Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;

But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these
letters,

And well consider of them: make good speed.
[Exit Page.
How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle

sleep,

Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy
slumber,

Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?

10

1. The whole scene omitted in Q. 1 (i. e. the earlier copies of the edition).-I. G.

O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
And in the visitation of the winds,

20

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging
them

With deafening clamor in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

31

15. “why liest thou," etc.; the most probable meaning of this obscure passage is, that the kingly couch, when sleep has left it, is as the case or box which shelters the watchman; or as the common bell that is to sound the alarm and rouse the sleeping people at the coming of danger. Strutt, however, in his Manners and Customs, cites from an old inventory a passage that may fit the text with a different explanation: "Item, a laume or watch of iron, in an iron case, with two leaden plumets." Knight remarks, that "by this laume or watch of iron, we are to understand the instrument now called an alarm, a machine attached to a clock so as to ring at a certain hour." And he adds, "It is difficult to say whether Shakespeare means by the watch-case the box of a sentinel, and by the common 'larum bell, the alarm bell which is rung out in cases of danger; or whether the watch-case is the covering of an instrument which gives motion to the bell of an alarum."-H. N. H.

25. "that"; so that.-C. H. H.

30. "Then happy low, lie down!"; Q. reads "Then (happy) low lie downe." Coleridge suggested “Then, happy low-lie-down"; Warburton, "happy lowly clown." The Folio seems to make the meaning

Enter Warwick and Surrey.

War. Many good morrows to your majesty!
King. Is it good morrow, lords?

War. 'Tis one o'clock, and past.

King. Why, then, good morrow to you all, my lords.

Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you? War. We have, my liege.

King. Then you perceive the body of our kingdom How foul it is; what rank diseases grow,

And with what danger, near the heart of it. 40 War. It is but as a body yet distemper'd;

Which to his former strength may be restored
With good advice and little medicine:

My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd. King. O God! that one might read the book of fate,

And see the revolution of the times

Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself

Into the sea! and, other times, to see

The beachy girdle of the ocean

50

Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,

And changes fill the cup of alteration

With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,

quite clear:-"Then happy Lowe, lye downe"; "low" is used substantively, "You who are happy in your humble situations, lay down your heads to rest," etc.-I. G.

43. "little"; i. e. “a little.”—I. G.

50. "ocean"; (three syllables).-C. H. H.

53-56. Omitted in Ff.-I. G.

The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,

What perils past, what crosses to ensue,

Would shut the book, and sit him down and die. "Tis not ten years gone

Since Richard and Northumberland, great
friends,

Did feast together, and in two years after
Were they at wars: it is but eight years since 60
This Percy was the man nearest my soul;
Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs,
And laid his love and life under my foot;
Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
Gave him defiance. But which of you was

by

You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember

[To Warwick. When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,

55. The sense of this whole line is evidently future. “What perils being past, what crosses are to ensue"; that is, what crosses will still await us, when we shall have passed through how great perils. This note were needless, but that Dr. Johnson took upon him to misunderstand the line.-H. N. H.

60. “but eight years since”; this would bring the supposed historic date of this scene to 1407. The death of Glendower, reported at 1. 103, happened according to Holinshed in 1408-1409 (actually in 1415).-C. H. H.

65. "but which of you was by-"; the reference here is to Act v. sc. 1 of King Richard II, where Northumberland visits Richard in the Tower, to order his removal to Pomfret. The Poet had probably forgotten that Bolingbroke had already mounted the throne, and that neither he nor Warwick was present at the interview referred .to, unless the latter were among the attendants of Northumberland, as he is not named among the Dramatis Persona.-H. N. H.

66. "cousin Nevil"; the earldom of Warwick did not come into the family of the Nevilles till the latter part of the reign of Henry VI; at this time it was in the family of Beauchamp.-I. G.

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