Ch. Just. Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound; your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gads-hill : you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'erposting that action.

Fal. My lord?

Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.

Fal. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a fox. Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.

Fal. A wassel candle, my lord; all tallow: if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

Ch. Just. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

Ch. Just. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.

I

Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me without weighing: and yet, in some respects, grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell: Virtue is of so little regard in these coster-monger times," that true valour is turned bear-herd: Pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth

6 A wassel candle, &c.] A wassel candle is a large candle lighted up at a feast. There is a poor quibble upon the word war, which signifies increase as well as the matter of the honey-comb.

I cannot go, I cannot tell:] I cannot be taken in a reckoning; I cannot pass current, as the coin called an angel, if good, would.

Bin these coster-monger times;] In these times when the prevalence of trade has produced that meanness that rates the merit of every thing by money. JOHNSON. 9-Pregnancy-Pregnancy is readiness.

a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young: you measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too

Ch. Just. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken? your wind short? your chin double? your wit single?' and every part about you blasted with antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fye, fye, fye, sir John!

Fal. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. For my voice,-I have lost it with hollaing, and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box o'the ear that the prince gave you,-he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it; and the young lion repents: marry, not in ashes, and sackcloth; but in new silk, and old sack.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven send the prince a better companion!

Fal. Heaven send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

Ch. Just. Well, the king hath severed you and prince Harry: I hear, you are going with lord John

2

your wit single?] or small.

- antiquity?] To use the word antiquity for old age, is not peculiar to Shakspeare.

of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland.

Fal. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day! for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, an I brandish any thing but my bottle, I would I might never spit white 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 always 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.3 Fare you well: Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland.

[Exeunt Chief Justice and Attendant. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.*

-you are too impatient to bear crosses.] A quibble seems here intended. Falstaff had just asked his lordship to lend him a thousand pound, and he tells him in return that he is not to be entrusted with money. A cross is a coin so called, because stamped with a cross.

fillip me with a three-man beetle.] A three-man beetle is an implement used for driving piles; it is made of a log of wood about eighteen or twenty inches diameter, and fourteen or fifteen inches thick, with one short and two long handles. A man at each of the long handles manages the fall of the beetle, and a third man, by the short handle, assists in raising it to strike the

-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 degrees 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 any thing; I will turn diseases to commodity. [Exit.

SCENE III.

York. A Room in the Archbishop's Palace.

Enter the Archbishop of York, the Lords HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH.

Arch. Thus have you heard our cause, and known

our means;

blow. Such an implement was, without doubt, very suitable for filliping so corpulent a being as Falstaff.

anticipate.

prevent my curses.] To prevent means, in this place, to

to commodity.] i. e. profit, self-interest.
DD

VOL. V.

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.

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.

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.

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.