Fal. Fare you well, gentlemen. On, Bardolph, lead the men away. As I return I will fetch off thefe Juftices: I do fee the bottom of Justice Shallow. How fubject we old men are to this vice of lying! this fame ftarv'd Justice hath done nothing but prated to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbal-ftreet; and every third word a lie, more duly paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at Clement's Inn, like a man made after fupper of a cheese-paring. When he was naked he was for all the world like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carv'd upon it with a knife. He was fo forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick fight were invifible. He was the very Genius of famine, yet leacherous as a Monkey, and the whores call'd him Mandrake: he came ever in the rereward of the fashion; and fung those tunes to the over-fcutcht huswives that he heard the carmen whistle, and fware they were his Fancies, or his Goodnights. And now is this Vice's dagger become a Squire, and talks as familiarly of John of Gaunt as if he had been fworn brother to him: and I'll be fworn he never faw him but once in the Tilt-yard, and then he broke his head for crouding among the Marshal's men. I faw it, and told John of Gaunt he beat his own name, for you might have trufs'd him and all his apparel into an Eel-skin: the cafe of a treble hoboy was a manfion for him; and now hath 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 philofopher's two ftones to me. If the young Dace be a bait for the old Pike, I fee no reafon in the law of nature but I may fnap at him. Let time shape, and there's an end.
ACT IV. SCENE I.
A Foreft in Yorkshire.
Enter the Archbishop of York, Mowbray, Hastings,, and Colevile.
York. WHAT is this foreft call'd?
Haft. "Tis Gaultree foreft.
York. Here ftand, my Lords, and send discoverers forth,
To know the numbers of our enemies.
Haft. We have fent forth already.
Tork. '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 he doth with his perfon, with fuch powers
As might hold fortance 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 over-live the hazard
And fearful meeting of their oppofite.
Mowb. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground, And dafh themselves to pieces.
Haft. Now, what news?
Melf. Weft of this foreft, fcarcely off a mile,
In goodly form comes on the enemy:
And by the ground they hide, I judge their number
Upon, or near, the rate of thirty thousand.
Mowb. The juft proportion that we gave them out, Let us sway on, and face them in the field.
SCENE II. Enter Weftmorland." York. What well-appointed leader fronts us here? Mowb. I think it is my Lord of. Westmorland. Weft. Health and fair greeting from our General, The Prince, Lord John, and Duke of Lancaster! York. Say on, my Lord of Westmorland, in peace: What doth concern your coming?
Weft. Then, my Lord,
Unto your Grace do I in chief address
The fubftance of my speech.
If that rebellion
Came like it felf, in bafe and abject routs,
Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rage,
And countenanc'd by boys and beggary ;
I fay, if damn'd Commotion fo 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 bafe and bloody infurrection
With your fair honours. You, my Lord Arch-bishop,
Whofe See is by a civil peace maintain'd,
Whose beard the filver hand of peace hath touch'd,
Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor❜d,
Whofe white investments figure innocence,
The Dove and very bleffed Spirit of peace;
Wherefore do you fo ill tranflate your felf,
Out of the speech of peace, that bears fuch grace,
Into the harsh and boift'rous tongue of war?
Turning your books to glaives, your ink to blood,
Your pens to launces, and your tongue divine
To a loud trumpet and a point of war?
York. Wherefore do I this? fo the question stands,
Briefly to this end: we are all difeas'd,
And with our furfeiting and wanton hours,
Have brought our felves into a burning feaver,
And we must bleed for it: of which disease
Our late King Richard being infected, dy'd.
But, my most noble Lord of Westmorland,
I take not on me here as a phyfician:
Nor do I as an enemy to peace,
Troop in the throngs of military men:
But rather new a while like fearful war,
To diet rank minds, fick of happiness,
And purge th' obftructions which begin to ftop
Our very veins of fe. Hear me more plainly.
I have in equal balance juftly weigh'd
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we fuffer,
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We fee which way the ftream of time doth run,
And are inforc'd from our moft quiet sphere,
By the rough torrent of occafion;
And have the fummary of all our griefs,
When time fhall ferve, to fhew in articles;
Which long ere this we offer'd to the King,
And might by no fuit gain our audience.
When we are wrong'd and would unfold our griefs,
We are deny'd accefs unto his person,
Ev'n by thofe men that most have done us wrong.
The danger of the day's but newly gone,
Whose memory is written on the earth
With yet-appearing blood; and the examples
Of every minute's inftance, prefent now,
Have put us in thefe ill-befeeming arms:
Not to break peace, or any branch of it,
But to establish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.
Weft. When ever yet was your appeal deny'd ?
Wherein have you been galled by the King?
What Peer hath been fuborn'd to grate on you,
That you fhould feal this lawless bloody book
Of forg'd rebellion with a feal divine ?
York. My brother General, the common-wealth
I make my quarrel in particular,
Weft. There is no need of any fuch redress;
Or if there were, it not belongs to you.
Mowb. Why not to him in part, and to us all,
That feel the bruifes of the days before,
And suffer the condition of these times
To lay an heavy and unequal hand
Upon our honours?
Weft. O my good Lord Mowbray,
Conftrue the times to their neceffities,
And you shall say, indeed, it is the time,
And not the King, that doth you injuries.
Yet, for your part, it not appears to me,
Or from the King, or in the present time,
That you should have an inch of any ground
To build a grief on. Were you not restor'd
To all the Duke of Norfolk's feigniories,
Your noble and right-well-remember'd father?
Mowb. What thing, in honour, had my father loft
That need to be reviv'd and breath'd in me?
The King that lov'd him, as the state stood then,
Was forc'd, perforce compell'd to banish him..
And then, when Henry Bolingbroke and he
Being mounted and both rowfed in their feats,
Their neighing courfers daring of the spur,
Their armed ftaves in charge, their beavers down,
Their eyes of fire sparkling through fights of fteel,
And the loud trumpet blowing them together;
Then, then, when there was nothing could have ftaid
My father from the breaft of Bolingbroke ;
O, when the King did throw his warder down,
His own life hung upon the staff he threw;
Then threw he down himself, and all their lives,
That by indictment or by dint of sword
Have fince mifcarried under Bolingbroke.
Weft. You fpeak, Lord Mowbray, now, you know not what.
The Earl of Hereford was reputed then
In England the most valiant gentleman.
Who knows on whom fortune would then have fmil'd?
But if your father had been victor there,
He ne'er had born it out of Coventry,
For all the country in a general voice
Cry'd hate upon him; all their prayers and love
Were fet on Hereford, whom they doted on,
And blefs'd and grac'd indeed more than the King.
But this is meer digreffion from my purpose.
Here come I from our princely General,
To know your griefs; to tell you from his Grace,
That he will give you audience; and wherein
It fhall appear that your demands are juft.
You fhall enjoy them; every thing set off
That might fo much as mark your enemies.
Mozub. But he hath forc'd us to compel this offer,
And it proceeds from policy, not love.
Weft. Mowbray, you over-ween to take it so a
This offer comes from mercy, not from fear.
For lo! within a ken our army lyes;
Upon mine honour, all too confident
To give admittance to a thought of fear.
Our battel is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best ;
Then reason wills, our hearts should be as good.
Say you not then our offer is compell'd.
Mowb. Well, by my will we shall admit no parley.
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