will, upon all hazards, well believe Thou art my friend, that know'st my tongue so well. Who art thou? Faul. Who thou wilt: an if thou please, Thou may'st befriend me so much, as to think I come one way of the Plantagenets. Hub. Unkind remembrance! thou, and eyeless night, Have done me shame :-Brave soldier, pardon me, That any accent, breaking from thy tongue, Should 'scape the true acquaintance of mine ear. Faul. Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad? Faul. Brief, then; and what's the news? Hub. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night, Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible. Faul. Show me the very wound of this ill news; Hub. The king, I fear, is poison'd by a monk: Than if you had at leisure known of this. Faul. How did he take it? who did taste to him? Hub. Why, know you not? the lords are all come back, At whose request the king hath pardon'd them, And they are all about his majesty. Faul. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven, SCENE.-The Orchard of Swinstead-Abbey. Enter PRINCE HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT. P. Hen. It is too late; the life of all his blood Is touch'd corruptibly; and his pure brain (Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house,) Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, Foretell the ending of mortality. [Exeunt Enter PEMBROKE. Pem. His highness yet doth speak; and holds belief, That, being brought into the open air, It would allay the burning quality Of that fell poison which assaileth him. P. Hen. Let him be brought into the orchard here.Doth he still rage? Pem. Than when you He is more patient left him; even now he sung. Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, [Exit BIGOT. Confound themselves. "Tis strange, that death should sing. I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death; And, from the organ-pipe of frailty, sings His soul and body to their lasting rest. Sal. Be of good comfort, prince; for you are born To set a form upon that indigest, Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude. Re-enter BIGOT and Attendants, who bring in King John, in K. John. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room; P. Hen. How fares your majesty? K. John. Poison'd,-ill fare;-dead, forsook, cast off; And comfort me with cold:-I do not ask you much, P. Hen. O, that there were some virtue in my tears, K. John. Is, as a fiend, confin'd to tyrannize On unreprievable condemned blood. Enter FAULCONBRIDGE. Faul. O, I am scalded with my violent motion, K. John. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye: Faul. The dauphin is preparing hitherward; [The KING dias. Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear. Faul. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind, And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven, Now, now, you stars, that move in your right spheres, Where be your powers? Show now your mended faiths; And instantly return with me again, To push destruction, and perpetual shame, Out of the weak door of our fainting land: Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought; The dauphin rages at our very heels. Sal. It seems, you know not then so much as we: The cardinal Pandulph is within at rest, Who half an hour since came from the dauphin; Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already; With whom yourself, myself, and other lords, If you think meet, this afternoon will post Faul. Let it be so:-And you, my noble prince, P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interr'd; And happily may your sweet self put on And true subjection everlastingly. Sal. And the like tender of our love we make, To rest without a spot for evermore. P. Hen. I have a kind soul, that would give you thanks, And knows not how to do it, but with tears. Faul. O, let us pay the time but needful woe, Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.- But when it first did help to wound itself. And we shall shock them: Nought shall make us rue, [Exeunt KING HENRY IV. The chronicles of Hollingshed and Stowe, appear to have been the sources from which Shakspeare drew the materials for constructing his series of English Historica. Plays, adding, however, characters and incidents from his own teeming imagination, and heightening the real personages he introduces, with all the vivid touches of his excelling skill. In the first and second parts of Henry IV, appears that marvel of his creative genius, Falstaff,-who is aptly made the leader of the dissolute set of profligates which surrounded the young Prince, afterwards Henry V. An isolated extract could not do justice to this inimitable creation; we have, therefore, preferred to confine our selections to the historical incidents of the Play. "The transactions contained in it are comprised within the period of about ten months. The action commences with the news brought of Hotspur having defeated the Scots under Archibald earl of Douglas, at Holmedon (or Halidown-hill), which battle was fought on Holyrood day (the 14th of September), 1402; and it closes with the defeat and death of Hotspur at Shrewsbury; which engagement happened on Saturday the 21st of July (the eve of Saint Mary Magdalen), in the year 1403." |