POINS. Put on two leather jerkins, and aprons, and wait upon him at his table as drawers.

P. HEN. From a god to a bull? a heavy descension! it was Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice? a low transformation! that shall be mine: for in every thing, the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned.

SCENE III.

Warkworth. Before the Castle.

[Exeunt.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, Lady NORTHUMBERLAND, and Lady PERCY.

NORTH. I pray thee, loving wife and gentle daughter,

4 Put on two leather jerkins,] This was a plot very unlikely to succeed where the Prince and the drawers were all known; but it produces merriment, which our author found more useful than probability. JOHNSON.

Johnson forgets that all the family were in the secret, except Falstaff; and that the Prince and Poins were disguised.

M. MASON.

But how does this circumstance meet with Dr. Johnson's objection? The improbability arises from Falstaff's being perfectly well acquainted with all the waiters in the house; and however disguised the Prince and Poins might be, or whatever aid they might derive from the landlord and his servants, they could not in fact pass for the old attendants, with whose person, voice, and manner, Falstaff was well acquainted. Accordingly he discovers the Prince as soon as ever he speaks. However, Shakspeare's chief object was to gain an opportunity for Falstaff to abuse the Prince and Poins, while they remain at the back part of the stage in their disguises: a jeu de theatre which he practised in other plays, and which always gains applause. MALONE.

5 — a heavy DESCENSION!] Descension is the reading of the first edition.

Mr. Upton proposes that we should read thus by transposition : 'From a god to a bull? a low transformation!-from a prince to a prentice? a heavy declension!' This reading is elegant, and perhaps right. JOHNSON.

Give even way unto my rough affairs:

Put not you on the visage of the times,
And be, like them, to Percy troublesome.

LADY N. I have given over, I will speak no more. Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide. NORTH. Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn; And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.

LADY P. O, yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars!

The time was, father, that you broke your word,
When you were more endear'd to it than now ;
When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,
Threw many a northward look, to see his father
Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain".
Who then persuaded you to stay at home?
There were two honours lost; yours, and your son's.
For yours, may heavenly glory brighten it!
For his, it stuck upon him, as the sun

In the grey vault of heaven: and, by his light,
Did all the chivalry of England move

To do brave acts; he was, indeed, the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
He had no legs, that practised not his gait ;

6 Threw many a northward look, to see his father Bring up his powers; but he did LONG in vain.] Mr. Theobald very elegantly conjectures that the poet wrote,

66

but he did look in vain."

Statius, in the tenth Book of his Thebaid, has the same thought: frustra de colle Lycæi

Anxia prospectas, si quis per nubila longe

Aut sonus, aut nostro sublatus ab agmine pulvis.

STEEVENS.

7 In the GREY vault of heaven :] So, in one of our author's poems to his mistress:

"And truly, not the morning sun of heaven
"Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east," &c.
STEEVENS.

8 He had no legs, &c.] The twenty-two following lines are of those added by Shakspeare after his first edition. POPE. They were first printed in the folio, 1623. MALONE.

And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
Became the accents of the valiant";

For those that could speak low, and tardily,
Would turn their own perfection to abuse,
To seem like him: So that, in speech, in gait,
In diet, in affections of delight,

In military rules, humours of blood,

He was the mark and glass, copy and book,
That fashion'd others'. And him,-O wondrous
him!

O miracle of men !-him did you leave,
(Second to none, unseconded by you,)
To look upon the hideous god of war
In disadvantage; to abide a field,

Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name
Did seem defensible 2:—so you left him:
Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong,
To hold your honour more precise and nice
With others, than with him; let them alone;

9 And SPEAKING THICK, which nature made his blemish, Became the accents of the valiant;] Speaking thick is, speaking fast, crouding one word on another. So, in Cymbeline: say, and speak thick,

66

"Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing-." "Became the accents of the valiant" is, 66 came to be affected by them, a sense which (as Mr. M. Mason observes) is confirmed by the lines immediately succeeding:

"For those that could speak low, and tardily,

"Would turn their own perfection to abuse,

"To seem like him

The opposition designed by the adverb tardily, also serves to support my explanation of the epithet thick. STEEvens.

He was the mark and GLASS, copy and вOOK,

That fashion❜d others.] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece, 1594:

"For princes are the glass, the school, the book,
"Where subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look."
MALONE.

2 Did seem DEFENSIBLE:] Defensible does not in this place mean capable of defence, but bearing strength, furnishing the means of defence; the passive for the active participle. MALONE.

The marshal, and the archbishop, are strong.
Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,
Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave.

NORTH.

Beshrew your heart,

Fair daughter! you do draw my spirits from me,
With new lamenting ancient oversights.

But I must go, and meet with danger there;
Or it will seek me in another place,

And find me worse provided.

LADY N.
O, fly to Scotland.
Till that the nobles, and the armed commons,
Have of their puissance made a little taste.

LADY P. If they get ground and vantage of the king,

Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,
To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
First let them try themselves: So did your son ;
He was so suffer'd; so came I a widow;
And never shall have length of life enough,
To rain upon remembrance3 with mine eyes,
That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,
For recordation to my noble husband.

NORTH. Come, come, go in with me: 'tis with my mind,

As with the tide swell'd up unto its height,
That makes a still-stand, running neither way.
Fain would I go to meet the archbishop,
But many thousand reasons hold me back:-

3 To rain upon REMEMBRANCE] Alluding to the plant rosemary, so called, and used in funerals.

Thus, in The Winter's Tale:

66 For you there's rosemary and rue, these keep

Seeming and savour all the winter long:

"Grace and remembrance be to you both," &c.

For as rue was called herb of grace, from its being used in exorcisms; so rosemary was called remembrance, from its being a cephalic. WARBURTON.

I will resolve for Scotland; there am I,
Till time and vantage crave my company.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

London. A Room in the Boar's Head Tavern, in Eastcheap*.

Enter Two Drawers.

1 DRAW. What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-Johns? thou know'st sir John cannot endure an apple-John".

2 DRAW. Mass, thou sayest true: The prince once set a dish of apple-John's before him: and told him, there were five more sir Johns: and, putting off his hat, said, I will now take my leave of

4-Boar's Head Tavern, in Eastcheap.] Shakspeare (as 1 learn from my friend Mr. Petrie), has with propriety selected the Boar's Head in Eastcheap, for the scene of Prince Henry's merry meetings, as it was near his own residence: "A mansion called Cold-harbour (near All-hallows Church, Upper Thames Street, three minutes walk from the Boar's Head) was granted to Henry Prince of Wales, 11 Henry IV. (1410)." Rymer, vol, viii. p. 628, London edit. BosWELL.

San APPLE-JOHN.] So, in The Ball, by Chapman and Shirley, 1639:

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thy man, Apple-John, that looks

"As he had been a sennight in the straw,
"A ripening for the market,"

Thus,

This apple will keep two years, but becomes very wrinkled and shrivelled. It is called by the French,-Deux-ans. Cogan, in his Haven of Health, 1595: "The best apples that we have in England are pepins, deusants, costards, darlings, and such other." Again, among instructions given in the year 1580 to some of our navigators, "for banketting on shipboard persons of credite," we meet with the apple John that dureth two yeares, to make shew of our fruits. See Hackluyt, vol. i. p. 441. STEEVENS.

Falstaff has already said of himself, I am withered like an old apple-John. See vol. xvi. p. 336. BOSWELL.