I'll tell thee what, thou damned tripevisaged rascal; an the child I now go with, do miscarry, thou hadst better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou paper faced villain. Host. O the Lord, that sir John were come! he would make this a bloody day to someDody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb miscarry!

1 Bead. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again: you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for the man is dead, that you and Pistol beat

among you.

Dol. I'll tell thee what, thou thin man in a censer! I will have you as soundly swinged for this, you blue-bottle rognet! you filthy famished correctioner! if you be not swinged, I'll forswear half-kirtles.

1 Beard, Come, come, you she knight-errant,

come.

Host. O, that right shonld thus overcome might! Well; of sufferance comes ease.

Del. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to
justice.

Host. Ay come, you starved blood-hound.
Dol. Goodman death! goodman bones!
Hest. Thou atomy thou!

Dot. Come, you thin thing; come, you rascal!
1 Bead. Very well.
[Exeunt.
SCENE V. A Public Place near West
minster Abbey.

Enter Two Grooms, strewing Rushes. 1 Groom. More rashes, more rushes. 2 Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice. 1 Groom. It will be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation: Despatch, despatch. [Exeunt Grooms. Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and the Page.

Pist. 'Tis semper idem, for absque hoc nihil est : 'Tis all in every part.

Shal. 'Tis so, indeed.

[liver, Pist. My knight, I will inflame thy noble And make thee rage.

Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
Is in base durance, and contagious prison;
Hani'd thither

By most mechanical and dirty hand :-
Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell
Alecto's snake,

For Doll is in; Pistol speaks nought but truth.
Fal. I will deliver her.

[Shouts within, and the Trumpets sound.
Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-
clangor sounds.

Enter the King and his Train, the Chief
Justice among them.

Fal. God save thy grace, king Hal! my royal Hal!

Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!

vain man.

Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy! King. My lord chief justice, speak to that [what 'tis yon speak? Ch. Just. Have you your wits? know you Fal. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart! [thy prayers; King. I know thee not, old man: Fall to I have long dream'd of such a kind of man, How ill white hairs become a fool, and jester! So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane; But, being awake, I do despise my dream. Make less thy body, hence, and more thy grace; [gape Leave gormandizing; know, the grave doth For thee thrice wider than for other men:Reply not to me with a fool-born jest; Presume not, that I am the thing I was: For heaven doth know, so thall the world perceive,

Fal. Stand here by me, master Robert Ebatlow; I will make the king do you grace: That I have turn'd away my former self; I will leer upon him, as 'a comes by; and do So will I those that kept me company. but mark the countenance that he will give me. When thou dost hear I am as I have been, Pist. God bless thy lungs, good knight. Approach me; and thou shalt be as thou wast Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind meThe tutor and the feeder of my riots: O, if I had had time to have made new live-Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,ries, I would have bestowed the thousand As I have done the rest of my misleaders,— pound I borrowed of you. [To SHALLOW.] Not to come near our person by ten mile. But 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this doth infer the zeal I had to see him. For competence of life, I will allow you, That lack of means enforce you not to evil: Shal. It doth so. And, as we hear you do reform yourselves, We will, according to your strength, and qualities,finy lord, Give you advancement.-Be it your charge, To see perform'il the tenor of our word.Set on. [Exeunt King, and his Train. Ful. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.

Fol. It shows my earnestness of affection.
Shal. It doth 80.

Fal. My devotion.

Shal. It doth, it doth, it doth.

Fat. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me.

Shal. It is most certain.

Fal. But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with desire to see him: thinking of nothing else; putting all affairs else in oblivion; as if there were nothing else to be done,

bat to see bim.

Shai. Ay, marry, sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me.

Fal. That can hardly be, master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him: look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancement; I + Beadles usually wore a blue livery. Short ¶ Henceforward. Child, offspring.

To stuff her out to counterfeit pregnancy.
cloaks. "Tis all in all, and all in every part.

will be the man yet, that shall make you great.

Shal. I cannot perceive how; unless you give me your doublet, and stuff me out with straw. I beseech yon, good sir John, let me have five hundred of my thonsand.

Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word:
this that you heard, was but a colour.
Shal. A colour, I fear, that you will die in,
sir John.

Ful. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner.
Come, lieutenant Pistol;-come, Bardolph:-
I shall be sent for soon at night.
Re-enter Prince JOHN, the Chief Justice,
Officers, &c.

Ch. Just. Go, carry sir John Falstaff to the
Take all his company along with him. [Fleet;
Fal. My lord, my lord,

Ch. Just. I cannot now speak: I will hear Take them away. [you soon. Pist. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta. [Exeunt FAL., SHAL., PIST.,

BARD., Page, and Officers.

P. John. I like this fair proceeding of the
He hath intent, his wonted followers [king's:
Shall all be very well provided for;
But all are banish'd, till their conversations
Appear more wise and modest to the world.
Ch. Just. And so they are. [ment, my lord.
P. John. The king hath call'd his parlia
Ch. Just. He hath,
[expire,

P. John. I will lay odds,-that, ere this year
We bear our civil swords, and native fire,
As far as France: I heard a bird so sing,
Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king.
Come, will you hence?
[Exeunt.

EPILOGUE SPOKEN BY A DANCER.

First, my fear; then, my court'sy: last, my speech. My fear is, your displeasure, my court'sy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say, is of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say, will, I doubt, prove mine own murring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, (as it is very well,) I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this: which, if, like an til venture, il come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bute me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.

If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment,-to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so will 1. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly.

One word more. I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and made you merry with fair Catharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is wary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you;-but, indeed, to pray for the queen*.

Most of the ancient interludes conclude with a prayer for the King or Queen. Hence, perhaps, the Vivant Rex et Regina, at the bottom of our modern play-bills.

I fancy every reader, when he ends this play, cries out with Desdemona, "O most lame and impotent conclusion!" As this play was not, to our knowledge, divided into Acts by the Author, I could be content to conclude it with the death of Henry the Fourth:

"In that Jerusalem shall Harry die."

These scenes, which now make the fifth Act of Henry the Fourth, might then be the first of Henry the Fifth; but the truth is, that they do not quite very commodiously to either play. When these plays were represented, I believe they ended as they are now ended in the books; but Shakspeare seems to have designed that the whole series of action, from the beginning of Richard the Second, to the end of Henry the Firth, should be considered by the reader as one work upon oue plan, only broken into parts by the necessity of exhibition.

Mr. Upton thinks these two plays improperly called the First and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth. The first play ends, he says, with the peaceful settlement of Henry in the king. dom by the defeat of the rebels. This is hardly true: for the rebels are not yet finally sup pressed. The second, he tells us, shows Henry the Fath in the various lights of a good-natured rake, till, on his father's death, he assumes a more manly character. This is true; but this representation gives us no idea of a dramatic action. These two plays wid appear to every reader, who shall peruse them without ambition of critical discoveries, to be so connected, that the second is merely a sequel to the first; to be two only because they are too long to be

one.-JOHNSON,

and fire,

CHARLES the SIXTH, King of France.
LEWIS, the Dauphin.

Dukes of Burgundy, Orleans, and Bourben.
The Constable of France.

RAMBURES and GRANDPREE, French Lords,
Governor of Harfleur. MONTJOY, a French
- Herald.

Ambassadors to the King of England.

KATHARINE, daughterof Charles and Isabel.
ALICE, a lady attending on the Princess
Katharine.

ISABEL, Queen of France.

QUICKLY, Pistol's wife, an hostess.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and English
Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants.

The Scene, at the beginning of the Play,
lies in England; but afterwards, wholly
in France.

Enter CHORUS.

O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and, at his heels,
Leash'd in like honnds, should famine, sword,
[all,
Cronch for employment. But pardon, genties
The flat unraised spirit, that hath dared,
On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth
So great an object: Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden (), the very casques t
That did alright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest, in little place, a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,

On your imaginary forces work:
Suppose, within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous, narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance:
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our
kings,

ACT

SCENE I. London. An Ante-chamber in
the King's Palace.

Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and
Bishop of Ely.

Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times;
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour glass. For the which supply,
Admit me chorus to this history; (pray
Who, prologue-like, your humble patience
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

I.

Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,
But that the scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of further question §.
Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it
[against ns
If it pass

now?
Cant. It must be thought on.
[reign We lose the better half of our possession:

Can. My lord, I'll tell you,-that self bill is urged, Which, in the eleventh year o' the last king's For all the temporal lands, which men devont

• An allusion to the circular form of the theatre.

Powers of fancy.

+ Helmets.

Debate.

My learned lord, we pray you to proceed;
And justly and religiously unfold,
Why the law Salique, that they have in France,
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim.
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your
reading,

Or nicely charge your understanding sonl
With opening titles miscreate, whose sight
Suits not in native colours with the truth;
For God doth know, how many, now in health,
Shall drop their blood in approbation
Of what your reverence shall incite us to: [son,
Therefore take heed how you impawn our per-
How you awake the sleeping sword of war;
We charge you in the name of God, take heed:
For never two such kingdoms did contend,
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint, [drops
'Gainst him, whose wrongs give edge unto the
swords

Lorain:

Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son Of Charles the great. Also king Lewis the tenthWho was sole heir to the usurper Capet, Could not keep quiet in his conscience, Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied That fair queen isabel, his grandmother, Was lineal of the lady Ermengare, Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of [great By the which marriage, the line of Charles the Was re-united to the crown of France. So that, as clear as is the summer's sun, King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim, King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear To hold in right and title of the female: So do the kings of France unto this day; Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law, To bar your highness claiming from the female; And rather choose to hide them in a net, Than amply to imbare their crooked titles Usurped from you and your progenitors. K. Hen. May 1, with right and conscience, make this claim? [reign! Cant. The sin upon my head. dread soveFor in the book of Numbers is it writ,When the son dies, let the inheritance Descend unto the daughter. Gracions lord, Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag: [tomb, Look back unto your mightv ancestors: Go, my dread ford, to your great grandsire's From whom you claim; invoke his warlike [prince; spirit, And your great uncle's, Edward the black Where Charles the great, having subdued the Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,

That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord:
And we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
That what you speak is in your conscience
As pure as sin with baptism.
[wash'd
Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign,-
and you peers,

That owe your lives, your faith, and services,
To this imperial throne;-1 here is no bar
To make against your highness' claim to France,
But this, which they produce from Phara-

mond,

In terram Salicam mulieres nè succedant,
No woman shall succeed in Sulique land:
Which Salique land the French unjustly glozet,
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm,
That the land Salique lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe:

Saxons,

There left behind and settled certain French;
Who, holding in disdain the German women,
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Establish'd there this law, to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land;
Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
Is at this day in Germany call'd-Meisen.
Thus doth it well appear, the Salique law
Was not devised for the realm of France:
Nor did the French possess the Salique land
Until four hundred one and twenty years
After defunction of king Pharamond,
Idly supposed the founder of this law;
Who died within the year of our redemption
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charlesthe great
Subdued the axons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year

Making defeat on the full power of France;
Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling; to bi hold his lion's whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility T.
O noble English, that could entertain
With half their forces the full pride of France;
And let another half stand laughing by,

All out of work, and cold for action!

[dead,

Ey. Awake remembrance of these valiant
And with your puissant arm renew their feats:
You are their heir, you sit upon their throne;
The blood and courage, that renowned them,
Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant
Is in the very May-morn of his youth, [liege
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.
Exe. Your brother kings and monarchs or
the earth

Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,

Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say, As did the former lions of your blood.

King Pepin, which deposed Childerick,

Did, as heir general, being descended [thair,

West. They know, your grace hath cause, and means, and might;

Of Blith id, which was daughter to king Clo- So hath your highness; never king of England Make claim and title to the crown of France. Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects;

Hugh Capet also, that usurped the crown
Of Charles the duke of Lorain, sole heir male
Of the true line and stock of Charles the great,
To fine; his title with some show of truth,

Whose hearts have left their bodies here in Eng-
And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France. [land,
Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear
liege,

[right:

(Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and With blood, and sword, and fire, to win your

nanght), Convey'd himself

• Spurious.

as heir to the lady Lingare,

+ Explain.

Lay open.

In aid whereof, we of the spiritualty
Will raise your highness such a mighty sum,

↑ Make showy or specions.
At the battle of Cressy.

2 U

Derived his title.