HOST. All victuallers do so: what is a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent ?

P. HEN. You, gentlewoman,

DOLL. What says your grace?

FAL. His grace says that which his flesh rebels against.

HOST. Who knocks so loud at door? look to the door, there, Francis.

Enter PETO.

P. HEN. Peto, how now? what news?

PETO. The king your father is at Westminster;
And there are twenty weak and wearied posts
Come from the north: and, as I came along,
I met, and overtook, a dozen captains,

Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns,
And asking every one for sir John Falstaff.

P. HEN. By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame,
So idly to profane the precious time;

When tempest of commotion, like the south,
Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt,

And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.

Give me my sword and cloak:-Falstaff, good night.

[Exeunt PRINCE HENRY, POINS, PETO, and BARDOLPH.

FAL. Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and we must hence, and

leave it unpicked.

More knocking at the door!

[Knocking heard.

Re-enter BARDOLPH.

How now? what's the matter?

BARD. You must away to court, sir, presently;

A dozen captains stay at door for you.

FAL. Pay the musicians, sirrah [to the Page].-Farewell, hostess ;-farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches, how men of merit are sought after: the undeserver may sleep, when the man of action is called on. Farewell, good wenches; If I be not sent away post I will see you again ere I go.

DOLL. I cannot speak;-If my heart be not ready to burst:-well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.

FAL. Farewell, farewell.

[Exeunt FAL. and BARD.

HOST. Well, fare thee well: I have known thee these twenty-nine years, come peascod time; but an honester and truer-hearted man,-Well, fare thee well.

BARD, [Within.] Mistress Tear-sheet.

HOST. What's the matter?

BARD. [Within.] Bid mistress Tear-sheet come to my master.

HOST. O run, Doll, run; run, good Doll.

[Exeunt.

ACT III.

SCENE I.-A Room in the Palace.

Enter KING HENRY, with a Page.

K. HEN. Go, call the earls of Surrey and of Warwick;
But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters,
And well consider of them: Make good speed.
How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,

Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,

Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?

O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile,

In loathsome beds; and leav'st the kingly couch,
A watch-case, or a common 'larum-bella?

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them

[Exit Page.

• A watch-case, &c. The metaphor here may be taken thus:-The kingly couch, the place of repose for the king, being deserted by sleep, is as the case or box in which the wakeful sentinel is sheltered: it is also as a common 'larum-bell, which is to rouse a sleeping population upon the approach of danger. But a 'larum, an alarum, an alarm, was also called a watch. In an ancient inventory cited by Strutt, there is the following article: "A laume, or watch of iron, in an iron case, with two leaden plummets." By this laume, or watch of iron, we are to understand the instrument which we now call an alarum-a machine attached to a clock so as to ring at a certain hour. It is difficult to say whether Shakspere means by the "watch-case" the box of a sentinel, and by the " common 'larum-bell" the alarm-bell which is rung out in cases of danger; or whether the "watch-case" is the covering of an instrument which gives motion to the bell of an alarum. It is possible, in either case, that the or in the line is a misprint, for which by or for might be substituted; and then the comparison would not be double; but the kingly couch would be as unfavourable to sleep as the case or box of him who watches by the alarm-bell of a garrison; or as the covering of a watch for an alarm-bell.

With deaf'ning clamours in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly ", death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And, in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down c!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Enter WARWICK and SURREY.

WAR. Many good-morrows to your majesty!

K. HEN. Is it good morrow, lords?

WAR. "T is one o'clock, and past.

K. HEN. Why, then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?

WAR. We have, my liege.

K. HEN. Then you perceive, the body of our kingdom
How foul it is; what rank diseases grow,

And with what danger, near the heart of it.
WAR. It is but as a body yet distemper'd,
Which to his former strength may be restor❜d,
With good advice and little medicine:

My lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd.

K. HEN. O Heaven! that one might read the book of fate;
And see the revolution of the times

Make mountains level, and the continent

(Weary of solid firmness) melt itself

Into the sea! and, other times, to see

The beachy girdle of the ocean

Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,

And changes fill the cup of alteration

⚫ Clouds. Some editors have proposed to read shrouds. A line in 'Julius Cæsar' makes Shakspere's meaning clear:

"I have seen

Th' ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam,

To be exalted with the threatening clouds.”

b Hurly-loud noise. Some say from the French hurler, to yell. Hurling, however, means a disturbance, a commotion; and we have it used in this sense in the Paston Letters.' Hurly, therefore, in the sense of noise, may be a consequential meaning from the hurling, which implies noise.

• Then, happy low, lie down. Warburton's correction of “happy, lowly clown,” which Johnson adopted, was somewhat bold. Happy low-lie-down was suggested by Coleridge: "I know of no argument by which to persuade any one to be of my opinion, or rather of my feeling; but yet I cannot help feeling that 'Happy low-lie-down!' is either a proverbial expression, or the burthen of some old song, and means, 'Happy the man who lays himself down on his straw bed or chaff pallet on the ground or floor!'"

a Distemper'd is used as indicating a state of ill-health, somewhat milder than the rank diseases of which the King speaks.

[TO WARWICK.

With divers liquors! [O, if this were seen,
The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,

Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.a]

"T is not ten years gone

Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
Did feast together, and, in two years after,
Were they at wars: It is but eight years since
This Percy was the man nearest my soul;
Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs,
And laid his love and life under my foot;
Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard,
Gave him defiance. But which of you was by,
(You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember,)
When Richard,—with his eye
brimfull of tears,
Then check'd and rated by Northumberland,-
Did speak these words, now prov'd a prophecy?
"Northumberland, thou ladder, by the which
My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;"-
Though then, Heaven knows, I had no such intent,
But that necessity so bow'd the state,

That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss :

The time shall come," thus did he follow it,

"The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head, Shall break into corruption : "-so went on, Foretelling this same time's condition,

And the division of our amity.

WAR. There is a history in all men's lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceas'd:
The which observ'd, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life; which in their seeds,
And weak beginnings, lie intreasured.

Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And, by the necessary form of this,

King Richard might create a perfect guess,
That great Northumberland, then false to him,
Would, of that seed, grow to a greater falseness;
Which should not find a ground to root upon,
Unless on you.

K. HEN.

Are these things then necessities? Then let us meet them like necessities:

And that same word even now cries out on us;

These four lines, not in the folio, are found in the quarto of 1600.

SCENE II.-Court before Justice Shallow's House in Gloucestershire.

Enter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting; MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULL-CALF, and Servants behind.

SHAL. Come on, come on, come on; give me your hand, sir, give me your hand, sir: an early stirrer, by the rood. And how doth my good cousin Silence? SIL. Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.

SHAL. And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow; and your fairest daughter, and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?

SIL. Alas! a black ouzel, cousin Shallow.

SHAL. By yea and nay, sir, I dare say my cousin William is become a good scholar: He is at Oxford, still, is he not?

SIL. Indeed, sir; to my cost.

SHAL. He must then to the inns of court shortly: I was once of Clement's-inn; where, I think, they will talk of mad Shallow yet.

SIL. You were called lusty Shallow, then, cousin.

SHAL. By the mass, I was called anything; and I would have done anything, indeed, and roundly too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Bare, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele a Cotswold man,—you had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the inns of court again : and, I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas were; and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now sir John, a boy; and page to Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk.

SIL. This sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers?
SHAL. The same sir John, the very same. I saw him break Skogan's head 15 at

the court gate, when he was a crack, not thus high: and the very same day