Come, let us take a muster 23 speedily:

Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.

Doug. Talk not of dying: I am out of fear Of death or death's hand for this one half-year.

[Exeunt.

Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.

Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack: our soldiers shall march through; we'll to Sutton-Co'fil' to-night.

Bard. Will you give me money, captain?

Fal. Lay out, lay out.

Bard. This bottle makes an angel.2

Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it make twenty, take them all; I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end.

Bard. I will, captain: farewell.

[Exit.

Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet.3 I have misused the King's press 4 damnably. I have

23 To take a muster is to ascertain the number of troops assembled; as we speak of taking a census.

1 Sutton-Co'fil' is a contracted form of Sutton-Coalfield.

2 This angel was a gold coin, which seems to have borne much the same relation to the English currency in Shakespeare's time, as the sovereign does now. - When Falstaff says "Lay out, lay out," he probably hands Bardolph the bottle, -a piece of plate, perhaps, which he has obtained in much the same way as he reckons upon getting his soldiers supplied with linen for their shirtless backs.

3 The gurnet or gurnard, was a fish of the piper kind. It was probably deemed a vulgar dish when soused or pickled, hence soused gurnet was a common term of reproach.

4 That is, misused the King's commission for impressing men into the

got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press'd me none but good householders, yeomen's sons; inquired me out contracted bachelors, such as had been ask'd twice on the banns ;5 such a commodity of warm slaves as had as lief hear the Devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck fowl or a hurt wild-duck. I press'd me none but such toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bodies no bigger than pins'-heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs lick his sores ; and such as, indeed, were never soldiers, but discarded unjust servingmen, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, - and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world and a long peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient: 8 and such have I, to fill up the rooms

military service. The King's press, in old times, was just about equivalent to what we have known as Uncle Sam's draft.

5 To ask upon the banns, to ask the banns, and to publish the banns, are all phrases of the same import. The law, I believe, required that parties intending marriage should have the banns asked three times, in as many weeks, before the ceremony could take place. So that when the banns had been asked twice, the "joyful day" was pretty near.

6 So in Fynes Moryson's Itinerary, 1617: "Londoners, and all within the sound of Bow bell, are in reproach called cockneys, and eaters of buttered toasts." And in Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit without Money: "They love young toasts and butter, Bow-bell suckers."

7 The painted cloth here spoken of is the tapestry with which the walls of rooms used to be lined, and on which it was customary to have short sentences inscribed, and certain incidents of Scripture depicted, so as to combine ornament and instruction. See As You Like It, page 89, note 38.

8 Ancient is an old corruption of ensign, and was used both for the standard and the bearer of it. Falstaff here means an old patched flag."Revolted tapsters" are tapsters who have run away from their masters, and who were bound by contract or indenture to serve as apprentices for a

would

of them that have bought out their services, that you think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets, and press'd the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat: nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins tack'd together and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's, or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on every hedge.

Enter Prince HENRY and WESTMORELAND.

Prince. How now, blown Jack! how now, quilt !9

Fal. What, Hal! how now, mad wag! what a devil dost thou in Warwickshire?- My good Lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy: 10 I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury.

West. Faith, Sir John, 'tis more than time that I were there, and you too; but my powers are there already. The King, I can tell you, looks for us all: we must away all, tonight.

term of years. Such is Francis, the "underskinker," in this play. — Nash, in his Pierce Penniless, 1592, has an expression like one in the text: "All the canker-worms that breed in the rust of peace."

9 Blown and quilt both have reference to Falstaff's plumpness; only the one supposes him to be plump with wind, the other, with cotton.

10" I ask your pardon." Falstaff pretending not to have recognized his lordship at first, and so makes an apology.

Fal. Tut, never fear me: I am as vigilant as a cat to steal

cream.

Prince. I think, to steal cream, indeed; for thy theft hath already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after?

Fal. Mine, Hal, mine.

Prince. I did never see such pitiful rascals.

Fal. Tut, tut; good enough to toss; 11 food for powder, food for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as better: tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.

West. Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare, too beggarly.

Fal. Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that; and, for their bareness, I am sure they never learn'd that of me.

Prince. No, I'll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste: Percy is already in the field.

[Exit.

Fal. What, is the King encamp'd?

West. He is, Sir John: I fear we shall stay too long.

[Exit.

Fal. Well,

To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast

Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.

[Exit.

SCENE III.- The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury.

Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, DOUGLAS, and VERNON. Hot. We'll fight with him to-night.

Wor.

It may not be.

11 Good enough to toss upon pikes; a war phrase of the time.

Doug. You give him, then, advantage.

Ver.

Not a whit.

Hot. Why say you so? looks he not for supply?

Ver. So do we.

Hot.

His is certain, ours is doubtful.

Wor. Good cousin, be advised; stir not to-night.

Ver. Do not, my lord.

Doug.

You do not counsel well:

You speak it out of fear and cold heart.

Ver. Do me no slander, Douglas: by my life,

And I dare well maintain it with my life,

If well-respected honour bid me on,

I hold as little counsel with weak fear

As you, my lord, or any Scot that lives:
Let it be seen to-morrow in the battle
Which of us fears.

Doug.

Ver.

Yea, or to-night.

Content.

Hot. To-night, say I.

Ver. Come, come, it may not be. I wonder much,

Being men of such great leading as you are,

That you foresee not what impediments
Drag back our expedition: certain Horse

Of my cousin Vernon's are not yet come up:
Your uncle Worcester's Horse came but to-day;
And now their pride and mettle is asleep,
Their courage with hard labour tame and dull,
That not a horse is half the half himself.
Hot. So are the horses of the enemy

In general, journey-bated and brought low:
The better part of ours are full of rest.

Wor. The number of the King exceedeth ours: