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

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. Fal. 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 Fleet; Take all his company along with him.

Fal. My lord, my lord! Ch. Just. I cannot now speak; I will hear you soon. Take them away.

Pist. Se fortuna me tormenta, ben sperato me con[Exeunt FAL. SHAL. PIST. BArd. Page, and Officers.

tenta.

P. John. I like this fair proceeding of the King's. He hath intent his wonted followers

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.

P. John. The King hath call'd his Parliament, my lord.

Ch. Just. He hath.

P. John. I will lay odds, that, ere this year expire, We bear our civil swords and native fire,

As far as France. I heard a bird so sing,

Whose music, to my thinking, pleas'd the King.
Come, will you hence?

[Exeunt.

EPILOGUE.

Spoken by a Dancer.

IRST, 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 marring. 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 ill venture, it 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; bate me some, and 1 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 I. 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 make you merry with fair Katherine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be kill'd with your hard opinions; for

Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you;but, indeed, to pray for the Queen.

THE LIFE OF HENRY V.