App. Sir, my lord would speak with you. Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. Fal. My good lord!-Heaven give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard say, your lordship was sick I hope, your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship, to have a reverend care of your health.

Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is return'd with some discomfort from Wales.

Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty :—you would not come when I sent for you.

Fal. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him !—I pray, let me speak with you.

Fal. This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of le: thargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling.

Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of deafness. Ch. Just. I think, you are fallen into the disease; you hear not what I say to you.

for

Fal. Very well, my lord, very well.

Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me.

Fal. As I was then advis'd by my learned counsel' in the laws of this land-service, I did not come,

Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, sir John, you live in great infamy.

Fal. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot live in less.

Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

Fal. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer.

Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince. Fal. The young prince has misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.

Ch. Just. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.

Fal. My lord, you that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young; you do measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we, that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

Ch. Just. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken? your wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and every part about you blasted with antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, sir John!

Fal. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. For my voice,-I have lost it with bollaing and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgement and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him.-For the box o' the ear that the prince gave you,-he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have check'd him for it, and the young lion repents; marry, not in ashes and sack-cloth, but in new silk, and old sack.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven send the prince a better companion!

Fal. Heaven send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

Ch. Just. Well, the king hath sever'd you and prince Harry: I hear, you are going with lord John

14

of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland.

Fal. Yea;-I thank your pretty sweet wit for it; but look you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily if it be a hot day, an I brandish any thing but a bottle, I would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it: Well, I cannot last ever: But it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you will needs say, I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to heaven, my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with a rust, than to be scour'd to nothing with perpetual motion.

Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; And heaven bless your expedition!

Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound,

to furnish me forth?

Ch. Just. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well: Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland.

[Exeunt the Chief Justice, and Apparitors.

Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.-A man can no more separate age and covetousness, than he can part young limbs and lechery.—Boy !

Page. Sir?

Fal. What money is in my purse ?

Page. Seven groats and two pence.

Fal. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.-Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this to the earl of Westmoreland; and this to old mistress Ursula,-whom I have weekly sworn to marry, since I 'perceiv'd the first white hair on my chin :-About it; you know where to find me.

[Exit Page.

A plague of this gout! it plays the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter, if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable: A good wit will make use of any thing; I will turn diseases to commodity.

SCENE II.

[Exit.

The Archbishop of York's Palace in Yorkshire. The Archbishop of YORK, Lord HASTINGS, Thomas MOWBRAY (Earl Marshal), and two other Gentlemen, discovered, seated.

They rise.

Archb. Thus have you heard our cause, and known

our means;

And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes.

Hast. Our present masters grow upon the file
To five and twenty thousand men of choice;
And our supplies live largely in the hope
Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
With an incensed fire of injuries.

Mow. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth thus ;

Whether our present five and twenty thousand up head without Northumberland.

May hold

Hast. With him, we may.

Mow. Ay, marry, there's the point :

But if without him we be thought too feeble?

My judgement is, we should not step too far
Till we had his assistance by the hand;
For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this,
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise

Of aids uncertain, should not be admitted.

Archb. "T is very true, lord marshal; for, indeed,

It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.

Mow. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with hope,

5

Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself in project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts;
And so, with great imagination,

Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,
And, winking, leap'd into destruction.

Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt,
To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope.
Mow. Yes, in this present quality of war,
Indeed of instant action: A cause on foot

Lives so in hope, as in an early spring

We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair,
That frosts will bite them.

Hast. I think, we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king.

Archb. What is the king but five and twenty thousand?

Hast. To us, no more; nay, not so much, my lord;

For his divisions, as the times do brawl,

Are in three heads: one power against the French, And one against Glendower; perforce, a third Must take up us.

Archb. Who, is it like, should lead his forces hither?

Hast. Prince John of Lancaster, and Westmoreland: Against the Welsh, himself, and Harry Monmouth: But who is substituted 'gainst the French,

I have no certain notice.

Archb. Let us on;

And publish the occasion of our arms.

The commonwealth is sick of their own choice,

Their over-greedy love hath surfeited

A habitation giddy and unsure

Hath he, that buildeth on the vulgar heart.

O thou fond maný, with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
Before he was what thou wouldst have him be,-