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; for you hear not what I say to you.

Fal. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an 't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not if I be your physician.

Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself.

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 advised 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 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 hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog. Ch. Just. Well, I am loth to gall a newhealed wound; your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gadshill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'erposting that action. Fal. My lord?

Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.

Fal. To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox. Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.

Fal. A wassel candle, my lord; all tallow it

a Tingling in this speech we give the reading of the folio.

The fellow, &c. This is probably an allusion to some well-known beggar of Shakspere's day.

I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

Ch. Just. There is not a white hair on your face but should have his effect of gravity. Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. Ch. Just. You follow the young prince up and down, like his evil angel."

с

Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but, I hope, he that looks upon me will take me without weighing and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell: Virtue is of so little regard in these coster-monger times, that true valour is turned bear-herd: Pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young you 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? Fye, fye, fye, sir John!

Fal. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and

a Evil angel. Evil is the reading of the folio. Ill of the quarto. Theobald says, "if this were the true reading, Falstaff could not have made the witty and humorous evasion he has done in his reply." It may be answered, however, that the humour of the evasion is perhaps rather heightened When by Falstaff's change of the epithet from evil to ill. he says "an ill angel is light," his allusion is to the coin called an angel.

b I cannot tell. Johnson interprets this-I cannot pass current. Gifford objects to this interpretation, saying, that the expression, which is frequent in Ben Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher, has here only its common colloquial meaning.

c Coster-monger times. Times of petty traffic, when qualities are rated by money's worth. A costard is an apple;thence a costard-monger;-and so the word came to imply, as it does now, a small huckstering dealer.

d Wit single. Single may be taken for small, according to Steevens, who gives us the example of single beer for small beer. But this use of the word has reference to the quantity of malt consumed in the production of the beer. The expression in Romeo and Juliet, "O single-soled jest!" has also a direct reference to the thinness of Romeo's pump. We can scarcely, therefore, say that single means small, taken generally; but the Chief Justice, it appears to us, has lost something of his characteristic gravity, and has become infected by him, who was not only witty himself, but the cause of wit in others; and he thus opposes the single wit to the double chin; and also suggests the real character of wit. All wit is to a certain extent double-it has the obvious meaning, and the more recondite meaning which makes the point. Single wit is very much the same as pointless wit.

a

something a round belly. For my voice, I have lost it with hollaing, and singing of anthems. To approve my youth farther, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgment 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 checked him for it; and the young lion repents: marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, 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 severed you and prince Harry 1 hear, you are going with lord John of Lancaster, against the archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland.

Fal. Yes; 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 I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily; if it be a hot day, and I brandish anything but my 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 alway 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 God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.b]

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 CHIEF JUSTICE and Attendant. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle." A man can no more separate age and covetous

My lord, &c. The quarto reads, "My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head,' &c. The folio omits "about three of the clock in the afternoon." The point of Falstaff's reply is, that two of the marks of age which the Chief Justice objects to him were natural to him-he was born with them; and this the reading of the folio retains; but the grave mention of the unessential particular is characteristic.

b The passage between brackets is omitted in the folio.

ness, than he can part young limbs and lechery : but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and so both the degrees prevent my curses.-Boy!

Page. Sir?

Ful. 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 perceived the first white hair on my chin: About it; you know where to find me. [Erit Page.] A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one, or the other, 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 anything; I will turn diseases to commodity.

[Exit.

SCENE III.-York. A Room in the Archbishop's Palace.

Enter the Archbishop of YORK, the LORD HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and LORD BARDOLPH.

Arch. Thus have you heard our cause, and know our means;

And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes :
And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?

Mowb. I well allow the occasion of our arms;
But gladly would be better satisfied
How, in our means, we should advance ourselves
To look with forehead bold and big enough
Upon the power and puissance of the king.

Hast. Our present musters 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.

L. Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth thus;

Whether our present five and twenty thousand May hold up head without Northumberland. Hast. With him, we may.

L. Bard. Ay, marry, there's the point; But if without him we be thought too feeble, My judgment 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 incertain, should not be admitted." Arch. 'Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed,

It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.
L. Bard. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself
with hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself with 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.
L. Bard. Yes;-if this present quality of

war,

(Indeed the 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. When we mean to build,

We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection:
Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then, but draw anew the model
In fewer offices; or, at least, desist

To build at all? Much more, in this great work,

(Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down
And set another up,) should we survey
The plot of situation, and the model;
Consent upon a sure foundation;

Question surveyors; know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,
To weigh against his opposite; or else,
We fortify in paper, and in figures,
Using the names of men instead of men :
Like one that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost

The four lines here ending were added in the folio. Yes, &c. The ordinary reading of this passage is as follows:

"Yes, in this present quality of war:

Indeed the instant action, (a cause on foot,)
Lives so in hope." &c.

Modern editors have changed the if of the original into in, and pointed the passage accordingly. They have thus made that unintelligible which, with care in the punctuation, presents ittle difficulty. As we read the passage the meaning is this:-Hastings has said that it never yet did hurt to lay down forms of hope. Bardolph replies yes, (it does hurt) of the present condition of our war,-if the instant state of our action and cause on foot-lives only in such hope, as the prema:ure buds of an early spring.

The twenty lines here ending were added in the folio. HISTORIES-VOL. I. R

A naked subject to the weeping clouds,
And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.
Hast. Grant, that our hopes (yet likely of fair
birth,)
Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd
The utmost man of expectation;

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

L. Bard. What is the king but five and
twenty thousand?

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

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: So is the unfirm king
In three divided; and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness.

Arch. That he should draw his several strengths together,

And come against us in full puissance,
Need not be dreaded.
Hast.
If he should do so,
He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and
Welsh

Baying him at the heels: never fear that.

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

Hast. The duke of Lancaster, and Westmoreland:

Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth :

But who is substituted 'gainst the French,
I have no certain notice.

Sc. III. p. 239.-"How able such a work to undergo,
To weigh against his opposite."

"How able such a work to undergo.

A careful leader sums what force he brings To weigh against his opposite."-Collier. The line in italic is introduced for the first time in Mr. Collier's MS. Corrections: it is a "new connecting line," he says. We say it is a new disconnecting line. In the long speech of Lord Bardolph is there a point dropped? Is there not the most perfect carrying out of one idea, the comparison of building a house and building a kingdom? What would an actor do with this speech, who had no

great reverence for his author? He would break the long sentence into two sentences, without much care; so that he got a new start. And so has our "Corrector" done. He puts a full stop after "undergo," and thrusts in this line,

"A careful leader sums what force he brings

To weigh against his opposite." "To weigh against his opposite," is to weigh against the king's strength opposite; and, in the speech which immediately follows, Hastings says,

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

1 INDUCTION." Upon my tongues," &c.

SOME scattered epithets in (haucer's "Honse of Fame" might have supplied Shakspere with hints for this description of Rumour. The parallel, however, is not very close. A much nearer resemblance is found in a celebrated passage in the fourth Book of Virgil's Eneid. translation is, as usual, spirited ;

"Milions of opening mouths to fame belong; And every mouth is furnish'd with a tongue :

Dryden's

And round with listening ears the flying plague is hung. She fills the peaceful universe with cries;

No slumbers ever close her wakeful eyes.

By day from lofty towers her head she shews:

And spreads, through trembling crowds, disastrous news: With court-informers' haunts, and royal spies,

This done relates, not done she feigns, and mingles truth with lies."

'INDUCTION." This worm-eaten hold of ragged stone."

The views which we have given of Warkworth Castle may render any lengthened description unnecessary. When Leland wrote his Itinerary in the time of Henry VIII., this castle was described, as "well maynteyned and large." Grose says, "when entire it was far from being destitute of strength, yet its appearance does not excite the idea of one of those rugged fortresses destined solely for war." Warkworth was anciently the seat and barony of the Claverings; and was bestowed upon Henry Percy, the ancestor of the earls of Northumberland, by Edward III., and, after several temporary forfeitures, has remained in the Percy family from the twelfth year of Edward IV. It is not certainly known when this castle was built: from the circumstance of the Percy arms being put up in several parts of the building, some have supposed that it was erected by that family; but by a slight inspection, it is easily perceived that they have been inserted into the walls at an after period. This is clearly proved by one of them having fallen out, and the place where it was fixed appears to be cut in the wall, about six inches deep. The doors, the windows, and everything about the place, attest that it had been built at a more early period." (Historical and Descriptive View of Northumberland. Newcastle. 1811).

SCENE I." Up to the rowel-head."

Johnson, in a note upon this passage, says, "I think that I have observed in old prints the rowel of those times to have been only a single spike." The commentator here fell into an error, which

the lexicographer has avoided. A spur with a single point is not a rowel spur We find the distinction in Froissart: "Then the king was apparelled like a prelate of the church, with a cope of red silk, and a pair of spurs, with a point without a rowel." The word rowel' is derived from roue, a wheel; and thus it signifies a moveable

a Rowel spur, as it appears in illum. to Lydgate's Poems. Harl. MS. 2278. (15th century).

b Brass ditto, early part of Henry VI.

c Ditto, middle of Henry VI.

d Iron long-spiked rowel spur-temp. Edward IV.

e Spur found in Towton Field, inscribed with the following motto:

"En loial amour tout mon coer." Archæologia, 11. f Long-necked brass spur-temp. Henry VII. Steel spur-temp. Henry VIII

h Iron ditto-temp. Elizabeth.

+ SCENE I.-" Scaly gauntlet."

The following represents the long gauntlet of the time of Elizabeth-the only gauntlet that could be properly called "scaly."