Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-fick: the posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news

Than they have learn'd of me; From Rumour's

}

tongues

wrongs.

They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true [Exit.

SECOND PART OF

KING HENRY IV.

ACT I. SCENE I.

The fame.

The Porter before the Gate; Enter Lord BARDOLPHΗ.

BARD. Who keeps the gate here, ho?-Where

is the earl?

PORT. What shall I say you are?

BARD.

Tell thou the earl,

That the lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

PORT. His lordship is walk'd forth into the or

chard;

Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,
And he himself will answer.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

BARD.

Here comes the earl.

NORTH. What news, lord Bardolph ? every mi

Should be the father of some stratagem: 8
The times are wild; contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.

BARD.

Noble earl,

I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.

NORTH. Good, an heaven will!

BARD.

As good as heart can wish :

The king is almost wounded to the death;
And, in the fortune of my lord your fon,

Prince Harry flain outright; and both the Blunts
Kill'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince John,
And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field;
And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk fir John,
Is prifoner to your fon : O, fuch a day,
So fought, fo follow'd, and fo fairly won,
Came not, till now, to dignify the times,
Since Cæfar's fortunes!

NORTH.

How is this deriv'd? Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?

BARD. I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence;

A gentleman well bred, and of good name,
That freely render'd me these news for true.

NORTH. Here comes my fervant, Travers, whom

I fent

On Tuesday last to liften after news.

BARD. My lord, I over-rode him on the way;

$fome stratagem:) Some ftratagem means here some great, important, or dreadful event. So, in The Third Part of King Henry VI. the father who had killed his son says :

"O pity, God! this miferable age!
"What ftratagems, how fell, how butcherly!
"This mortal quarrel daily doth beget!" M. MASON.

And he is furnish'd with no certainties,
More than he haply may retail from me.

Enter TRAVERS.

NORTH. Now, Travers, what good tidings come

with you?

TRA. My lord, fir John Umfrevile turn'd me back

With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd,
Out-rode me. After him, came, spurring hard,
A gentleman almost forspent with speed,9
That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse:
He afk'd the way to Chester; and of him
I did demand, what news from Shrewsbury.
He told me, that rebellion had bad luck,
And that young Harry Percy's fspur was cold:
With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And, bending forward, ftruck his armed heels
Againft the panting fides of his poor jade

9

-forspent with speed,] To forspend is to waste, to exhaust. So, in Sir A. Gorges' tranflation of Lucan, B. VII : "crabbed fires forspent with age." STEEVENS.

I

armed heels - Thus the quarto, 1600. The folio, 1623, reads-able heels; the modern editors, without authority-agile heels. STEEVENS.

2

-poor jade-] Poor jade is used, not in contempt, but in compaffion. Poor jade means the horse wearied with his journey.

Jade, however, seems anciently to have fignified what we now call a hackney; a beast employed in drudgery, oppofed to a horse kept for thow, or to be rid by its master. So, in a comedy called A Knack to know a Knave, 1594:

"Befides, I'll give you the keeping of a dozen jades,
"And now and then meat for you and your horse."

This is faid by a farmer to a courtier. STEEVENS.
Shakspeare, however, (as Mr. Steevens has observed,) cer-

Up to the rowel-head; 3 and, starting so,
He feem'd in running to devour the way,4
Staying no longer question.

NORTH.

Ha!-Again.

Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold?

Of Hotspur, coldspur ?5 that rebellion

Had met ill luck!

BARD.

My lord, I'll tell you what ;

If my young lord your fon have not the day,

tainly does not use the word as a term of contempt; for King Richard the Second gives this appellation to his favourite horfe Roan Barbary, on which Henry the Fourth rode at his coronation:

"That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand."

MALONE. 3-rowel-head;] I think that I have observed in old prints the rowel of those times to have been only a fingle spike. JOHNSON.

4 He feem'd in running to devour the way,] So, in the Book of Job, chap. xxxix : " He swalloweth the ground in fierceness and rage."

The fame expression occurs in Ben Jonson's Sejanus :
"But with that speed and heat of appetite,
"With which they greedily devour the way
"To fome great sports." STEEVENS.

So Ariel, to describe his alacrity in obeying Profpero's commands:

"I drink the air before me." M. MASON.

So, in one of the Roman poets (I forget which) : - curfu confumere campum. BLACKSTONE. The line quoted by Sir William Blackstone is in NEMESIAN: latumque fuga confumere campum. MALONE.

5 Of Hotspur, coldspur?] Hotspur seems to have been a very common term for a man of vehemence and precipitation. Stanyhurst, who translated four books of Virgil, in 1584, renders the following line :

Nec victoris heri tetigit captiva cubile.

"To couch not mounting of mayster vanquisher hoatSpur." STEEVENS.