Fal. 'Faith, and I'll fend him packing.

[Exit.

P. Henry. Now, Sirs, by'r Lady, you fought fair; fo did you, Peto; fo did you, Bardolph: you are lions too, you ran away upon inftinct; you will not touch the 'true Prince; no, fie!

Bard. 'Faith, I ran when I saw others run.

P. Henry. Tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff's fword fo hack'd?

Peto. Why, he hack'd it with his dagger, and faid, he would fwear truth out of England, but he would make you believe it was done in fight, and perfuaded us to do the like.

Bard. Yea, and to tickle our nofes with fpear-grafs, to make them bleed; and then beflubber our garments with it, and swear it was the blood of true men. 1 did that I did not these seven years before, I blush'd to hear his monstrous devices.

P. Henry. O villain, thou ftoleft a cup of fack eigh teen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever fince thou haft blush'd extempore; thou hadft fire and fword on thy fide, and yet thou ranneft away; what inftinct hadft thou for it?

Bard. My Lord, do you fee thefe meteors? do you behold thefe exhalations?

P. Henry. I do.

Bard. What think you they portend?
P. Henry. Hot livers, and cold purses.
Bard. Choler, my Lord, if rightly taken.
P. Henry. No, if rightly taken, halter.

SCENE XI. Re-enter Falstaff.

Here comes lean Jack, here comes bare-bone. How now, my sweet creature of bombaft, how long is't ago, Jack, fince thou faw'ft thy own knee?

Fal. My own knee? When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle's talon in the wafte; I could have crept into any alderman's thumb-ring: a plague of fighing and grief, it blows a man up like a bladder. There's villanous news abroad: here was Sir John Braby from your father; you must go to the court in the morning. That fame mad fellow in the North, Percy,

and

and he of Wales, that gave Amamon the baftinado, and made Lucifer cuckold, and fwore the devil his true Liegeman upon the crofs of a Welch hook: what a plague you him?

call

Poins. O, Glendower.

Fal. Owen, Owen; the fame: and his fon-in-law Mortimer, and old Northumberland, and that fprightly Scot of Scots Douglas, that runs a horfeback up a hill perpendicular

P. Henry. He that rides at high-speed, and with a piftol kills a fparrow flying.

Fal. You have hit it.

P. Henry. So did he never the sparrow.

Fal. Well; that rafcal had good mettle in him, he will not run.

P. Henry. Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him fo for running?

Fal. A horfeback, ye cuckow, but a-foot, he will not budge a foot.

P. Henry. Yes, Jack, upon instinct.

Fal. I grant ye, upon inftinct: well, he is there too, and one Mordac, and a thoufand blue-caps more. Worcefter is ftol'n away by night: thy father's beard is turn'd white with the news: you may buy land now as cheap as ftinking mackerel.

P. Henry. Then 'tis like, if there come a hot June, and this civil buffetting hold, we fhall buy maidenheads as they buy hob-nails, by the hundred.

Fal. By the mafs, lad, thou fay'ft true; it is like we fhall have good trading that way. But tell me, Hal, art not thou horribly afeard? thou being heir-apparent, could the world pick thee out three fuch enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that fpirit Percy, and that devil Glendower? art thou not horribly afraid? doth not thy blood thrill at it?

P. Henry. Not a whit, i'faith; I lack fome of thy inftinct.

Fal. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow, when thou com'ft to thy father: if thou do love me, practife an anfwer.

P. Henry. Do thou ftand for my father, and examine me upon the particulars of my life. K 2

Fal.

Fal. Shall I content. This chair fhall be my state, this dagger my fceptre, and this cushion my crown.

P. Henry Thy ftate is taken for a joint-tool, thy golden fceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful bald crown.

Fal. Well, an' the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now fhalt thou be moved. Give me a cup of fack to make mine eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept; for 1 muft fpeak in paffion, and I will do it in King Cambyfes' vein *.

P. Henry. Well, here is my leg.

Fal. And here is my fpeech-Stand afide, Nobility

Hoft. This is excellent sport, i'faith.

Fal. Weep not, feet Queen, for trickling tears are vain. Hoft. O the father! how he holds his countenance? Fal. For God's fake, Lords, carvey my triflful Queen. For tears do ftop the flood-gates of her

eyes.

Hoft. O rare, he doth it as like one of those harlotry players as I ever fee.

Fal. Peace, good pint-pot; peace, good tickle-brain• Harry, I do not only marvel, where thou spendeft thy time; but also, how thou art accompany'd: for tho' the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the fafter it grows; yet youth, the more it is wafted, the fooner it wears. Thou art my fon, I have partly thy mother's word, partly my own opinion; but chiefly,

a

villanous trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be fon to me, here lieth the point; why, beiug fon to me, art thou fo pointed at? Shall the bleffed fun of heav'n prove a micher †, and eat black-berries? a queftion not to be afk'd. Shall the fon of England prove a thief and take purfes? a queftion to be afk'd. There is a thing, Harry, whi h thou haft often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch: this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; fo doth the company thou keep'ft for, Harry,

' now

A bombaft play of that time, intitled, A lamentable tragedy mixed full of pleafant mirth containing the life of Cambyfes King of Perfia. By Thomas Prefton.

tie. Truant. To mich, is lurk out of fight, a hedge-creeper.

now do I not speak to thee in drink, but in tears; 'not in pleafure but in paffion; not in words only, but in woes alfo; and yet there is a virtuous man, whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.

P. Henry. What manner of man, an' it like your Majefty?

Fal. A goodly portly man, i'faith, and a corpulent; of a chearful look, a pleafing eye, and a most noble 'carriage; and, as I think, his age fome fifty, or by'r Lady, inclining to threefcore; and now, I remember 'me, his name is Falstaff. If that man fhould be lewdly given, he deceives me; for, Harry, I fee virtue in his looks. If then the fruit may be known by the tree, as the tree by the fruit, then peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff; him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, ' where hast thou been this month?'

P. Henry. Doft thou speak like a King? do thou ftand for me, and I'll play my father.

Fal. Depofe me?--If thou doft it half fo gravely, fo majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbet-fucker, or a poulterer's hare *. P. Henry. Well, here I am fet.

Fal. And here I ftand; judge, my mafters.
P. Henry. Now, Harry, whence come you?
Fal. My Noble Lord, from Eaft-cheap.

P. Henry. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous. Fal. 'Sblood, my Lord, they are false.——Ñay, I'll tickle ye for a young prince.

P. Henry. Sweareft thou, ungracious boy? henceforth ne'er look on me; thou art valiantly carried a'way from grace; there's a devil haunts thee in the likenefs of a fat old man; a tun of man is thy com'panion. Why doft thou converse with that trunk of 'humours, that boulting hutch of beaftlinefs, that 'fwoln parcel of dropfies, that huge bombard of fack, 'that stuff'd cloak-bag of guts, that roafted Manning-tree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, • that

K 3

Meaning a painted hare, fhaped on a board ufed by poulterers

for a fign.

that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years? Wherein is he good, but to tafte fack and drink • it? wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? wherein cunning, but in craft? wherein crafty, but in villany? wherein villanous, but in all things? wherein worthy, but in nothing?"

Fal. I would your Grace would take me with you: whom means your Grace?

P. Henry. That villanous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan..

Fal. My Lord, the man I know.

P. Henry. I know thou doft.

Fal. But to fay, I know more harm in him than in myself, were to fay more than I know. That he is old, the more is the pity, his white hairs do witness it; but that he is (faving your reverence) a whoremafter, that I utterly deny. If fack and fugar be a fault, God help the wicked! if to be old and merry be a fin, then many an old hoft that I know, is damn'd: if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine are to be lov'd. No, my good Lord, banith Peto, banish Bardolph, banifh Poins; but for fweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falftaff, valiant Jack Fal! ftaff, and therefore more valiant, being as he is, old Jack. Falstaff; banish not him thy Harry's company: banish plump Jack, and banifh all the world.'

P. Henry. I do, I will.

[Knocking; and Höfless goes out..

Enter Bardolph running.

Bard. O; my Lord, my Lord, the Sheriff, with a mo monftrous watch, is at the door.

Fal. Out, you rogue! play out the play: I have much to fay in behalf of that Falstaff.

Re-enter the Hoflefs

Hoft. O, my Lord, my Lord!

Fal. Heigh, heigh, the devil rides upon a fiddlestick:. what's the matter?

Hoft. The Sheriff and all the watch are at the door :: >they are come to fearch the houfe: fhall I let them in ?

Fal..