9 Bard. [to the boy.] Come, you virtuous afs, you bafhful fool, muft you be blufhing? wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man at arms are you become? Is it fuch a matter to get a pottle-pot's maidenhead?

Page. He call'd me even now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I could discern no part of his face from the window at laft I fpy'd his eyes, and methought he had made two holes in the ale-wife's new petticoat, and peep'd through.

P. Henry. Hath not the boy profited?

Bard. Away, you whorfon upright rabbet, away! Page. Away, you rafcally Althea's dream, away! P. Henry. Inftruct us, boy: what dream, boy? Page. Marry, my lord, Althea dream'd fhe was deliver'd of a firebrand; and therefore I call him her dream.

P. Henry. A crown's-worth of good interpretation. -There it is, boy. [Gives him money.

Poins. O that this good bloffom could be kept from cankers! Well, there is fix-pence to preferve thee. Bard. An you do not make him be hang'd among you, the gallows fhall have wrong.

P. Henry. And how doth thy mafter, Bardolph? Bard. Well, my good lord; he heard of your grace's coming to town. There's a letter for you.

9 Poins. Come, you virtuous afs, &c.] Though all editions give this fpeech to Poins, it feems evident, by the page's immediate reply, that it must be placed to Bardolph: for Bardolph had called to the boy from an ale-house, and, "'tis likely, made him half-drunk; and, the boy being afhamed of it, it is natural for Bardolph, a bold unbred fellow, to banter him on his aukward bafhfulnefs. THEOBALD.

1 - Althea dream'd, &c.] Shakespeare is here mistaken in his mythology, and has confounded Althea's firebrand with Hecuba's. The firebrand of Althea was real: but Hecuba, when fhe was big with Paris, dreamed that he was delivered of a firebrand that confumed the kingdom. JOHNSON.

P. Henry. Deliver'd with good refpect.-And how doth the Martlemas, your master ?

2

Bard. In bodily health, Sir.

Poins. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician: but that moves not him; though that be fick, it dies

not.

P. Henry. I do allow 3 this wen to be as familiar with me as my dog: and he holds his place; for, look you, how he writes.

Poins reads. John Falstaff, knight,-Every man must know that, as oft as he hath occafion to name himfelf. Even like thofe that are kin to the king; for they never prick their finger, but they fay, there is fome of the king's blood fpilt. How comes that? fays he that takes upon him not to conceive: 4 the answer is as ready as a borrow'd cap; I am the king's poor coufin, Sir.

P. Henry. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But to the letter.

Poins. Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the fon of the king, nearest his father, Harry prince of Wales, greeting. Why, this is a certificate.

the Martlemas, your master ?] That is, the autumn, or rather the latter fpring. The old fellow with juvenile paffions. JOHNSON.

this wen-] This fwoln excrefcence of a man.

JOHNSON.

the answer is as ready as a borrow'd cap ;-] But how is a borrow'd cap fo ready? Read a borrower's cap, and then there is fome humour in it: for a man that goes to borrow money, is of all others the moft complaifant; his cap is always at hand. WARBURTON.

A borrow'd cap ;-] What is borrowed is ready to be returned when the owner calls for it; or when we confider that the fpeaker is a thief, by his own confeffion, and that to borrow was the common cant term for the act of stealing, it may mean, that the anfwer was as ready at hand as any thing that lay in the way of a thief. I fee no need of alteration.

STEEVENS.

P, Henry,

5 P. Henry. Peace!

Poins. 6 I will imitate the honourable Roman in brevity. Sure he means brevity in breath; fhort-winded. I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he mifufes thy favours fo much, that he fwears thou art to merry his fifter Nell. Repent at idle times as thou may'ft, and fo farewell. Thine, by yea and no; which is as much as to fay, as thou ufeft him. Jack Falstaff with my familiars; John with my brothers and fifters; and Sir John with all Europe.

My lord, I will steep this letter in fack, and make him eat it.

P. Henry. 7 That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you ufe me thus, Ned? muft I marry your fifter?

Poins. May the wench have no worse fortune! But I never faid fo.

P. Henry. Well, thus we play the fool with the time, and the fpirits of the wife fit in the clouds and mock us. Is your mafter here in London?

Bard. Yes, my lord.

5 P. Henry.] All the editors, except Sir Thomas Hanmer, have left this letter in confufion, making the prince read part, and Poins part. I have followed his correction.

JOHNSON.

6 I will imitate the honourable Roman in brevity. The old copy reads Romans, which Dr. Warburton very properly corrected, though he is wrong when he appropriates the character to M. Brutus, who affected great brevity of ftile. I fuppofe by the honourable Roman is intended Julius Cæfar, whofe veni, vidi, vici feems to be alluded to in the beginning of the letter. I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. The very words of Cæfar are afterwards quoted by Falstaff. REVISAL. 7 That's to make him eat twenty of his words.] Why just twenty, when the letter contained above eight times twenty ? We should read plenty; and in this word the joke, as flender as it is, confifts. WARBURTON.

It is not furely uncommon to put a certain number for an uncertain one. STEEVENS.

P. Henry. Where fups he? doth the old boar feed -in the old frank?

Bard. At the old place, my lord; in Eaft-cheap.
P. Henry. What company?

Page. 9 Ephefians, my lord; of the old church.
P. Henry. Sup any women with him?

Page. None, my lord, but old miftrefs Quickly and miftrefs Doll Tear-fheet.

I

P. Henry. What Pagan may that be?

Page. A proper gentlewoman, Sir, and a kinswoman of my mafter's.

P. Henry. Even fuch kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull. Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at fupper?

Poins. I am your fhadow, my lord, I'll follow you.

P. Henry. Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph ;-no word to your mafter that I am yet come to town. There's for your filence.

Bard. I have no tongue, Sir.

Page. And for mine, Sir, I will govern it.

P. Henry. Fare ye well: go. This Doll Tear-fheet fhould be fome road.

Poins. I warrant you, as common as the tween St. Albans and London.

way be

P. Henry. How might we fee Falstaff beftow himfelf to-night in his true colours, and not ourselves be fcen?

frank?] Frank is fty.

POPE.

9 Ephefians, &c.] Ephefian was a term in the cant of these times, of which I know not the precife notion: it was, perhaps, a toper. So the hoft in The Merry Wives of Windsor,

"It is thine hoft, thine Ephefian calls." JOHNSON. What Pagan may that be?] Pagan feems to have been a cant term, implying irregularity either of birth or manners. So in The Captain, a comedy, by B. and Fletcher,

"Three little children, one of them was mine
"Upon my confcience; the other two were Pagans."
STEEVENS.

2

Poins. Put on two leather jerkins and aprons, and wait upon him at his table as drawers.

P. Henry. From a god to a bull? 3 a heavy defcenfion! It was Jove's cafe. From a prince to a prentice? a low transformation! that fhall be mine: for in every thing the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned, [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Warkworth castle.

Enter Northumberland, lady Northumberland, and lady Percy.

North. I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daugh

ter,

Give even way unto my rough affairs:
Put not you on the vifage of the times,
And be, like them, to Percy, troublesome.

L. North. I have given over, I will speak no more: Do what you will; your wifdom be your guide.

2 Put on two leather jerkins-] This was a plot very unlikely to fucce.d where the prince and the drawers were all known. but it produces merriment, which our author found more useful than probability. JOHNSON.

3

a heavy defcenfion!] Other readings have it declenfion. Mr. Pope chofe the firft. On which Mr. Theobald fays, "But why not declenfion? are not the terms properly "fynonimous?" If fo, might not Mr. Pope fay, in his turn, then why not defcenfion? But it is not fo; and defcenfion was preferred with judgment: for defcenfion fignifics a voluntary going down; declenfion, a natural and neceffary. Thus when we fpeak of the fun poetically, as a charioteer, we should fay his defcenfion: if phyfically, as a mere globe of light, his declenfion. WARBURTON.

Defcenfion is the reading of the first edition.

Mr. Upton propofes that we should read thus by tranfpofition. From a god to a bull, a low transformation!—from a prince to a prentice, a heavy declenfion! This reading is elegant, and perhaps right. JOHNSON.

North.