you look well, and bear your years very well: welcome, good Sir John.

Fal. I am glad to see you well, good master Robert Shallow :Master Sure-card, as I think.

Shal. No, Sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with me.

Fal. Good master Silence, it well befits you should be of the peace.

Sil. Your good worship is welcome.

Fal. Fie! this is hot weather,-Gentlemen, have you provided me here half a dozen sufficient men?

Shal. Marry, have we Sir. Will you sit?
Fal. Let me see them, I beseech you.

Shal. Where's the roll? where's the roll? where's the roll ?Let me see, let me see. So, so, so, so: Yea, marry, Sir:-Ralph Mouldy:-let them appear as I call; let them do so, let them do SO.- Let me see; Where is Mouldy?

Moul. Here, an't please you.

Shal. What think you, Sir John? a good-limbed fellow. young, strong, and of good friends.

Fal. Is thy name Mouldy?

Moul. Yea, an't please you.

Fal. "Tis the more time thou wert used.

Shal. Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i'faith! things, that are mouldy, lack use: Very singular good!-In faith, well said, Sir John; very well said.

Fal. Prick him.

[To SHALLOW.

Moul. I was pricked well enough before, an you could have let me alone: my old dame will be undone now, for one to do her husbandry, and her drudgery: you need not to have pricked me ; there are other men fitter to go out than I.

Fal. Go to; peace, Mouldy, you shall go. Mouldy, it is time you were spent.

Moul. Spent!

Shal. Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside;

Know you where you are ?-For the other, Sir John :-let me see;-Simon Shadow!

Fal. Ay marry, let me have him to sit under; he's like to be a cold soldier.

Shal. Where's Shadow?

Shad. Here, Sir.

Fal. Shadow, whose son art thou?

Shad. My mother's son, Sir.

Fal. Thy mother's son! like enough; and thy father's shadow:

so the son of the female is the shadow of the male: It is often so, indeed; but not much of the father's substance.

Shal. Do you like him, Sir John?

Fal. Shadow will serve for summer,-prick him ;-for we have a number of shadows to fill up the muster-book.

Shal. Thomas Wart!

Fal. Where's he?

Wart. Here, Sir.

Fal. Is thy name Wart?

Wart. Yea, Sir.

Fal. Thou art a very ragged wart.

Shal. Shall I prick him, Sir John?

Fal. It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon his back, and the whole frame stands upon pins: prick him no more. Shal. Ha, ha, ha!-you can do it, Sir; you can do it: I commend you well.-Francis Feeble!

Fee. Here, Sir.

Fal. What trade art thou, Feeble?

Fee. A woman's tailor, Sir.

Shal. Shall I prick him, Sir?

Fal. You may: but if he had been a man's tailor, he would have pricked you.-Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy's battle, as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat?

Fee. I will do my good will, Sir; you can have no more.

Fal. Well said, good woman's tailor! well said, courageous Feeble! Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove, or most magnanimous mouse.-Prick the woman's tailor well, master Shallow; deep, master Shallow.

Fee. I would, Wart might have gone, Sir.

Fal. I would, thou wert a man's tailor; that thou mightst mend him, and make him fit to go. I cannot put him to a private soldier, that is the leader of so many thousands: Let that suffice, most forcible Feeble.

Fee. It shall suffice, Sir.

Fal. I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble.

Who is next?

Shal. Peter Bull-calf of the green!

Fal. Yea, marry, let us see Bull-calf.

Bull. Here, Sir,

Fal. 'Fore God, a likely fellow!-Come, prick me Bull-calf till he roar again.

Bull. O lord! good my lord captain,

Fal. What, dost thou roar before thou art pricked?

Bull. O lord, Sir! I am a diseased man.

Fal. What disease hast thou ?

Bull. A whoreson cold, Sir; a cough, Sir; which I caught with ringing in the king's affairs, upon his coronation day, Sir.

Fal. Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown; we will have away thy cold; and I will take such order, that thy friends shall ring for thee. Is here all ?

Shal. Here is two more called than your number; you must have but four here, Sir;-and so, I pray you, go in with me to dinner.

Fal. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry dinner. I am glad to see you, in good troth, master Shallow.

Shal. O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill in St. George's-fields?

Fal. No more of that, good master Shallow, no more of that. Shal. Ha, it was a merry night. And is Jane Night-work alive? Fal. She lives, master Shallow.

Shal. She never could away with me.

Fal. Never, never: she would always say, she could not abide master Shallow.

Shal. By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?

Fal. Old, old, master Shallow.

Shal. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old; certain, she's old; and had Robin Night-work by old Nightwork, before I came to Clement's-inn.

Sil. That's fifty-five year ago.

Shal. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight and I have seen!-Ha, Sir John, said I well?

Fal. We have heard the chimes at midnight, master Shallow. Shal. That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, Sir John, we have; our watch-word was, Hem, boys!-Come, let's to dinner; come, let's to dinner:-O, the days that we have seen!Come, come. [Exeunt FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, and SILENCE. Bull. Good master corporate Bardolph, stand my friend; and here is four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you. In very truth, Sir, I had as lief be hanged, Sir, as go and yet, for mine own part, Sir, I do not care; but, rather, because I am unwilling, and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends; else, Sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so much. Bard. Go to; stand aside.

Mould. And good master corporal captain, for my old dame's sake, stand my friend: she has nobody to do anything about her, when I am gone: and she is old, and cannot help herself: you shall have forty, Sir.

Bard. Go to; stand aside.

Fee. By my troth I care not;-a man can die but once;-we owe God a death;-I'll ne'er bear a base mind:-an't be my destiny, so; an't be not, so: No man's too good to serve his prince; and, let it go which way it will, he that dies this year, is quit for the next.

Bard. Well said; thou'rt a good fellow.

Fee. 'Faith, I'll bear no base mind.

Re-enter FALSTAFF and JUSTICES.

Fal. Come, Sir, which men shall I have?
Shal. Four, of which you please.

Bard. Sir, a word with you:-I have three pound to free Mouldy and Bull-calf.

Fal. Go to; well.

Shal. Come, Sir John, which four will you have?

Fal. Do you choose for me.

Shal. Marry then,-Mouldy, Bull-calf, Feeble, and Shadow. Fal. Mouldy, and Bull-calf:-For you, Mouldy, stay at home still; you are past service:-and, for your part, Bull-calf,-grow till you come unto it; I will none of you.

Shal. Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong: they are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best. Fal. Will you tell me, master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature, bulk, and big assem

VOL. II.

2 K

blance of a man! Give me the spirit, master Shallow. Here's Wart; you see what a ragged appearance it is: he shall charge you, and discharge you, with the motion of a pewterer's hammer; come off, and on, swifter than he that gibbets-on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow,-give me this man; he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife: And, for a retreat,— how swiftly will this Feeble, the woman's tailor, run off? O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones.-Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph.

Bard. Hold, Wart, traverse; thus, thus, thus.

Fal. Come, manage me your caliver. So:-very well:-go to: -very good:-exceeding good.-O, give me always a little, lean, old, chapped, bald shot.t-Well said, i' faith Wart; thou'rt a good scab: hold, there's a tester for thee.

Shal. He is not his craft's-master, he doth not do it right. I remember at Mile-end green (when I lay at Clement's-inn,— I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show§), there was a little quiver|| fellow, and 'a would manage you his piece thus: and 'a would about, and about, and come you in, and come you in: rah, tah, tah, would 'a say; bounce, would 'a say; and away again would 'a go, and again would 'a come:-I shall never see such a fellow.

Fal. These fellows will do well, master Shallow.-God keep you, master Silence; I will not use many words with you :-Fare you well, gentlemen both: I thank you: I must a dozen mile to-night.-Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.

Shal. Sir John, heaven bless you, and prosper your affairs, and send us peace! As you return, visit my house; let our old acquaintance be renewed: peradventure, I will with you to the court.

Fal. I would you would, master Shallow.

Shal. Go to; I have spoke, at a word. Fare you well.

[Exeunt SHALLOW and SILENCE. Fal. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. On, Bardolph; lead the men away. [Exeunt BARDOLPH, Recruits, &c.] As I return, I will fetch off these justices: I do see the bottom of justice Shallow. Lord, lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbull-street; and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at Clement's-inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring; when he was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife: he was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible: he was the very Genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him-mandrake: he came ever in the rear-ward of the fashion; and sung those tunes to the over-scutched huswives that he heard the carmen whistle, and

* Gun.

An exhibition of archery.

+ March.

Il Nimble.

✰ Shooter.
Carted.

sware-they were his Fancies, or his Good-nights.* And now is this Vice's daggert become a squire; and talks as familiarly of John of Gaunt, as if he had been sworn brother to him: and I'll be sworn he never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head, for crowding among the marshal's men. I saw it; and told John of Gaunt, he beat his own name:§ for you might have truss'd him, and all his apparel, into an eel-skin; the case of a treble haut-boy was a mansion for him, a court; and now has he land and beeves. Well; I will be acquainted with him, if I return and it shall go hard, but I will make him a philosopher's two stones to me: If the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason, in the law of nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end.

ACT IV.

SCENE I-A Forest in Yorkshire.

[Exit.

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and others.

Arch. What is this forest call'd ?

Hast. "Tis Gaultree forest, an't shall please your grace. Arch. Here stand, my lords; and send discoverers forth, To know the numbers of our enemies.

Hast. We have sent forth already.

Arch. 'Tis well done.

My friends, and brethren in these great affairs,
I must acquaint you that I have received
New-dated letters from Northumberland;
Their cold intent, tenor, and substance thus:-
Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
As might hold sortance with his quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retired, to ripe his growing fortunes,
To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers,
That your attempts may overlive the hazard,
And fearful meeting of their opposite.

Mowb. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground,
And dash themselves to pieces.

Enter a MESSENGER.

Hast. Now, what news?

Mess. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,

In goodly form comes on the enemy:

And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number

Upon, or near, the rate of thirty thousand.

*Titles of little poems.

Vice was a burlesque character in the old play, equipped with a wooden dagger or sword, called Harlequin.

+ Broke.

§ Gaunt.

Be suitable.