help the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know, is damned; if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord; banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company; banish plump Jack, and banish all the world. P. Hen. I do, I will.

[A knocking heard. [Exeunt Hostess, FRANCIS, and BARDOLPH.

Re-enter BARDOLPH, running.

Bard. O, my lord, my lord; the sheriff, with a most monstrous watch, is at the door.

Fal. Out, you rogue! Play out the play; I have much to say in the behalf of that Falstaff.

Re-enter Hostess, hastily.

Host. O Jesu, my lord! my lord!

Fal. Heigh, heigh! the devil rides upon a fiddlestick. What's the matter?

Host. The sheriff and all the watch are at the door; they are come to search the house. them in?

Shall I let

Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? Never call a true piece of gold, a counterfeit; thou art essentially mad, without seeming so.

P. Hen. And thou a natural coward, without instinct. Fal. I deny your major. If you will deny the sheriff, so; if not, let him enter; if I become not a cart as well as another man, a plague on my bringing up! I hope I shall as soon be strangled with a halter as another.

P. Hen. Go, hide thee behind the arras;'-the

1 When arras was first brought into England, it was suspended on small hooks driven into the walls of houses and castles; but this practice was soon discontinued. After the damp of the stone and brickwork had

rest walk up above. Now, my masters, for a true face, and good conscience.

Fal. Both which I have had; but their date is out, and therefore I'll hide me.

[Exeunt all but the Prince and POINS.

P. Hen. Call in the sheriff.

Enter Sheriff and Carrier.

Now, master sheriff, what's your will with me?
Sher. First, pardon me, my lord.

A hue and cry

Hath followed certain men unto this house.

A

P. Hen. What men?

Sher. One of them is well known, my gracious lord, gross, fat man.

Car.

As fat as butter.

P. Hen. The man, I do assure you, is not here; For I myself at this time have employed him. And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee, That I will, by to-morrow dinner time, Send him to answer thee, or any man, For any thing he shall be charged withal;

And so let me entreat you leave the house.

Sher. I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen

Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.

P. Hen. It may be so; if he have robbed these men, He shall be answerable; and so, farewell. Sher. Good night, my noble lord.

P. Hen. I think it is good morrow; is it not? Sher. Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o'clock. [Exeunt Sheriff and Carrier.

P. Hen. This oily rascal is known as well as Paul's.1 Go call him forth.

Poins. Falstaff!-Fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like a horse.

been found to rot the tapestry, it was fixed on frames of wood at such distance from the wall as prevented the damp from being injurious; large spaces were thus left between the arras and the walls, sufficient to contain even one of Falstaff's bulk. Our old dramatists avail themselves of this convenient hiding-place upon all occasions.

1 St. Paul's cathedral.

P. Hen. Hark, how hard he fetches breath! Search his pockets. [POINS searches.]

found?

What hast thou

Poins. Nothing but papers, my lord.

P. Hen. Let's see what they be read them.
Poins. Item, A capon, 2s. 2d.

Item, Sauce, 4d.

Item, Sack, two gallons, 5s. 8d.1

Item, Anchovies, and sack after supper, 2s. 6d.
Item, Bread, a halfpenny.

P. Hen. O monstrous! but one halfpenny-worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!-What there is else, keep close; we'll read it at more advantage: there let him sleep till day. I'll to the court in the morning; we must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honorable. I'll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot; and, I know, his death will be a mark of twelve score. The money shall be paid back again with advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning; and so good morrow, Poins.

Poins. Good morrow, good my lord.

[Exeunt.

1 In a very curious letter from Thomas Rainolds, vice-chancellor of Oxford, in 1566, to cardinal Pole, among the Conway Papers, he entreats the suppression of some of the wine taverns in Oxford, and states, as one of his reasons, that "they sell Gascony wine at 16d. a gallon, sacke at 2s. 4d. per gallon, and Malvoisie at 2s. 6d. to the utter ruin of the poor students." In Florio's First Frutes, 1578:-"Claret wine, red and white, is sold for fivepence the quarte, and sacke for sixpence; muscadel and malmsey for eight." Twenty years afterwards, sack had probably risen to eightpence or eightpence halfpenny a quart, which would make the computation of five shillings and eightpence for two gallons correct. To the note on sack, at p. 463, we may add that suck is called Vinum Hispanicum by Coles, and Vin d'Espagne by Sherwood. In Florio's Second Frutes it is Vino de Spagna.

2 A score, in the language of Toxopholites, was twenty yards. A mark of twelve score, meant a mark at a distance of two hundred and forty yards.

ACT III.

SCENE I. Bangor. A Room in the Archdeacon's House.

Enter HOTSPUR, Worcester, MORTIMER, and GLEN

DOWER.

Mort. These promises are fair, the parties sure, And our induction' full of prosperous hope.

Hot. Lord Mortimer,-and cousin Glendower,— Will you sit down ?

And, uncle Worcester.-A plague upon it!

I have forgot the map.

Glend.

No, here it is.

Sit, cousin Percy; sit, good cousin Hotspur,

For by that name as oft as Lancaster

Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale; and, with A rising sigh, he wisheth you in heaven.

Hot. And you in hell, as often as he hears

Owen Glendower spoke of.

Glend. I cannot blame him: at my nativity,
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; and, at my birth,

2

The frame and huge foundation of the earth,
Shaked like a coward.

Hot.
Why, so it would have done
At the same season, if your mother's cat had
But kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born.
Glend. I say, the earth did shake when I was born.
Hot. And I say, the earth was not of my mind,
If you suppose, as fearing you, it shook.

Glend. The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.

1 Induction is used by Shakspeare for commencement, beginning. The introductory part of a play or poem was called the induction.

2 Cressets were open lamps, exhibited on a beacon, carried upon a pole, or otherwise suspended.

VOL. III.

64

Hot. O, then the earth shook to see the heavens

on fire,

And not in fear of your nativity.

Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth

In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colic pinched and vexed
By the imprisoning of unruly wind

Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldame1 earth, and topples down
Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth,
Our grandam earth, having this distemperature,
In passion shook.

Glend.

Cousin, of many men

I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave
To tell you once again,-that, at my birth,
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes;
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.
These signs have marked me extraordinary;
And all the courses of my life do show,

I am not in the roll of common men.

Where is he living,-clipped in with the sea

That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,-
Which calls me pupil, or hath read to me?
And bring him out, that is but woman's son,
Can trace me in the tedious ways of art,
And hold me pace in deep experiments.

Hot. I think there is no man speaks better Welsh.— I'll to dinner.

Mort. Peace, cousin Percy; you will make him mad. Glend. I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hot. Why, so can I; or so can any man: But will they come, when you do call for them? Glend. Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command The devil.

Hot. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil, By telling truth. Tell truth, and shame the devil.— If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,

1 Beldame, and belsire, formerly signified grandmother and grandfather.