I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my pow'rs this night,
Paffing these flats, are taken by the tide;
Thefe Lincoln washes have devoured them;
Myself, well mounted, hardly have escaped.
Away before: conduct me to the King;
I doubt he will be dead or e'er I come.

SCENE IX.

Changes to the orchard in Swinftead abbey.

Enter Prince Henry, Salisbury, and Bigot.

[Exeunt.

Henry. It is too late; the life of all his blood Is touch'd corruptibly; and his pure brain(Which, fome fuppofe, the foul's frail dwelling-house) Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, Foretel the ending of mortality.

Enter Pembroke.

Pemb. His Highness yet doth speak, and holds belief, That, being brought into the open air,

It would allay the burning quality

Of that fell poison which affaileth him.

Henry. Let him be brought into the orchard here. Doth he ftill rage?

Pemb. He is more patient

Than when you left him; even now he fung.
Henry. O vanity of ficknefs! fierce extremes
In their continuance will not feel themselves.
Death having prey'd upon the outward parts,
Leaves them infenfible; his fiege is now
Against the mind; the which he pricks and wounds
With many legions of ftrange fantafies;

Which, in their throng, and prefs to that laft hold, Confound themselves. 'Tis ftrange that death should fing:

I am the cygnet to this pale, faint fwan,

Who chaunts a doleful hymn to his own death;
And, from the organ-pipe of frailty, fings

His foul and body to their lafting reft.

Sal. Be of good comfort, Prince; for you are born

Το

To fet a form upon that indigeft,

Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.

K. John brought in.

K. John. Ay, marry, now my foul hath elbow-room; I would not out at windows, nor at doors. There is fo hot a fummer in my bofom, That all my bowels crumble up to duft: I am a fcribbled form drawn with a pen Upon a parchment, and against this fire Do I fhrink up.

Henry. How fares your Majesty?

K. John. Poifon'd, ill fare! dead, forfook, caft off; "And none of you will bid the winter come "To thruft his icy fingers in my maw;

"Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course
Through my burn'd' bofom; nor intreat the north
"To make his bleak winds kifs my parched lips,
“And comfort me with cold." I ask not much,
I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,
And fo ungrateful, you deny me that."

Henry. Oh, that there were fome virtue in my tears, That might relieve you!

K. John. The falt of them is hot.

Within me is a hell; and there the poison

Is, as a fiend, confin'd to tyrannize

On unreprievable, condemned blood.

SCENE X. Enter Faulconbridge.

Faulc. Oh! I am fealded with my violent motion, And fpleen of speed to fee your Majefty.

K. John. Oh! coufin, thou art come to fet mine eye: The tackle of my heart is crackt and burnt;

And all the shrowds wherewith my life should fail,

Are turned to one thread, one little hair:

My heart hath one poor ftring to flay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
And then all this thou feeft, is but a clod,
And module of confounded royalty.

Faulc. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,
Where heav'n he knows how we fhall aufwer him.
For in a night, the best part of my power,

As

As I upon advantage did remove,
Were in the washes, all unwarily
Devoured by the unexpected flood.

[The King dies..

Sal. You breathe thefe dead news in as dead an ear:
My Liege! my Lord!-but now a King-now thus.
Henry. Ev'n fo muft I run on, and ev'n fo stop
Faule. Art thou gone fo? I do but stay behind,
To do the office for thee of revenge:

And then my foul fhall wait on thee to heav'n,
As it on earth hath been thy fervant still.

Now, now, you stars, that move in your bright spheres,
Where be your pow'rs? fhew now your mended faiths,
And inftantly return with me again,

To push deftruction and perpetual fhame
Out of the weak door of our fainting land:
Strait let us feek, or strait we shall be fought;
The Dauphin rages at our very heels.

Sal. It feems you know not then fo much as we:
The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,

Who half an hour fince came from the Dauphin;
And brings from him fuch offers of our peace,
As we with honour and refpect may take,
With purpose presently to leave this war.

Faulc. He will the rather do it, when he fees
Ourselves well finewed to our defence.

Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already;
For many carriages he hath dispatch'd
To the fea-fide, and put his cause and quarrel
To the difpofing of the Cardinal;

With whom yourfelf, myfelf, and other Lords,
you think meet, this afternoon will post

If

To confummate this business happily.

Faulc. Let it be fo; and you, my Noble Prince,

With other Princes that may best be spar'd.
Shall wait upon your father's funeral.

Henry. At Worcester must his body be interr'd.

For fo he will'd it.

Faulc. Thither fhall it then.

and ev'n fo ftop.

What furety of the world, what hope, what stay,
When this was now a King, and now is clay?

Faule. Art thou gone fo? &c.

And

And happily may your fweet felf put on
The lineal ftate, and glory of the land!
To whom, with all fubmiffion on my knee,
I do bequeath my faithful fervices,
And true fubjection everlastingly.

Sal. And the like tender of our love we make,
To reft without a spot for evermore.

Henry. I have a kind foul, that would give you thanks,

And knows not how to do it, but with tears.

Faulc. Oh, let us pay the time but needful woe,
Since it hath been before hand with our griefs.
Thus England never did, nor never fhall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them!-Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do reft but true.

[Exeunt omnes

THE END OF THE THIRD VOLUME. ·