I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew,
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers :
I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd,
Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree ;
And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry ;
'Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag.

Scene 1.

Act III.

Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?

This sickness doth infect The very life-blood of our enterprise.

I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat.

Act iv.

Scene 2.

Food for powder, food for powder ; they'll fill a pit, as well as better.

Ibid.

a

To the latter end of a fray, and the beginning of a feast, Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.

Ibid.

a

Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. the grief of a wound ? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? No

What is honour ? A word,

Or take away

What is that word, honour ? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible, then? Yea, to the dead. But will it

, not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it :—therefore I'll none of it, honour is a mere scutcheon, and so ends my catechism.*

Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere.

Act v.

Scene 4.

v I could have better spar'd a better man.

Ibid.

1 The better part of valour is discretion.

Ibid.

Lord, lord, how this world is given to lying! 1 grant you I was down, and out of breath, and so was he; but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock,

Ibid.

KING HENRY IV. Part Il.

The first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office ; and his tongue

* The reading of Falstaff's catechism here used is from the text of Mr. Knight. Some editions have it in a triling degree different from the text here quoted.

Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knolling a departing friend.*

I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.

Scene 2.

Act 1.

He hath eaten me out of house and home.

Scene I.

Act II.

How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep. O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lulld with sounds of sweetest melody?
O! thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds; and leav'st the kingly couch,
A watch-case, or a common 'larum-bell ?
Wilt thou

upon

the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains

* Not“ departed friend," as erroneously printed in some copies.

*

In cradle of the rude imperious surge ;
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafʼning clamours in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly,* death itself awakes ?
Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude ;
And, in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down! +
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Scene 1.

Act III.

a

He hath a tear for pity, and a hand
Open as day for melting charity.

Act iv.

Scene 4.

Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.

Ibid.

Then get thee gone ; and dig my grave thyself ;
And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear,
That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.

Ibid.

* Hurly, noise, tumult, confusion.

+ In some copies printed happy low-lie-down." Much discussion has occurred on the passage. Warburton and others read it,

“Then happy lowly clown !"

FALSTAFF. What wind blew you hither, Pistol ?
Pistol. Not the ill wind which blows none to good,

Act v.

Scene 3.

Under which king, Bezonian ?* speak, or die.

Ibid.

KING HENRY V.

Consideration like an angel came,
And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him.

Act 1.

Scene I.

When he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still

Ibid.

Base is the slave that pays.

Act 11.

Scene I.

For after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of

green fields.t

Act II.

Scene 3.

* Bezonian; a term of reproach from the Italian bisogno.

+ Babbled of green fields. Though this is the generally recognised text, it is by no means a settled point as to the