speech a prodigious consolation and encouragement under the circumstances!

8. I went on without the slightest embarrassment, and sat down amid great applause, wholly undeserved by anything that I had spoken, but well won from Englishmen, methought, by the new development of pluck that alone had enabled me to speak at all. "It was handsomely done!" quoth Sergeant Wilkins; and I felt like a recruit who had been for the first time under fire.

9. I would gladly have ended my oratorical career then and there forever; but was often placed in a similar or worse position, and compelled to meet it as I best might; for this was one of the necessities of an office which I had voluntarily taken on my shoulders, and beneath which I might be crushed by no moral delinquency on my own part, but could not shirk without cowardice and shame. My subsequent fortune was various.

Nathaniel Hawthorne.

FOR PREPARATION.-I. In what country is the mayor called "his worship" (worth-ship)? Of what country was this mayor probably, judging by his allusions? (5, 8.)

II. List'-en-ing (lis'n-), ser'-geant (sär'jent), deignş (dānz), al-tēr'-native, mis-fôrt'-une, re-eruit' (-krut').

III. Fellow-guests, methought, long-expected. Correct the following expressions: "The mayor have got up ;' ""His worships remarks." Difference in meaning between good and best and better. Why "Fate" with a capital?

IV. Consternation, predicament, alien, phenomenon, subsequently, vacuity, eulogistic, preternatural, vociferously, garrulous, crisis, effusion, voluntarily, delinquency, "crack of doom," shirk.

V. "Getting on inexorably." Do you think the description (3, 4, and 5) of the feelings of the author on this occasion would apply to other cases that you know of? "Had come the long-expected moment" (6)-is this ironical? What is irony? Write out at length in your own language the 6th paragraph.

CIX. PRINCE HENRY AND FALSTAFF.

[PRINCE HENRY and POINs, in a back room in the Boar's Head Tavern, at Eastcheap. Enter FALSTAFF, GADSHILL, BARDOLPH, and

PETO.]

Poins-Welcome, Jack! Where hast thou been?

Falstaff-A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance, too! marry, and amen!-Give me a cup of sack, boy!-Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew netherstocks, and mend them, and foot them, too. A plague of all cowards!-Give me a cup of sack, rogue!-Is there no virtue extant? [He drinks, and then continues.] You rogue, here's lime in this sack! There's nothing but roguery to be found in villanous man. Yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it. A villanous coward! Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt. If manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good men unhanged in England; and one of them is fat, and grows old. A bad world, I say! I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms, or anything. A plague of all cowards, I say still!

Prince Henry-How now, wool-sack? What mutter

you?

Fal.-A king's son! Now, if I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. You Prince of Wales!

P. Henry-Why, you base-born dog! What's the

matter?

Fal.-Are you not a coward? Answer me to thatand Poins there?

Poins-Ye fat braggart, an ye call me coward, I'll stab thee!

Fal.-I call thee coward? I'll see thee hanged ere I call thee coward; but I would give a thousand pounds I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back. Call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! Give me them that will face me.-Give me a cup of sack. I am a rogue if I have drunk to-day.

P. Henry-O villain! thy lips are scarce wiped since thou drankst last.

Fal.-All's one for that! A plague of all cowards, still say I! [He drinks.]

P. Henry-What's the matter?

Fal.-What's the matter? There be four of us here

have ta'en a thousand pounds this morning.

P. Henry-Where is it, Jack?—where is it?

Fal.

Fal.-Where

Where is it? Taken from us it is: a hundred upon poor four of us.

P. Henry-What! a hundred, man?

Fal.-I am a rogue if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them for two hours together. I have 'scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet: four through the hose; my buckler cut through and through; my sword hacked like a hand-saw. Look here! [shows his sword.] I never dealt better since I was a man: all would not do. A plague of all cowards! Let them speak [pointing to Gadshill, Bardolph, and Peto]. If they speak more or less than truth, they are villains, and the sons of darkness.

P. Henry-Speak, sirs-how was it?

Gadshill-We four set upon some dozen

Fal.-Sixteen, at least, my lord.

Gads. And bound them.

Peto-No, no; they were not bound.

Fal. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them!

Gads. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us—

Fal. And unbound the rest; and then come in the other.

P. Henry-What! fought ye with them all?

Fal.-All? I know not what ye call all; but if I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish! If there were not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then I am no two-legged creature.

P. Henry-Pray Heaven you have not murdered some of them?

Fal.-Nay, that's past praying for. I have peppered two of them: two, I am sure, I have paid-two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal: if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, and call me a horse. Thou knowest my old ward. [He draws his sword, and stands as if about to fight.] Here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me

P. Henry-What! four? Thou saidst but two, even

now.

Fal.-Four, Hal; I told thee four.
Poins-Ay, ay, he said four.

Fal.-These four came all afront, and mainly thrust I made no more ado, but took all their seven points in my target, thus.

at me.

P. Henry-Seven? Why, there were but four, even

now.

Fal.-In buckram?

Poins-Ay, four, in buckram suits.

Fal.-Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else!

P. Henry-Prithee, let him alone; we shall have

more anon.

Fal.-Dost thou hear me, Hal?

P. Henry-Ay, and mark thee, too, Jack.

Fal. Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine men in buckram, that I told thee of—

P. Henry-So, two more already!

Fal. Their points, being broken, began to give me ground; but I followed me close-came in foot and hand; and, with a thought, seven of the eleven I paid.

P. Henry—Oh, monstrous!-eleven buckram men grown out of two!

Fal.-But three knaves, in Kendal green, came at my back, and let drive at me; for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand.

P. Henry-These lies are like the father of themgross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou claybrained, knotty-pated fool! thou greasy tallow-keech

Fal.-What! Art thou mad?-art thou mad? Is not the truth the truth?