Poins. But, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning, by four o'clock, early at Gadfhill: There are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purfes: I have vifors for you all, you have horfes for yourfelves; Gadfhill lies to-night in Rochefter; I have befpoke fupper to-morrow night in Eaft-cheap; we may do it as fecure as fleep: If yon will go, I will ftuff your purfes full of crowns; if you will not, tarry at home, and be hang'd.

Fal. Hear ye, Yedward; if I tarry at home, and go not, I'll hang you for going.

Poins. You will, chops?

Pal. Hal, wilt thou make one?

P. Hen. Who, I rob? I a thief? not I, by my faith. Fal. There's neither honefty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou cameft not of the blood royal, if thou dareft not ftand for ten fhillings ".

P. Hen. Well then, once in my days I'll be a mad-cap. Fal. Why, that's well faid.

P. Hen. Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home. Fal. By the lord, I'll be a traitor then, when thou art king.

P. Hen. I care not.

Poins. Sir John, I pry'thee, leave the prince and me alone; I will lay him down fuch reafons for this adventure, that he shall go.

Fal. Well, may'ft thou have the fpirit of perfuafion, and he the ears of profiting, that what thou fpeakeft may move, and what he hears may be believed, that the true prince may (for recreation fake) prove a falfe thief; for the poor abuses of the time want countenance. Farewel: You shall find me in East-cheap.

6 - if thou dareft not ftand &c.] The reading, cry ftand, may perhaps be right; but I think it neceffary to remark, that all the old editions read:-if thou dareft not stand for ten fillings. JOHNSON.

Falftaff is quibbling on the word royal. The real or royal was of the value of ten fillings. Almoft the fame jeft occurs in a fubfequent fcene. The quibble, however, is loft, except the old reading be preferved. Cry, fland, will not fupport it. STEEVENS.

P. Hen.

P. Hen. Farewell, thou latter fpring! farewell Allhallown fummer & ! [Exit FALSTAFF. Poins. Now, my good fweet honey lord, ride with us to-morrow; I have a jeft to execute, that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and Gadfhill, fhall rob thofe men that we have already way-laid; yourfelf, and I, will not be there: and when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob thèm, cut this head from my fhoulders.

P. Hen. But how fhall we part with them in setting forth? Poins. Why, we will fet forth before or after them, and appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail; and then will they adventure upon the exploit themfelves: which they fhall have no fooner atchieved, but we'll fet upon them.

P. Hen. Ay, but, 'tis like, that they will know us, by our horfes, by our habits, and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.

Poins. Tut! our horfes they fhall not fee, I'll tie them in the wood; our vifors we will change, after we leave them ; and, firrah*, I have cafes of buckram for the nonce', to immask our noted outward garments.

7

thou latter fpring!] Old Copies-the latter. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

8

All-hallown fummer!] All-ballows is All hallown tide, or Allfaints' day, which is the firft of November. We have ftill a church in London which is abfurdly ftiled St. All-ballows, as if a word which was formed to exprefs the community of faints, could be appropriated to any particular one of the number. Shakspeare's allufion is defign'd to ridicule an old man with youthful paflions. So, in the fecond part of this play: "the Martelmas, your mafter." STEEVENS.

9-Bardolph, Peto,] In the old copies, instead of these perfons, the names of two actors, Harvey and Roffel, have by the carelefinefs of the tranfcriber crept into the text. The emendation was made by Mr. Theobald. MALONE.

- firrah,] Sirrah in our author's time, as appears from this and many other pallages, was not a word of disrespect. MALONE.

I -for the nonce,] That is, as I conceive, for the occafion. This phrafe, which was very frequently, though not always very precifely, ufed by our old writers, I fuppofe to have been originally a corruption of corrupt Latin. From pro-nunc, I fuppofe, came for the nunc, and fo for the nonce; just as from ad-nunc came a-non. The Spanish entonces has been formed in the fame manner from in-tunc. TYRWHITT. This phrafe is used at this day in Hampshire.

MALONE.

P. Hen.

P. Henry. But, I doubt, they will be too hard for us. Poins. Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred cowards as ever turn'd back; and for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I'll forfwear arms. The virtue of this jeft will be, the incomprehenfible lies that this fame fat rogue will tell us, when we meet at fupper: how thirty, at least, he fought with; what wards, what blows, what extremities he endured; and, in the reproof of this, lies the jeft.

P. Henry. Well, I'll go with thee; provide us all things neceffary, and meet me to-morrow night 3 in Eaft-cheap, there I'll fup. Farewel.

Poins. Farewel, my lord.

[Exit POINS.
P. Henry. I know you all, and will a while uphold
The unyok'd humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the fun;

Who doth permit the base contagious clouds✦
To fmother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mifts
Of vapours, that did seem to ftrangle him.
If all the year were playing holydays,
To fport would be as tedious as to work;

But, when they feldom come, they wish'd-for come 5,

2 -reproof—] is confutation. JOHNSON.

3

And

to-morrow night-] I think we fhould read-to-night. The difguifes were to be provided for the purpose of the robbery, which was to be committed at four in the morning; and they would come too late if the prince was not to receive them till the night after the day of the exploit. This is a fecond inftance to prove that Shakspeare could forget in the end of a scene what he had faid in the beginning. STEEVENS. Who doth permit the bafe contagious clouds &c.] So, in our author's 33d Sonnet:

"Full many a glorious morning have I feen

"Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,-
"Anon permit the bafeft clouds to ride

"With ugly rack on his celestial face." MALONE.

5 If all the year were playing bolydays,

To Sport would be as tedious as to work;

But, when they feldom come, they wish'd-for come,] So, in our author's 52d Sonnet:

VOL. V

K

<< Therefore

And nothing pleafeth but rare accidents.
So, when this loofe behaviour I throw off,
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By fo much fhall I falfify men's hopes;
And, like bright metal on a fullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall fhew more goodly, and attract more eyes,
Than that which hath no foil to fet it off.
I'll fo offend, to make offence a skill;

Redeeming time, when men think least I will. [Exit.

SCENE III.

The fame. Another Room in the Palace.

Enter King HENRY, NORTHUMBERLAND, WORCES-
TER, HOTSPUR, Sir Walter BLUNT, and Others.
K. Hen. My blood hath been too cold and temperate,
Unapt to ftir at these indignities,

"Therefore are feafts fo folemn and so rare,
"Since feldom coming, in the long year fet,
"Like ftones of worth they thinly placed are,

"Or captain jewels in the carkanet." MALONE.

fhall I falfify men's hopes;] To falfify bope is to exceed bope, to give much where men hoped for little. This fpeech is very artfully introduced to keep the prince from appearing vile in the opinion of the audience; it prepares them for his future reformation; and, what is yet more valuable, exhibits a natural picture of a great mind offering excufes to itself, and palliating thofe follies which it can neither justify nor forfake. JOHNSON.

Hopes is ufed fimply for expectations, as fuccefs is for the event, whe ther good or bad. This is ftill common in the midland counties. FARMER.

The following paffage in the Second Part of K. Henry IV. fully fupports Dr. Farmer's interpretation. The Prince is there, as in the paffage before us, the speaker:

"My father is gone wild into his grave,-
"And with his fpirit fadly I furvive,
"To mock the expectations of the world;
"To fruftrate prophecies, and to raze out
"Rotten opinion, who hath written down
"After my feeming," MALONE.

And

And you have found me; for, accordingly,
You tread upon my patience: but, be fure,
I will from henceforth rather be myself,
Mighty, and to be fear'd, than my condition7;
Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore loft that title of respect,

Which the proud foul ne'er pays, but to the proud.
Wor. Our houfe, my fovereign liege, little deferves
The fcourge of greatness to be used on it;

And that fame greatnefs too which our own hands
Have holp to make fo portly.

North. My lord,

K. Hen. Worcester, get thee gone, for I do fee
Danger and difobedience in thine eye:

O, fir, your prefence is too bold and peremptory,
And majefty might never yet endure

8

The moody frontier of a fervant brow.

You have good leave to leave us; when we need
Your ufe and counfel, we fhall fend for you.-

You were about to speak.

North. Yea, my good lord.

Those prifoners in your highnefs' name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,

Were, as he says, not with fuch ftrength deny'd

7 I will from benceforth rather be myself,

Mighty, and to be fear'd, than my condition ;] i, e. I will from henceforth rather put on the character that becomes me, and exert the refentment of an injured king, than ftill continue in the inactivity and mildness of my natural difpofition. WARBURTON.

Shakspeare ufes condition very frequently for temper of mind, and in this fenfe the vulgar ftill fay a good or ill-conditioned man. JOHNSON. So, in K. Henry V. Act V: "Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not fmooth." Ben Jonfon ufes it in the fame sense, in The New Inn, A&t I. fc. vi. STEEVENS.

So alfo all the contemporary writers. See Vol. III. p. 16, r. 2, and P. 136, n. 6. MALONE.

8 The moody frontier-] Frontier was anciently used for forebead. So Stubbs, in his Anatomy of Abuses, 1595: “Then on the edges of their bolfter'd hair, which standeth crested round their frontiers, and hanging over their faces, &c." STEEVENS.