For, as he writes, there is no quailing now;
Because the King is certainly poffeft

Of all our purposes. What fay you to it?
Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us.
Hot. A perillous gash, a very limb lopt off:
And yet, in faith, 'tis not; his prefent want
Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good,
To fet the exact wealth of all our states
All at one Caft; to fet fo rich a Main
On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?
It were not good; for therein fhould we read
The very bottom, and the foul of hope,
The very lift, the very utmost Bound
Of all our fortunes.

Dowg. Faith, and fo we should;
Where now remains a sweet reverfion.
We now may boldly spend upon the hope
Of what is to come in:

A comfort of retirement lives in this,

Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, If that the Devil and Mifchance look big Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.

Wor. But yet I would your father had been here: The quality and hair of our attempt

Brooks no divifion: it will be thought

By fome, that know not why he is away,
That wisdom, loyalty, and meer diflike

Of our proceedings, kept the Earl from hence.
And think, how fuch an apprehenfion
May turn the tide of fearful faction,
And breed a kind of question in our cause:
For well you know, we of th' offending fide
Muft keep aloof from ftrict arbitrement;

And stop all fight-holes, every loop, from whence
The eye of reafon may pry in upon us:
This abfence of your father draws a curtain,
That fhews the ignorant a kind of fear
Before not dreamt upon.

Hot.

Hot. You ftrain too far.

I rather of his abfence make this ufe:
It lends a luftre, and more great opinon,
A larger Dare to our great enterprise,

Than if the Earl were here: for men muft think,
If we without his help can make a head,
To push against the Kingdom; with his help,
We fhall o'erturn it topfie-turvy down.
Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.
Dowg. As heart can think; there is not fuch a word
Spoke of in Scotland, as this term of fear.

S C E NE

Enter Sir Richard Vernon.

II.

Hot. My coufin Vernon, welcome, by my foul! Ver. Pray God, my news be worth a welcome, lord. The Earl of Westmorland, fev'n thousand strong, Is marching hither, with Prince John of Lancaster. Hot. No harm; what more?

Ver. And further, I have learn'd,

The King himself in perfon hath fet forth,

Or hitherwards intended speedily,

With strong and mighty preparation.

Hot. He fhall be welcome too: where is his fon? The nimble-footed mad-cap Prince of Wales, And his comrades, that daft the world afide

And bid it pafs?

Ver. All furnifht, all in arms,

All plum'd like Eftridges, that with the wind
* Baited like Eagles, having lately bath'd:
Glittering in golden coats like images,
As full of fpirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the Sun at Midfummer;

2 Baited like Eagles,] Baited, i. e. flutter'd the wings.

Mr. Pope.

Wanton

Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
I faw young Harry, with his beaver on,
* His cuiffes on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,
Rife from the ground like feather'd Mercury;
And vaulted with fuch ease into his feat,

As if an Angel dropt down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,

$ And witch the world with noble horsemanship:

Hot. No more, no more; worfe than the Sun in
March,

This praise doth nourish agues; let them come.
They come like Sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-ey'd maid of fmoaky war,
All hot, and bleeding, will we offer them.
The mailed Mars fhall on his altar fit
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprisal is fo nigh,

And yet not ours. Come, let me take my horse,
Who is to bear me, like a thunder-bolt,

Against the bofom of the Prince of Wales.
Harry to Harry fhall (not horse to horse)

Meet, and ne'er part, 'till One drop down a coarse.
Oh, that Glendower were come!

Ver. There is more news:

I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,
He cannot draw his Pow'r this fourteen days.

3 I faw young Harry, with his beaver ON,] We should read, beaver UP. It is an impropriety to fay on: For the beaver is only the vifiere of the Helmet, which, let down, covers the face. When the foldier was not upon action he wore it up, so that his face might be seen, (hence Vernon fays he faw young Harry) But when upon action, it was let down to cover and fecure the face. Hence in the second part of Henry IV. it is faid,

Their armed faves in charge, their beavers down. 4 His cuiffes on his thighs,- -] Cuiffes, French, armour for the thighs. Mr. Pope.

5 And witch the world-] For bewitch, charm.

Mr. Pope.

Dowg.

Dowg. That's the worft tidings that I hear of, yet. Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty found. Hot. What may the King's whole Battle reach unto? Ver. To thirty thousand.

Hot. Forty let it be;

My father and Glendower being both away,
The Pow'r of us may ferve fo great a day.
Come, let us take a mufter fpeedily:
Dooms-day is near; die all, die merrily.
Dowg. Talk not of dying, I am out of fear
Of death, or death's hand, for this one half year.
[Exeunt.

S C EN E III.

Changes to a publick Road, near Coventry.

Fal.

Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.

before

Ardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of fack: our foldiers fhall march

BAr

through: we'll to Sutton-cop-hill to night. Bard. Will you give me mony, captain? Fal. Lay out, lay out.

Bard. This bottle makes an angel.

Fal. And if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it make twenty, take them all, I'll answer the coynage. lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. Bar. I will, captain; farewel.

Bid

my

[Exit. Fal. If I be not afham'd of my foldiers, I am a fowc'd gurnet: I have mif-us'd the King's Prefs dam

nably.

'I have got, in exchange of an hundred and fifty foldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I prefs me none but good houfholders, yeomens' fons; enquire me out contracted batchelors, fuch as had been ask'd twice on the banes: fuch a commodity of warm flaves, as had as lieve hear the devil, as a drum; 'fuch as fear the report of a culverin, worse than a

·

• ftruck

6

• ftruck (a) deer, or a hurt wild duck. I prefs me none but such toasts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out their fervices: and now my whole Charge • confifts of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, flaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the Glutton's dogs licked his fores; and fuch as indeed were never foldiers, but difcarded unjuft fervingmen, younger fons to younger brothers; revolted tapfters, and oftlers trade-fall'n, the cankers of a calm world and a long peace; ten times more difhonourably ragged, than an old-feaft ancient; and fuch have I to fill up the ' rooms of them that have bought out their services; that you would think, I had a hundred and fifty • tatter'd Prodigals, lately come from fwine-keeping, • from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me C on the way, and told me, I had unloaded all the gibbets, and preft the dead bodies. No eye hath feen fuch skare-crows: I'll not march through • Coventry with them, that's flat. Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for, indeed, I had the most of them

6 ten times more dishonourably ragged, than an old FACD ancient ;] But how is an old fac'd ancient, or enfign, difhonourably ragged? On the contrary, nothing is efleem'd more honourable than a ragged pair of colours. A very little alteration will give us the author's reading, which conveys a stroke of very just and fine-turn'd fatire in the comparison.

Ten times more difhonourably ragged, than an old FEAST ancient. i.e. the colours ufed by the city-companies in their feafts and proceffions. For each company had one with its peculiar device, which was ufually display'd and borne about on fuch occafions. Now as Falstaff's raggamuffins were reduc'd to their tatter'd condition thro' their riotous exceffes; fo this old feaft ancient became torn and shatter'd, not in any manly exercise of arms, but amidst the revels of drunken bacchanals.

7 gyves on;] i. e. fhackles.

[(a) deer. Oxford Editor.-Vulg. fowl.]

Mr. Pope.

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