FLU. I SAY, I WILL MAKE HIM EAT SOME PART OF MY LEEK, OR I WILL PEAT HIS PATE FOUR DAYS PITE I PRAY YOU; IT IS GOOT FOR YOUR GREEN WOUND AND YOUR FLOODY COXCOMB.

Act V.Sc.1.

London, Published by FC&J. Rivington, and Partners. Feb 1823.

but I will make you to-day a squire of low degree. I pray you, fall to; if you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek.

Gow. Enough, captain; you have astonished him. 5

Flu. I say, I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will peat his pate four days:-Pite, I pray you; it is goot for your green wound, and your ploody coxcomb.

Pist. Must I bite?

Flu. Yes, certainly; and out of doubt, and out of questions too, and ambiguities.

Pist. By this leek, I will most horribly revenge; I eat, and eke I swear.

Flu. Eat, I pray you: will you have some more sauce to your leek? there is not enough leek to swear by. Pist. Quiet thy cudgel; thou dost see, I eat.

Flu. Much goot do you, scald knave, heartily. Nay, pray you, throw none away; the skin is goot for your proken coxcomb. When you take occasions to see leeks hereafter, I pray you, mock at them; that is all.

Pist. Good.

Flu. Ay, leeks is goot: Hold you there is a groat to heal your pate.

Pist. Me a groat!

Flu. Yes, verily, and in truth, you shall take it; or I have another leek. in my pocket, which you shall eat.

Pist. I take thy groat, in earnest of revenge.

Flu. If I owe you any thing, I will pay you in cudgels; you shall be a woodmonger, and buy nothing of me but cudgels. God be wi' you, and keep you, and heal your pate. [Exit.

Pist. All hell shall stir for this.

Gow. Go, go; you are a counterfeit cowardly knave. Will you mock at an ancient tradition, begun upon an honourable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy

3 astonished him.] That is, you have stunned him with the blow.

of pre-deceased valour,—and dare not avouch in your deeds any of your words? I have seen you gleeking and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought, because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could not therefore handle an English cudgel: you find it otherwise; and, henceforth, let a Welsh correction teach you a good English condition. 7 Fare well

8

ye

[Exit.
Pist. Doth fortune play the huswife with me now?
News have I, that my Nell is dead i'the spital
Of malady of France ;

And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.
Old I do wax; and from

my weary limbs
Honour is cudgell'd. Well, bawd will I turn,
And something lean to cutpurse of quick hand.
To England will I steal, and there I'll steal :
And patches will I get unto these scars,
And swear I got them in the Gallia wars.

SCENE II.

[Exit.9

Troyes in Champagne. An Apartment in the French King's Palace.

Enter at one door, King HENRy, Bedford, Gloster, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and other Lords; at another, the French King, Queen ISABEL, the Princess KATHARINE, Lords, Ladies, &c. the Duke of BURGUNDY, and his Train.

K. Hen. Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met! Unto our brother France, and to our sister,

6

cards.

71

- glecking—] i. e. scoffing, sneering. Gleek was a game at

English condition.] Condition is temper, disposition of mind. 8 Doth fortune play the huswife-] that is, the jilt. Huswife is here used in an ill sense.

9 The comick scenes of The History of Henry the Fourth and Fifth are now at an end, and all the comic personages are now dismissed.

Health and fair time of day:-joy and good wishes
To our most fair and princely cousin Katharine;
And (as a branch and member of this royalty,
By whom this great assembly is contriv'd,)
We do salute you, duke of Burgundy ;-
And, princes French, and peers, health to you all!
Fr. King. Right joyous are we to behold
your face,
Most worthy brother England; fairly met:-
So are you, princes English, every one.

Q. Isa. So happy be the issue, brother England,
Of this good day, and of this gracious meeting,
As we are now glad to behold your eyes;
Your eyes, which hitherto have borne in them
Against the French, that met them in their bent,
The fatal balls of murdering basilisks:
The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,
Have lost their quality; and that this day
Shall change all griefs, and quarrels, into love.
K. Hen. To cry amen to that thus we appear.
Q. Isa. You English princes all, I do salute you.
Bur. My duty to you both, on equal love,

Great kings of France and England! That I have labour'd

With all my wits, my pains, and strong endeavours,
To bring your most imperial majesties

Unto this bar and royal interview,

Your mightiness on both parts best can witness.
Since then my office hath so far prevail'd,

That face to face, and royal eye to eye,

You have congreeted; let it not disgrace me,
If I demand, before this royal view,

Falstaff and Mrs. Quickly are dead; Nym and Bardolph are hanged; Gadshill was lost immediately after the robbery; Poins and Peto have vanished since, one knows not how; and Pistol is now beaten into obscurity. I believe every reader regrets their departure.

JOHNSON

Unto this bar-] To this barrier; to this place of congress,

What rub, or what impediment, there is,
Why that the naked, poor, and mangled peace,
Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births,
Should not, in this best garden of the world,
Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?
Alas! she hath from France too long been chas'd;
And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,
Corrupting in its own fertility.

Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
Unpruned dies: her hedges even-pleached, -
Like prisoners wildly over-grown with hair,
Put forth disorder'd twigs: her fallow leas,
The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory,
Doth root upon; while that the coulter rusts,
That should deracinate2 such savagery:
The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth-
The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover,
Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,
Conceives by idleness; and nothing teems,
But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,
Losing both beauty and utility.

And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges,
Defective in their natures, grow to wildness;"
Even so our houses, and ourselves, and children,
Have lost, or do not learn, for want of time,
The sciences that should become our country ;
But grow, like savages, -as soldiers will,
That nothing do but meditate on blood,-
To swearing, and stern looks, diffus'd attire,"
And every thing that seems unnatural.
Which to reduce into our former favour, 4
You are assembled: and my speech entreats,
That I may know the let, why gentle peace

2

3

deracinate-] To deracinate is to force up by the roots. diffus'd attire,] Diffused for extravagant. The military

habit of those times was extremely so.

4

-former favour,] Former appearance.