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Fastolf occur in this collection, which has been edited by Mr. James Gairdner, of the Record Office, in three volumes, with full historical introductions, and with the recovery of more than four hundred letters that were not in the collection previously made by Sir John Fenn. Mr. Gairdner's volumes of the "Paston Letters are the best source of information as to the real character of the knight whose name Shakespeare has taken, not in vain. Of the use made by Shakespeare of his fat knight, and of the inner spirit of this play, there will be full room to speak in the Introduction to the Second Part of Henry IV., when the two parts will be, in that respect, taken together.

They are to be obtained only through Professor Arber, of Mason's College, Birmingham, by whom they were published in 1872-75

H. M.

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K. Hen. So shaken as we are, so wan with care,

Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,

And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenced in strands afar remote.
No more the thirsty entrance of this soil

Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowerets with the arméd hoofs
Of hostile paces: those opposéd eyes,

Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way, and be no more opposed
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathéd knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ,—
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross
We are impressed and engaged to fight,—
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy;

Whose arms were moulded in their mothers' wombs

To chase these pagans in those holy fields

Over whose acres walked those blesséd feet
Which, fourteen hundred years ago were nailed
For our advantage on the bitter cross.

But this our purpose is a twelvemonth old,
And bootless 'tis to tell you we will go :
Therefore we meet not now.-Then, let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree,
In forwarding this dear expedience.

.

West. My liege, this haste was hot in question,
And many limits of the charge set down
But yesternight when, all athwart, there came
A post from Wales loaden with heavy news;
Whose worst was,—that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
A thousand of his people butchered;

Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,
Such beastly, shameless transformation,

By those Welsh women done, as may not be
Without much shame re-told or spoken of.

K. Hen. It seems, then, that the tidings of this

broil

Brake off our business for the Holy Land.

West. This, matched with other, did, my gracious

lord;

For more uneven and unwelcome news

Came from the north, and thus it did import:

On Holy-rood day, the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,
That ever-valiant and approved Scot,
At Holmedon met,

Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour,
As by discharge of their artillery,

And shape of likelihood, the news was told;
For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention did take horse,
Uncertain of the issue any way.

K. Hen. Here is a dear and true-industrious

friend,

Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stained with the variation of each soil

Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours;

And he hath brought us smooth and welcome

news.

The Earl of Douglas is discomfited;

Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights, Balked in their own blood, did Sir Walter see

On Holmedon's plains: of prisoners, Hotspur

took

Mordake the Earl of Fife, and eldest son
To beaten Douglas, and the Earls of Athol,
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith.

And is not this an honourable spoil

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