Question surveyors, know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,

To weigh against his opposite; or else
We fortify in paper and in figures,

Using the names of men instead of men :

Like one that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost

A naked subject to the weeping clouds
And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.

Hast. Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,

Should be still-born, and that we now possessed
The utmost man of expectation;

I think we are a body strong enough,

Even as we are, to equal with the king.

L. Bard. What, is the king but five-and-twenty thousand?

Hast. To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph.

For his divisions, as the times do brawl,

Are in three heads: one power against the
French,

And one against Glendower; perforce, a third
Must take up us: so is the unfirm king

In three divided; and his coffers sound

With hollow poverty and emptiness.

Arch. That he should draw his several strengths

together

And come against us in full puissance,

Need not be dreaded.

Hast.

If he should do so,

He leaves his back unarmed, the French and

Welsh

Baying him at the heels: never fear that.

L. Bard. Who is it like should lead his forces

hither?

Hast. The Duke of Lancaster and Westmore

land:

Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth; But who is substituted 'gainst the French,

I have no certain notice.

Arch.

Let us on,

And publish the occasion of our arms.

The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited.—

An habitation giddy and unsure

Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.

O thou fond many! with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
Before he was what thou wouldst have him be,
And being now trimmed in thine own desires,

Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him,

That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.
So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;

And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these

times?

They that, when Richard lived, would have him

die,

Are now become enamoured on his grave:

Thou, that threw 'st dust upon his goodly head,
When through proud London he came sighing on
After the admiréd heels of Bolingbroke,

Cry'st now, 'O earth, yield us that king again,
And take thou this!' O thoughts of men accurst!
Past, and to come, seems best; things present,
worst.

Mowb. Shall we go draw our numbers and set

on?

Hast. We are time's subjects, and time bids [Exeunt.

be gone.

Enter Hostess, FANG and his Boy with her, and SNARE following.

Host. Master Fang, have you entered the action? Fang. It is entered.

Host. Where's your yeoman? Is 't a lusty yeoman? will 'a stand to 't?

Fang. Sirrah, where 's Snare?

Host. O Lord, ay: good Master Snare.
Snare. Here, here.

Fang. Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff, Host. Yea, good Master Snare; I have entered him and all.

Snare. It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.

Host. Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most beastly. In good faith, 'a cares not what mischief he doth, if his weapon be out: he will foin like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.

Fang. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.

Host. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. Fang. An I but fist him once; an he come but within my vice,

Host. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an infinitive thing upon my score.-Good Master Fang, hold him sure :-good Master Snare, let him not 'scape. 'A comes continuantly to Pie Corner (saving your manhoods) to buy a saddle; and he's indited to dinner to the Lubbar's Head in Lumbert Street, to Master Smooth's the silkman: I pray you, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear; and I have borne, and borne, and borne, and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing, unless a woman should be made an ass, and a beast to bear every knave's wrong.-Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey nose, Bardolph, with him.

Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH. Do your offices, do your offices, Master Fang, and