Poins. By this light, I am well spoken of, I can hear it with my own ears: the worst that they can say of me is, that I am a second brother, and that I am a proper fellow of my hands 3; and those two things, I confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph.

P. Hen. And the boy that I gave Falstaff: he had him from me christian; and look, if the fat villain have not transformed him ape.

Enter BARDOLPH and Page.

Bard. 'Save your grace!

P. Hen. And yours, most noble Bardolph! Bard. Come, you virtuous ass [To the Page], you bashful fool, must you be blushing? wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man at arms are you become! Is it such a matter, to get a pottlepot's maidenhead?

Page. He called me even now, my lord, through a red-lattice, and I could discern no part of his face from the window: at last, I spied his eyes; and, methought, he had made two holes in the ale-wife's new petticoat, and peeped through.

P. Hen. Hath not the boy profited?

Bard. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away! Page. Away, you rascally Althea's dream, away! P. Hen. Instruct us, boy: What dream, boy? Page. Marry, my lord, Althea dreamed she was

3 A proper fellow of my hands is the same as a tall fellow of his hands, which has been already explained in a note on The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act i. Sc. 4, p. 202. That a tall or a proper fellow was sometimes used in an equivocal sense for a thief, there can be no doubt. Cotgrave has a proverb, 'Les beaux hommes au gibet: The gibbet makes an end of proper men.' A striker is one of its meanings, according to Cotgrave,' who taking a proper youth to be his apprentice, to teach him the order of striking and foisting.'-Greene's Art of Cony Catching.

4 An alehouse window.

delivered of a fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream.

P. Hen. A crown's worth of good interpretation. -There it is, boy. [Gives him money.

Poins. O, that this good blossom could be kept from cankers!-Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.

Bard. An you do not make him be hanged among you, the gallows shall have wrong.

P. Hen. And how doth thy master, Bardolph ? Bard. Well, my lord. He heard of your grace's coming to town; there's a letter for you.

Poins. Delivered with good respect.-And how doth the martlemas 5, your master?

Bard. In bodily health, sir.

Poins. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician: but that moves not him; though that be sick, it dies not.

P. Hen. I do allow this wen 6 to be as familiar with me as my dog: and he holds his place; for, look you, how he writes.

Poins. [Reads.] John Falstaff, knight,-Every man must know that, as oft as he has occasion to name himself. Even like those that are kin to the king; for they never prick their finger, but they say, There is some of the king's blood spilt: How comes that? says he, that takes upon him not to conceive: the answer is as ready as a borrower's cap; I am the king's poor cousin, sir.

mer,

7

5 Falstaff is before called thou latter spring, all-hallown sumand Poins now calls him martlemas, a corruption of martinmas, which means the same thing. The feast of St. Martin being considered the latter end of autumn. Este de St. Martin is a French proverb for a late summer. It means therefore an

old fellow with juvenile passions.

6 Swoln excrescence.

7 The old copy reads a borrowed cap. The emendation is Warburton's.

P. Hen. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But the letter:

Poins. Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the king, nearest his father, Harry, Prince of Wales, greeting.-Why, this is a certificate.

P. Hen. Peace!

Poins. I will imitate the honourable Roman 8 in brevity:-he sure means brevity in breath; shortwinded. I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins: for he misuses thy favours so much, that he swears, thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou may'st, and so farewell.

Thine, by yea and no (which is as

much as to say, as thou usest him), Jack Falstaff, with my familiars; John, with my brothers and sisters; and Sir John, with all Europe. My lord, I will steep this letter in sack, and make him eat it.

P. Hen. That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister?

Poins. May the wench have no worse fortune! but I never said so.

P. Hen. Well, thus we play the fools with the time and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds, and mock us. Is your master here in London? Bard. Yes, my

lord.

P. Hen. Where sups he? doth the old boar feed in the old frank 9?

Bard. At the old place, my lord; in Eastcheap.
P. Hen. What company?

That is Julius Cæsar. Falstaff alludes to the veni, vidi, vici, which he afterwards quotes.

9 A sty, a place to fatten a boar in.

Page. Ephesians, my lord; of the old church 10, P. Hen. Sup any women with him?

Page. None, my lord, but old mistress Quickly, and mistress Doll Tear-sheet.

P. Hen. What pagan 11 may that be?

Page. A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's.

P. Hen. Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull.-Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?

Poins. I am your shadow, my lord; I'll follow you.

P. Hen. Sirrah, you boy,-and Bardolph;-no word to your master, that I am yet come to town: There's for your silence.

Bard. I have no tongue, sir.

Page. And for mine, sir,-I will govern it.

P. Hen. Fare ye well; go. [Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page.]—This Doll Tear-sheet should be some road.

Poins. I warrant you, as common as the tween Saint Albans and London.

way be

P. Hen. How might we see Falstaff bestow 12 himself to-night in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen?

10 A cant phrase probably signifying topers, or jolly companions of the old sort. The host in The Merry Wives of Windsor says, 'It is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls.'

11 Massinger, in The City Madam, has used this phrase for a wench :

in all these places

I've had my several pagans billeted.'

12 i. e. act. In a MS. letter from Secretary Conway to Buckingham, at the Isle of Ree,' also what the lords have advanced for the expedition towards you, since Saturday that they returned from Windsor with charge to bestowe themselves seriously in it.' -Conway Papers. In As You Like It, Act iv. Sc. 3:-

VOL. V.

The boy bestows himself like a ripe sister.'

CC

Poins. Put on two leather jerkins, and aprons, and wait upon him at his table as drawers.

P. Hen. From a god to a bull? a heavy descension 13! it was Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice? a low transformation! that shall be mine: for, in every thing, the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned. [Exeunt.

SCENE III. Warkworth. Before the Castle. Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, LADY NORTHUMBERLAND, and LADY PERCY.

North. I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter,

Give even way unto my rough affairs;
Put not you on the visage of the times,
And be, like them, to Percy troublesome.

Lady N. I have given over, I will speak no more : Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide. North. Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn; And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.

Lady P. O, yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars!

The time was, father, that you broke your word,
When you were more endear'd to it than now;
When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,
Threw many a northward look, to see his father
Bring up his powers: but he did long in vain.
Who then persuaded you to stay at home?
There were two honours lost; yours, and your son's.
For yours, may heavenly glory brighten it!
For his, it stuck upon him, as the sun

In the grey vault of heaven: and, by his light,
Did all the chivalry of England move

13 The folio reads declension.