So great indignities you laid upon me?

What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison The immediate heir of England? Was this easy3? May this be wash'd in Lethe, and forgotten?

Ch. Just. I then did use the person of your father;
The image of his power lay then in me:
And, in the administration of his law,
Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,
Your highness pleased to forget my place,
The majesty and power of law and justice,
The image of the king whom I presented,
And struck me in my very seat of judgment;
Whereon, as an offender to your father,
I gave bold way to my authority,

And did commit you. If the deed were ill,
Be you contented, wearing now the garland,
To have a son set your decrees at nought;
To pluck down justice from your awful bench;
To trip the course of law, and blunt the sword
That guards the peace and safety of your person;
Nay, more; to spurn at your most royal image,

3 Was this easy? was this a light offence? Thus in King Henry VI. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1:

These faults are easy, quickly answer'd.' And Lord Surrey has :

:

Easy sighes, such as folks draw in love.'
Baret has: very easily or lightly; perfacile; legierement.'

It has already been remarked that Sir William Gascoigne, the chief justice in this play, died in the reign of Henry IV. ; and consequently this scene has no foundation in fact. Shakspeare was misled by Stowe, or probably was careless about the matter. While Gascoigne was at the bar Henry of Bolingbroke was his client, who appointed him his attorney to sue out his livery in the Court of Wards; but Richard II. defeated his purpose. When Bolingbroke became Henry IV. he appointed Gascoigne chief justice. In that station he acquired the character of a learned, upright, wise, and intrepid judge. The story of his committing the prince is told by Sir Thomas Elyot, in his book entitled The Governor; but Shakspeare followed the Chronicles.

And mock your workings in a second body 5.
Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours;
Be now the father, and propose a sono:

Hear your own dignity so much profan'd,
See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted,
Behold yourself so by a son disdained;
And then imagine me taking your part,
And, in your power, soft silencing your son:
After this cold considerance, sentence me;
And, as you are a king, speak in your state7,
What I have done, that misbecame my place,
My person, or my liege's sovereignty.

King. You are right, justice, and you weigh this well;

Therefore still bear the balance and the sword:
And I do wish your honours may increase,
Till you do live to see a son of mine
Offend you, and obey you, as I did.
So shall I live to speak my father's words;—
Happy am I, that have a man so bold,
That dares do justice on my proper son:
And not less happy, having such a son,
That would deliver up his greatness so
Into the hands of justice. You did commit me:
For which, I do commit into your hand

The unstain'd sword that you have us❜d to bear;
With this remembrance,-That you use the same
With the like bold, just, and impartial spirit,
As you have done 'gainst me. There is my hand;
You shall be as a father to my youth:

My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear;
And I will stoop and humble my intents

5 Treat with contempt your acts executed by a representative. 6 i. e. image to yourself that you have a son. So in Titus Andronicus:

- a thousand deaths I could propose,'

7 In your regal character and office.

8 Remembrance; that is admonition or warning.

To your well practis'd, wise directions.
And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you ;-
My father is gone wild into his grave9,
For in his tomb lie my affections;
And with his spirit sadly 10 I survive,
To mock the expectation of the world;
To frustrate prophecies; and to raze out
Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down
After my seeming. The tide of blood in me
Hath proudly flow'd in vanity, till now:
Now doth it turn, and ebb back to the sea;
Where it shall mingle with the state 11 of floods,
And flow henceforth in formal majesty.
Now call we our high court of parliament:
And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel,
That the great body of our state may go
In equal rank with the best-govern'd nation
That war, or peace, or both at once, may
be
As things acquainted and familiar to us;-
In which you, father, shall have foremost hand.-
[To the Lord Chief Justice.

Our coronation done, we will accite 12,
As I before remember'd, all our state:
And (God consigning to my good intents),
No prince, nor peer, shall have just cause to say,-
Heaven shorten Harry's happy life one day.
[Exeunt.

9 The meaning is, My wild dispositions having ceased on my father's death, and being now as it were buried in his tomb, he and wildness are interred in the same grave. This is confirmed by a passage in King Henry V. :—

'The courses of his youth promis'd it not:
The breath no sooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem'd to die too.'

10 Sadly is soberly, seriously; sad is opposed to wild.

11 That is, With the majestic dignity of the ocean, the chief of floods.

VOL. V.

12 Summons.

K K

SCENE III.

Glostershire. The Garden of Shallow's House. Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, SILENCE, BARDOLPH, the Page, and DAVY.

Shal. Nay, you shall see mine orchard: where, in an arbour, we will eat a last year's pippin of my own graffing, with a dish of carraways1, and so forth; -come, cousin Silence;-and then to bed.

Fal. 'Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling, and a rich.

Shal. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John:-marry, good air.-Spread, Davy; spread, Davy; well said, Davy.

Fal. This Davy serves you for good uses; he is your serving-man, and your husbandman.

Shal. A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet, Sir John.-By the mass, I have drunk too much sack at supper :

a good varlet.

down, now sit down:-come, cousin.

Sil. Ah, sirrah! quoth-a,-we shall
Do nothing but eat, and make good cheer,

And praise heaven for the merry year;

Now sit

[Singing.

1 This passage, which was long a subject of dispute, some pertinaciously maintaining that carraways meant apples of that name, has been at length properly explained by the following quotations from Cogan's Haven of Health, 1599:-' For the same purpose careway seeds are used to be made in comfits, and to be eaten with apples, and surely very good for that purpose, for all such things as breed wind, would be eaten with other things that breake wind.' Again:- Howbeit we are wont to eate carrawaies, or biskets, or some other kind of comfits or seedes, together with apples, thereby to breake winde ingendred by them; and surely this is a verie good way for students.' The truth is, that apples and carraways were formerly always eaten together; and it is said that they are still served up on particular days at Trinity College, Cambridge.

When flesh is cheap, and females dear2,
And lusty lads roam here and there,
So merrily,

And ever among so merrily.

Fal. There's a merry heart!-Good master Silence, I'll give you a health for that anon.

Shal. Give master Bardolph some wine, Davy. Davy. Sweet sir, sit; [Seating BARDOLPH and the Page at another table.] I'll be with you anon:— most sweet sir, sit.- -Master page, good master page, sit proface 3! What you want in meat, we'll have in drink. But you must bear; The heart's all.

[Exit. Shal. Be merry, master Bardolph ;—and my little soldier there, be merry.

Sil. Be merry, be merry, my wife has all;

[Singing. For women are shrews, both short and tall: 'Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all*,

2 The character of Silence is admirably sustained; he would scarcely speak a word before, and now there is no end to his garrulity. He has a catch for every occasion :—

'When flesh is cheap and females dear.' Here the double sense of dear must be remembered.

3 An expression of welcome equivalent to Much good may it do you! Steevens conjectured it to be from the old French Bon prou leur face, which is to be found in Cotgrave in voce PROU. Steevens was very near the mark, for Mr. Nares has pointed out its true origin in the old Norman French or Romance language. 'PROUFACE Souhait, qui veut dire bien vous fasse, proficiat.'ROQUEFORT Glossaire de la Langue Romane. Old Heywood had explained it long before :

'Reader, reade this thus: for preface, proface,

Much good may it do you,' &c.

In Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, p. 132, ed. 1825, it thus occurs: - Before the second course, my lord cardinal came in among them, booted and spurred, all suddenly, and bade them proface.' ♦ This proverbial rhyme is of great antiquity; it is found in Adam Davie's Life of Alexander :

'Merrie swithe it is in hall

When the berdes waveth alle.'