your father;

What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
The immediate heir of England? Was this easy ?1
May this be washed in Lethe, and forgotten?
Ch. Just. I then did use the
person of
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; 2
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, And mock your workings in a second body. Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours; Be now the father, and propose a son: Hear your own dignities so much profaned, 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;

1 Was this easy? was this a light offence?

3

2 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.

3 i. e. image to yourself that you have a son.

And, as you are a king, speak in your state,1
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 honors 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 unstained sword that you have used 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

2

My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear;
And I will stoop and humble my intents
To your well-practised, wise directions.-
And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you ;-
My father is gone wild into his grave,
For in his tomb lie my affections;
And with his spirit sadly 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 flowed in vanity, till now.
Now doth it turn, and ebb back to the sea;
Where it shall mingle with the state3 of floods,

1 In your regal character and office.

2 The meaning may be, 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.

3 That is, with the majestic dignity of the ocean, the chief 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-governed nation;
That war, or peace, or both at once, may
As things acquainted and familiar to us;
In which you, father, shall have foremost hand.-
[To the Lord Chief Justice.

Qur coronation done, we will accite,

As I before remembered, all our state;

And (God consigning to my good intents)

be

No prince, nor peer, shall have just cause to say, Heaven shorten Harry's happy life one day. [Exeunt.

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 arbor, we will eat a last year's pippin of my own graffing, with a dish of carraways, 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

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." 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.

varlet, sir John.-By the mass, I have drunk too much sack at supper;-a good varlet. Now sit down, now sit down ;-come, cousin.

Sil. Ah, sirrah! quoth-a,—we shall

Do nothing but eat, and make good cheer, [Singing.
And praise Heaven for the merry year,

When flesh is cheap, and females dear,
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.1 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,

And welcome merry Shrove-tide.3

Be merry, be merry, &c.

2

Fal. I did not think master Silence had been a man of this mettle.

Sil. Who, I? I have been merry twice and once,

ere now.

Re-enter DAVY.

4

Davy. There is a dish of leather-coats for you. [Setting them before BARDOLPH.

Shal. Davy,

1 An expression of welcome, equivalent to Much good may it do you! 2 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."

3 Shrovetide was the ancient carnival.
4 Apples, commonly called russetines.

Davy. Your worship?-I'll be with you straight. [TO BARD.]-A cup of wine, sir?

Sil. A cup of wine, that's brisk and fine, [Singing And drink unto the leman mine ;

And a merry heart lives long-a.

Fal. Well said, master Silence.

Sil. And we shall be merry;-now comes in the sweet of the night.

Fal. Health and long life to you, master Silence. Sil. Fill the cup, and let it come :

I'll pledge you a mile to the bottom.

Shal. Honest Bardolph, welcome; if thou wantest any thing, and wilt not call, beshrew thy heart.— Welcome, my little tiny thief; [To the Page.] and welcome, indeed, too.—I'll drink to master Bardolph, and to all the cavaleroes about London.

Davy. I hope to see London once ere I die. Bard. An I might see you there, Davy,— Shal. By the mass, you'll crack a quart together. Ha! will you not, master Bardolph ?

Bard. Yes, sir, in a pottle pot.

Shal. I thank thee. The knave will stick by thee, I can assure thee that: he will not out; he is true bred.

Bard. And I'll stick by him, sir.

Shal. Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing; be merry. [Knocking hard.] Look who's at door there. Ho! who knocks? [Exit DAVY. Fal. Why, now you have done me right. [To SILENCE, who drinks a bumper. [Singing.

Sil. Do me right,1
And dub me knight: 2

Samingo.

Is't not so?

3

1 To do a man right and to do him reason, were formerly the usual expressions in pledging healths; he who drank a bumper expected that a bumper should be drunk to his toast.

2 He who drank a bumper on his knees to the health of his mistress, was dubbed a knight for the evening.

3 It has been supposed that the introduction of Domingo as a burthen to a drinking song, was intended as a satire on the luxury of the Domini