tinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young. You measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

Ch. Just. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken? your wind short? your chin double? your wit single?1 and every part about you blasted with antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, sir John!

Fal. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. For my voice,-I have lost it with hollaing, and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not. The truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box o' the ear that the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and took it like a sensible lord. I have checked you him for it; and the young lion repents; marry, not in ashes and sackcloth; but in new silk and old sack.

Ch. Just. Well, Heaven send the prince a better companion!

Fal. Heaven send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

Ch. Just. Well, the king hath severed you and prince Harry. I hear you are a going with lord John of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland.

Fal. Yea; I thank your pretty, sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day! for, by

1 Single is simple, silly.

the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily; if it be a hot day, an I brandish any thing but my bottle, I would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever;1 but it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you will needs say, I am an old man, , you should give me rest. I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition !

Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth?

Ch. Just. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses.2 Fare you well. Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland.

[Exeunt Chief Justice and Attendant. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.3-A man can no more separate age and covetousness, than he can part young limbs and lechery; but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and so both the degrees prevent my curses.

4

-Boy!

Page. Sir?

Fal. What money is in my purse?

Page. Seven groats and two-pence.
Fal. I can get no remedy against this consumption

1 The rest of this speech, which is not in the folio, is restored from the quarto copy.

2 A quibble is here intended between crosses, contraryings, and the sort of money so called.

3 This alludes to a common but cruel diversion of boys, called fillipping the toad. They lay a board, two or three feet long, at right angles, over a transverse piece, two or three inches thick; then placing the toad at one end of the board, the other end is struck by a bat or large stick, which throws the poor toad forty or fifty feet perpendicular from the earth; and the fall generally kills it. A three-man beetle is a heavy beetle, with three handles, used in driving piles.

4 To prevent is to anticipate.

of the purse; borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.-Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this to the earl of Westmoreland; and this to old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin. About it; you know where to find me. [Exit Page.] A pox of this gout, or, a gout of this pox! for the one, or the other, plays the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter, if I do halt; I have the wars for my color, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing; I will turn diseases to commodity.

[Exit.

SCENE III. York. A Room in the Archbishop's
Palace.

Enter the Archbishop of York; the LORDS HASTINGS,
MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH.

Arch. Thus have you heard our cause, and known

our means;

And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes.-
And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?

Mowb. I well allow the occasion of our arms;
But gladly would be better satisfied,
How, in our means, we should advance ourselves
To look with forehead bold and big enough
Upon the power and puissance of the king.

Hast. Our present musters grow upon the file
To five-and-twenty thousand men of choice;
And our supplies live largely in the hope
Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
With an incensed fire of injuries.

Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth

thus:

Whether our present five-and-twenty thousand
May hold
up head without Northumberland.

Hast. With him, we may. Bard. Ay, marry, there's the point. But if without him we be thought too feeble, My judgment is, we should not step too far Till we had his assistance by the hand; For, in a theme so bloody-faced as this, Conjecture, expectation, and surmise Of aids uncertain, should not be admitted.

Arch. 'Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed, It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.

Bard. It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself with project of a power

Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts;

And so, with great imagination,
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,
And, winking, leaped into destruction.

Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt, To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope.

2

Bard. Yes, in this present quality of war;Indeed the instant action, (a cause on foot,) Lives so in hope, as in an early spring

1

We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair,

That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection;

It has been proposed to read :—

1 That is, which turned out to be much smaller than, &c.

2 The first twenty lines of this speech were first inserted in the folio, 1623. This passage has perplexed the editors. The old copies read:

"Yes, if this present quality of war,
Indeed the instant action: a cause on foot
Lives so in hope: As in," &c.

"Yes, if this present quality of war ;--
Induced the instant action: a cause on foot
Lives so in hope, as in," &c.

The reading adopted by Steevens and Malone, from Johnson's suggestion, is that which is given above.

Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then, but draw anew the model
or, at least, desist

In fewer offices;
To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
(Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down,
And set another up,) should we survey
The plot of situation, and the model;
Consent1 upon a sure foundation ;
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.

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,2
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,

1 Agree.

2 During this rebellion of Northumberland and the archbishop, a French army of twelve thousand men landed at Milford Haven, in aid of Owen Glendower. Sée Holinshed, p. 531.