As what I think might be, but what I know
Is ruminated, plotted, and set down;
And only stays but to behold the face
Of that occasion that shall bring it on.

Hot. I smell it; upon my life, it will do well. North. Before the game's a-foot, thou still let'st slip26.

Hot. Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot:And then the power of Scotland, and of York,To join with Mortimer, ha?

Wor. And so they shall. Hot. In faith, it is exceedingly well aim'd. Wor. And 'tis no little reason bids us speed, To save our heads by raising of a head27; For, bear ourselves as even as we can,, The king will always think him in our debt28; And think we think ourselves unsatisfied, Till he hath found a time to pay us home. And see already, how he doth begin To make us strangers to his looks of love. Hot. He does, he does; we'll be reveng'd on him. Wor. Cousin29, farewell:-No further go in this, Than I by letters shall direct your course. When time is ripe (which will be suddenly), I'll steal to Glendower, and Lord Mortimer; Where you and Douglas, and our powers at once (As I will fashion it), shall happily meet, To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms, Which now we hold at much uncertainty.

26 This phrase is taken from hunting. To let slip is to loose a greyhound. So in The Taming of the Shrew :

"Lucentio slipped me, like his greyhound.'

A body of forces,

28 This is a natural description of the state of mind between those that have conferred, and those that have received obligations too great to be satisfied. That this would be the event of Northumberland's disloyalty was predicted by King Richard in the former play,

29 This was a common address in Shakspeare's time to nephews, nieces, and grand-children. See Holinshed, passim. Hotspur was Worcester's nephew.

North. Farewell, good brother:-we shall thrive, I trust.

Hot. Uncle, adieu:-0, let the hours be short, Till fields, and blows, and groans applaud our sport! [Exeunt,

ACT II.

SCENE L. Rochester.

An Inn Yard.

Enter a Carrier, with a lantern in his hand.

1 Car. Heigh ho! An't be not four by the day, I'll be hanged: Charles' wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not packed. What, ostler!

Ost. [Within.] Anon, anon.

1 Car. I pr'ythee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few flocks in the point: the poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess2.

Enter another Carrier,

2. Car. Pease and beans are as dank 3 here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots 4: this house is turned upside down, since Robin ostler died.

1 Car. Poor fellow! never joyed since the price of oats rose; it was the death of him.

2 Car. I think, this be the most villanous house

1 Charles' wain was the vulgar name for the constellation ealled the great bear. It is a corruption of Chorles or Churt's wain. Chorl is frequently y used for a countryman in old books, from the Saxon ceorl.

2 Out of all cess is out of all measure.' Excessively, praeter modum. To cess, or assess, was to number, muster, value, measure, or appraise.

Dank is moist, wet, and consequently mouldy.

• Bots are worms; a disease to which horses are very subject.

R

in all London road for fleas: I am stung like a tench 5.

1 Car. Like a tench? by the mass, there is ne'er king in Christendom could be better bit than I have been since the first cock.

a

2 Car. Why, they will allow us ne'er a jorden, and then we leak in your chimney; and your chamber-lie breeds fleas like a loach.

1 Car. What, ostler! come away and be hanged, come away.

2 Car. I have a gammon of bacon, and two razes? of ginger, to be delivered as far as Charing Cross. 1 Car. 'Odsbody! the turkeys in my pannier are quite starved-What, ostler!-A plague on thee! hast thou never an eye in thy head? canst not hear? An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to break the pate of thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be hanged:-Hast no faith in thee?

Enter GADSHILL 9.

Gads. Good morrow, carriers. What's o'clock? 1 Car. I think it be two o'clock.

5 Dr. Farmer thought tench a mistake for trout; probably alluding to the red spots with which the trout is covered, having some resemblance to the spots on the skin of a flea-bitten person.

of

6 It appears from a passage in Holland's translation of Pliny's Nat. Hist. b. IX. c. xlvii. that anciently fishes were supposed to be with fleas. Last of all some fishes there be which are given to breed fleas and lice; among which the chalcis, a kind of turgot, is one.' Mason suggests that 'breeds fleas as fast as a loach breeds loaches' may be the meaning of the passage; the loach being reckoned a peculiarly prolific fish.asian of

The commentators have puzzled themselves and their readers about this word razes: Theobald asserts that a raze is the Indian term for a bale. I have somewhere seen the word used for a fraile, or little rush basket, such as figs, raisins, &c. are usually packed in; but I cannot now recall the book to memory in which it occurred. Such a package was much more likely to be meant than a bale. The poet perhaps intended to mark the petty importance of the carriers business.

8 This is one of the poet's anachronisms,

Turkeys were not

brought into England until the reign of Henry VIII.

9 Gadshill has his name from a place on the Kentish Road, where robberies were very frequent. A curious narrative of a

Vol. V.

B

Gads. I pr'ythee, lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the stable.

1 Car. Nay, soft, I pray ye; I know a trick worth two of that, i'faith.bak

Gads. I pr'ythee, lend me thine.oderat 2 Car. Ay, when? canst tell?-Lend me thy lantern, quoth a?-marry, I'll see thee hanged first. Gads. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London?

2 Car. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee. Come, neighbour Mugs, we'll call up the gentlemen; they will along with company, for they have great charge. [Exeunt Carriers. Gads. What, ho! chamberlain!

Cham. [Within.] At hand, quoth pick-purse 10.

Grads. That's even as fair asat hand, quoth the chamberlain: for thou variest no more from picking of purses, than giving direction doth from labouring; thou lay'st the plot how 11.

Enter Chamberlain.

Cham. Good morrow, master Gadshill. It holds current, that I told you yesternight: There's a franklin 12 in the wild of Kent, hath brought three hundred marks with him in gold: I heard him tell it to one of his company, last night at supper; a kind of auditor; one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already, and call for eggs and butter: They will away presently.

This

gang, who appear to have infested that neighbourhood in 1590, is printed from a MS. paper of Sir Roger Manwood's in Boswell's Shakspeare, vol. xvi. p. 431.

10 This is a proverbial phrase, frequently used in old plays. 11 Thus in The Life and Death of Gamaliel Ratsay, 1605

he dealt with the chamberlaine of the house, to learn which way they went in the morning, which the chamberlaine performed accordingly, and that with great care and diligence, for he knew he should partake of their fortunes if they sped.'

12 A freeholder or yeoman, a man above a vassal or villain, but not a gentleman. This was the Franklin of the age of Elizabeth. In earlier times he was a person of much more dignity. See Canterbury Tales, v. 333, and Mr. Tyrwhitt's note upon it.