Can play upon it. But what need I thus Among my household? Why is Rumour here? Hath beaten down young Hotspur, and his troops, Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true [Exit. wrongs. 4 Northumberland's castle, SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV. ACT I. SCENE I. The same. The Porter before the Gate. Enter LORD BARDOLPH. Bardolph. WHO keeps the gate here, ho?-Where is the earl? Port. What shall I say you are? Bard. Tell thou the earl, That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here. Port. His lordship is walk'd forth into the or chard; Please it your honour, knock but at the gate, Bard. Enter NORTHUMBERLAND. Here comes the earl North. What news, Lord Bardolph? every mi nute now Should be the father of some stratagem; Bard. Noble earl, I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. Bard. As good as heart can wish: The king is almost wounded to the death; And, in the fortune of my lord your son, Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts Kill'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince John, And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field; And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John, Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day, So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won, Came not, till now, to dignify the times, Since Caesar's fortunes! North, How is this deriv'd? Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury? Bard. I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence; A gentleman well bred, and of good name, On Tuesday last to listen after news. Bard. My lord, I over-rode him on the way; North. Now, Travers, what good tidings come with you?,kow Tra. My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd, Out-rode me. After him, came, spurring hard, A gentleman almost forspent with speed, That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse: He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him I did demand, what news from Shrewsbury. He told me, that rebellion had bad luck, And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold: 1 Exhausted, Against the panting sides of his poor jade? North. Ha! Again. Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold? Of Hotspurt, coldspur? that rebellion Had met ill luck? Bard. My lord, I'll tell you what ; ve not the day, Upon mine honour, for a silken point5 I'll give my barony: never talk of it. North. Why should the gentleman, that rode by Travers, Give then such instances of loss? Bard. 2 Jade is not used by Shakspeare as a term of contempt; for. King Richard II. gives this appellation to his favourite horse Roan Barbary, which Henry IV. rode at his coronation : "That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand.' The commentators suppose that a jade meant a horse kept for drudgery, a hackney; but this is not the fact. It was only an other name for a horse, as nag since. Thus we have 'Hollow pampered jades of Asia. And Ford, in his Lover's Melancholy, Act ii. Sc. 2. "Like high fed jades upon a tilting day.' 3 So in the book of Job, ch. xxxix:-'He swalloweth the ground in fierceness and rage.' The same expression occurs in Ben Jonson's Sejanus :— "But with that speed and heat of appetite With which they greedily devour the way In the Tempest, Ariel, to describe his alacrity in obeying Prospero's commands, says, 'I drink the air before me.' Nemesian has the same thought: latumque fuga consumere campum.' 4 Hotspur seems to have been a very common term for a man of vehemence and precipitation. Stanyhurst renders the following line of Virgil: 'Nec victoris heri tetigit captiva cubile.' To couch not mounting of mayster vanquisher hoatspur. A silken point is a tagged lace. 6 i. e. Hilderling, base, low fellow. The horse he rode on; and, upon my life, Enter MORTON. North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf, Foretells the nature of a tragic volume: So looks the strond, whereon the imperious flood Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury? North. How doth my son, and brother? Your brother, thus; so fought the noble Douglas; North. Why, he is dead. See, what a ready tongue suspicion hath! 7 An attestation of its ravage. 8 Dr. Bentley is said to have thought this passage corrupt; and therefore (with a greater degree of gravity than the reader will probably express) proposed the following emendation:— The name 'So dead, so dull in look Ucalegon, Drew Priam's curtain,' &c. of Ucalegon occurs in the third Iliad, and in the |