My lord, I will steep this letter in sack, and make him eat it.

P. Hen. That's to make him eat twenty of his words." But do you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister? Poins. May the wench have no worse fortune! but I never said so.

P. Hen. Well, thus we play the fools with the time; and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds, and mock us. Is your master here in London?

Bard. Yes, my lord.

P. Hen. Where sups he? doth the old boar feed in the old frank?$

Bard. At the old place, my lord; in Eastcheap.
P: Hen. What company?

Page. Ephesians, my lord; of the old church.
P. Hen. Sup any women with him?

Page. None, my lord, but old mistress Quickly, and mistress Doll Tear-sheet.1

7 That's to make him eat twenty of his words.] Why just twenty, when the letter contained above eight times twenty? We should read plenty; and in this word the joke, as slender as it is, consists. Warburton.

It is not surely uncommon to put a certain number for an uncertain one. Thus, in The Tempest, Miranda talks of playing "for a score of kingdoms." Busby, in King Richard II, observes, that "each substance of a grief has twenty shadows." In Julius Cæsar, Cæsar says that the slave's hand "did burn like twenty torches." In King Lear we meet with ". twenty silly ducking observants," and, "not a nose among twenty."

Robert Green, the pamphleteer, indeed, obliged an apparitor to eat his citation, wax and all. In the play of Sir John Oldcastle, the Sumner is compelled to do the like; and says on the occasion," I'll eat my word." Harpoole replies, "I meane you shall eat more than your own word, I'll make you eate all the words in the processe." Steevens.

8 -frank?] Frank is sty. Pope.

9 Ephesians,] Ephesian was a term in the cant of these times, of which I know not the precise notion: it was, perhaps, a toper. So, the Host, in The Merry Wives of Windsor: "It is thine host, thine Ephesian calls." Johnson.

1.

Doll Tear-sheet.] Shakspeare might have taken the hint for this name from the following passage in The Playe of Robyn Hoode, very proper to be played in Maye Games, bl. 1. no date: "She is a trul of trust, to serve a frier at his lust, "A prycker, a prauncer, a terer of shetes," &c.

Steevens

P. Hen. What pagan may that be?2

Page. A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's.

P. Hen. Even such kin, as the parish heifers are to the town bull.-Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?

Poins. I am your shadow, my lord; I'll follow you. P. Hen. Sirrah, you boy,-and Bardolph;-no word to your master, that I am yet come to town: There 's for your silence.

Bard. I have no tongue, sir.

Page. And for mine, sir,—I will govern it.

P. Hen. Fare ye well; go. [Exeunt BARD. and Page.] -This Doll Tear-sheet should be some road.

Poins. I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Alban's and London.

P. Hen. How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen? Poins. Put on two leather jerkins,3 and aprons, and wait upon him at his table as drawers.

2 What pagan may that be?] Pagan seems to have been a cant term, implying irregularity either of birth or manners. So, in The Captain, a comedy, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "Three little children, one of them was mine;

"Upon my conscience the other two were pagans." In The City Madam of Massinger it is used (as here) for a prostitute:

66

in all these places

"I've had my several Pagans billeted." Steevens.

3 Put on two leather jerkins,] This was a plot very unlikely to succeed where the Prince and the drawers were all known; but it produces merriment, which our author found more useful than probability. Johnson.

Johnson forgets that all the family were in the secret, except Falstaff; and that the Prince and Poins were disguised.

M. Mason.

But how does this circumstance meet with Dr. Johnson's objection? The improbability arises from Falstaff's being perfectly well acquainted with all the waiters in the house; and however disguised the Prince and Poins might be, or whatever aid they might derive from the landlord and his servants, they could not in fact pass for the old attendants, with whose person, voice, and manner, Falstaff was well acquainted. Accordingly he discovers the Prince as soon as ever he speaks. However, Shakspeare's chief object was to gain an opportunity for Falstaff to abuse the

P. Hen. From a god to a bull? a heavy descension!" it was Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice? a low transformation! that shall be mine: for, in every thing, the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Warkworth. Before the Castle.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, Lady NORTHUMBERLAND, and Lady PERCY.

North. I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter, Give even way unto my rough affairs:

Put not you on the visage of the times,

And be, like them, to Percy troublesome.

Lady N. I have given over, I will speak no more: Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide. North. Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn; And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.

Lady P. O, yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars! The time was, father, that you broke your word, When you were more endear'd to it than now; When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry, Threw many a northward look, to see his father Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.5

Prince and Poins, while they remain at the back part of the stage in their disguises: a jeu de theatre which he practised in other plays, and which always gains applause. Malone.

4 a heavy descension!] Descension is the reading of the first edition.

Mr. Upton proposes that we should read thus by transposition: From a god to a bull? a low transformation!from a prince to a prentice? a heavy declension! This reading is elegant, and perhaps right. Johnson.

5 Threw many a northward look to see his father

Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.] Mr. Theobald very elegantly conjectures that the poet wrote,

but he did look in vain.

Statius, in the tenth Book of his Thebaid, has the same thought: frustra de colle Lycai

"Anxia prospectas, si quis per nubila longe

Aut sonus, aut nostro sublatus ab agmine pulvis."

Steevens.

Who then persuaded you to stay at home?

There were two honours lost; yours, and your son's. For yours, may heavenly glory brighten it!

For his, it stuck upon him, as the sun

In the grey vault of heaven: and, by his light,
Did all the chivalry of England move

To do brave acts; he was, indeed, the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
He had no legs, that practis'd not his gait:
And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish;
Became the accents of the valiant;8

For those that could speak low, and tardily,
Would turn their own perfection to abuse,
To seem like him: So that, in speech, in gait,
In diet, in affections of delight,

In military rules, humours of blood,

He was the mark and glass, copy and book,

That fashion❜d others." And him,-O wondrous him!

6 In the grey vault of heaven:] So, in one of our author's poems

to his mistress:

“ And truly, not the morning sun of heaven
"Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east," &c.

Steevens,

7 He had no legs, &c.] The twenty-two following lines are of those added by Shakspeare after his first edition.' Pope. They were first printed in the folio, 1623. Malone.

8 And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, Became the accents of the valiant;] Speaking thick is, speaking fast, crowding one word on another. So, in Cymbeline :

say, and speak thick,

"Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing "Became the accents of the valiant" is, "came to be affected by them," a sense which (as Mr. M. Mason observes) is confirmed by the lines immediately succeeding:

"For those that could speak low, and tardily,

"Would turn their own perfection to abuse,

The opposition designed by the adverb tardily, also serves to support my explanation of the epithet thick. Steevens.

9 He was the mark and glass, copy and book,

That fashion'd others.] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece, 1594:

"For princes are the glass, the school, the book,
"Where subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look."

Malone

O miracle of men!-him did you leave,
(Second to none, unseconded by you,)
To look upon the hideous god of war
In disadvantage; to abide a field,

Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name
Did seem defensible:1-so you left him:
Never, never, do his ghost the wrong,
To hold your honour more precise and nice
With others, than with him; let them alone;
The marshal, and the archbishop, are strong:
Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,
Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave.

North.

Beshrew your heart, Fair daughter! you do draw my spirits from me, With new lamenting ancient oversights.

But I must go, and meet with danger there;

Or it will seek me in another place,

And find me worse provided.

Lady N.

O, fly to Scotland,

Till that the nobles, and the armed commons,

Have of their puissance made a little taste.

Lady P. If they get ground and vantage of the king, Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,

To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
First let them try themselves: So did your son;
He was so suffer'd; so came I a widow;
And never shall have length of life enough,
To rain upon remembrance2 with mine eyes,
That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,
For recordation to my noble husband.

1 Did seem defensible:] Defensible does not in this place mean capable of defence, but bearing strength, furnishing the means of defence; the passive for the active participle. Malone.

2 To rain upon remembrance-] Alluding to the plant rose: mary, so called, and used in funerals.

Thus, in The Winter's Tale:

"For you there 's rosemary and rue, these keep
"Seeming and savour all the winter long:

"Grace and remembrance be to you both," &c.

For as rue was called herb of grace, from its being used in exorcisms; so rosemary was called remembrance, from its being a cephalic. Warburton.