the fashion; and fung those tunes to the over-fcutcht¡ him, and all his apparel, into an eel-fkin; the cafe hufwives, that he heard the carmen whistle, and of a treble hautboy was a manfion for him, a court: fware-they were his fancies, or his good-nights 2. And now is this vice's 3 dagger become a fquire; and talks as familiarly of John of Gaunt, as if he had been fworn brother to him: and I'll be fworn he never faw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst 4 his head, for crouding among the marshal's men. I faw it; and told John of Gaunt, he beat his own name 5: for you might have truis'd

and now hath he land and beeves. Well; I will
be acquainted with him, if I return: and it shall
go hard, but I will make him a philofopher's two
ftones to me: If the young dace be a bait for the
old pike, I fee no reafon, in the law of nature,
but I may fnap at him 7. Let time fhape, and
there an end.
[Exeunt.

Tork.

and others.

WHAT is this foreft call'd?

Haft. 'Tis Gualtree foreft, an't
fhall pleafe your grace.
[forth,

York. Here ftand, my lords: and fend difcoverers
To know the numbers of our enemies.

Haft. We have fent forth already.
York. 'Tis well done.

My friends, and brethren in thefe great affairs,
I must acquaint you, that I have receiv'd
New-dated letters from Northumberland;
Their cold intent, tenour, and fubftance, thus:-
Here doth he with his perfon, with fuch powers
As might hold fortance with his quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retir'd, to ripe his growing fortunes,
To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers,
That your attempts may over-live the hazard,
And fearful meeting of their opposite. [ground,
Mowb. Thus do the hopes we had in him touch
And dafh themfelves to pieces.

Enter a Mellinger.

Hajt. Now, what news?

IV.

Melf. Weft of this foreft, fcarcely off a mile,
In goodly form comes on the enemy:
Upon, or near, the rate of thirty thoufand.
And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number

[out. Mowb. The juft proportion that we gave them Let us fway on, and face them in the field.

Enter Weftmoreland.

York. What well-appointed leader fronts us here? Mowb. I think, it is my lord of Weftmoreland. Weft. Health and fair greeting from our general, The prince, lord John, and duke of Lancaster.

York. Say on, my lord of Weftmoreland, in peace; What doth concern your coming

Weft. Then, my lord,

Unto your grace do I in chief address
The fubftance of my fpeech. If that rebellion
Came like itfelf, in bafe and abject routs,

Led on by bloody youth 10, guarded 11 with rage,
And countenanc'd by boys, and bergary ;
I fay, if damn'd commotion fo appear'd,
In his true, native, and moft proper shape,
You, reverend father, and thefe noble lords,
Had not been here, to drefs the ugly form
Of bafe and bloody infurrection

With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop,-
Whofe fee is by a civil peace maintain'd ;

Whofe beard the filver hand of peace hath touch'd;

1 i. e. according to Mr. Pope, whipt, carted; tho' Dr. Johnfon rather thinks that the word means dirty or grimed; and that the word hufaites agrees better with this fenfe. Ray, however, among his north-country words, confirms Pope's meaning, by faying that an overfwitch'd hufwife is a flrumpet. Fancies and Goodnights were the titles of little poems 3 Fice was the name given to a droll figure, heretofore much fhewn upon our ftage, and brought in to play the fool and make fport for the popu lace. His drefs was always a long jerkin, a fool's cap with afs's cars, and a thin wooden dagger, fuch as is ftill retained in the modern figures of Harlequin and Scaramouch. The word is an abbreviation of device; for in our old dramatic fhows, where he was firit exhibited, he was nothing more than an artificial figure, a puppet moved by machinery, and then originally called a device, or vice. The imith's machine called a vice, is an abbreviation of the fame fort. It was very fatirical in Falstaff to compare Shallow's activity and impertinence to fuch a machine as a wooden dagger in the hands and management of a bulloon. 4 To break and to burst were, in our poet's time, fynonimously uled. To braft had the fame meaning. 5 That is, beat gaunt, a fellow fo fiender, that his name might have been gaunt. 6 One of which was an univerfal medicine, and the other a tranimuter of bafe metals into gold. 7 That is, if it be the law of nature that the stronger may feize upon the weaker, Falstaff may, with great propriety, devour Shallow. which is ufed in Holinfhed, was intended to exprefs the uniform and forcible motion of a compac 8 Dr. Johnson thinks this word, body. 9 Well-appointed is completely accoutred. 10 Bloody youth means only fanguine youth, or youth full of blood, and of thofe paffions which blood is fuppofed to incite or nourish. 11 Guarded expreflion taken from drels, and means the fame as faced, turned up.

Where

Whofe learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd;}
Whofe white investments 1 figure innocence,
The dove and very bleffed fpirit of peace,-
Wherefore do you fo ill tranflate yourself
Out of the fpeech of peace, that bears fuch grace,
Into the harsh and boift'rous tongue of war?
Turning your books to graves 2, your ink to blood,
Your pens to lances; and your tongue divine
To a loud trumpet, and a point of war?

York. Wherefore do I this ?-fo the questi
ftands.

Briefly, to this end:-We are all difeas'd;
And, with our furfeiting, and wanton hours,
* Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we muft bleed for it: of which difeafe
Our late king, Richard, being infected, dy'd.
But, my mott noble lord of Westmoreland,
I take not on me here as a phyfician:
Nor do I, as an enemy to peace,
Troop in the throngs of military men:
But, rather, fhew a while like fearful war,
To diet rank minds, fick of happiness;
And purge the obtructions, which begin to ftop
Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
I have in equal balance juftly weigh'd
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs
we fuffer,

And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We fee which way the ftream of time doth run,'
And are enforc'd from our moft quiet fphere
By the rough torrent of occafion;
And have the fummary of all our griefs,
When time fhall ferve, to fhew in articles;
Which, long ere this, we offer'd to the king,
And might by no fuit gain our audience :

Weft. When ever yet was your appeal deny'd ?
Wherein have you been galled by the king?
What peer hath been fuborn'd to grate on you?
That you should feal this lawless bloody book
|Of forg'd rebellion with a feal divine,
And confecrate commotion's civil edge 3 ?
York. My brother-general, the common-wealth,
To brother born an houtehold cruelty,
I make my quarrel in particular 4.

Wet. There is no need of any fuch redrefs;
Or, if they were, it not belongs to you.
Mowb. Why not to him, in part; and to us all,
That feel the bruifes of the days before;
And fuffer the condition of thefe times
To lay a heavy and unequal hand
Upon our honours ?

Weft. O my good lord Mowbray,
Conftrue the times to their neceffities,
And you fhall fay indeed,-it is the time,
And not the king, that doth you injuries.
Yet, for your part, it not appears to me,
Either from the king, or in the present time,
That you should have an inch of any ground
To build a grief on: Were you not reftor'd,
To all the duke of Norfolk's figniories,
Your noble and right-well-remember'd father's ?
Mowb. What thing, in honour, had my father

loft,

That need to be reviv'd, and breath'd in me?
The king, that lov'd him as the state stood then,
Was, force perforce, compell'd to banith him :
And then, when Harry Bolingbroke, and he,—
Being mounted, and both roused in their feats,
Their neighing courfers daring of the fpur,
Their armed ftaves in charge 5, their beavers down,

When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our grief, Their eyes of fire sparkling through fights 6 of We are deny'd accefs unto his perfon

Even by thofe men that moft have done us wrong.
The dangers of the days but newly gone,
(Whofe memory is written on the earth
With yet appearing blood) and the examples
Of every minute's inftaace, (prefent now)
Have put us in thefe ill-befeeming arms:
Not to break peace, or any branch of it;
But to eftablish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.

fteel,

And the loud trumpet blowing them together;
Then, then, when there was nothing could have
ftaid

My father from the breaft of Bolingbroke,
O, when the king did throw his warder down,
His own life hung upon the staff he threw :
Then threw he down himfelf, and all their lives,
That, by indictment, and by dint of fword,
Have fince mifcarried under Bolingbroke.

1 Formerly, all bishops wore white even when they travelled. The white investment meant the epifcopal rochet. 2 For graves Dr. Warburton very plaufibly reads glaives, and is followed by Sir Thomas Hanmer. Mr. Steevens fays, We might perhaps as plauibly read greaves, which is fpelled graves in Warner's Albion's England," i. e. armour for the legs, a kind of boots; and adds, that the metamorphofis of leathern covers of books into greaves, i. c. boots, feems to be more appoite than the conversion of them into inftruments of war. Glave is the Efe word for a broad-fword, and glaif is Welsh for a hook. 3 It was an old cuftom, continued from the time of the first croisades, for the pope to confecrate the general's fword, which was employed in the fervice of the church. To this cuftom the line in queftion alludes. 4 Dr. Warburton explains this paffage thus: "My brother general, the commonwealth, which ought to distribute its benefits equally, is become an enemy to thofe of his own houfe, to brothers born, by giving fome all, and others none; and this (fays he) I make my quarrel or grievance that honours are unequally diftributed;" the conftant birth of male-contents, and fource of civil commotions. Dr. Johnfon, however, believes there is an error in the first line, which perhaps may be rectified thus: "My quarrel general, the common-wealth, &c. That is, my general caule of difcontent is public mifmanagement; my particular caufe a domeític injury done to my natural brother, who had been beheaded by the king's order;" a circumilance mentioned in the Firft Part of the Play. 5 An armed Ruff is a lance. To be in charge, is to be fixed in the reft for the encounter. 6 Or, the vihers, i. e. the perforated part of their helmets, through which they could fee to direct their aim. Wat.

Weft. You fpeak, lord Mowbray, now you know | That no conditions of our peace can ftand.

not what :

The earl of Hereford was reputed then

In England the most valiant gentleman :

Haft. Fear younot that : if we can make our peace Upon fuch large terms, and so absolute,

As our conditions shall infist upon,

Who knows, on whom fortune would then have Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

fmil'd?

To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace,
That he will give you audience: and wherein
It fhall appear, that your demands are juft,
You shall enjoy them; every thing fet off,
That might fo much as think you enemies.

Mowb. But he hath forc'd us to compel this offer;

And it proceeds from policy, not love.

Mowb. Ay, but our valuation shall be such,
That every flight and falfe-derived cause,
Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason,
Shall, to the king, tafte of this action :
That, were our loyal faiths martyrs in love,
We shall be winnow'd with fo rough a wind,
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff,
And good from bad find no partition.

York. No, no, my lord; Note this,-the king
is weary

Of dainty and fuch picking 5 grievances :
For he hath found,-to end one doubt by death,
Revives two greater in the heirs of life,
And therefore will he wipe his tables clean 6;
And keep no tell-tale to his memory,
That may repeat and history his lofs

Weft. Mowbray, you over-ween, to take it fo; To new remembrance: For full well he knows,

This offer comes from mercy, not from fear :
For, lo! within a ken, our army lies;
Upon mine honour, all too confident
To give admittance to a thought of fear.
Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as ftrong, our cause the best;
Then reafon wills, our hearts fhould be as good:-
Say you not then, our offer is compell'd.

He cannot fo precifely weed this land,
As his mifdoubts present occasion:
His foes are fo enrooted with his friends,
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfaften fo, and thake a friend:
So that this land, like an offenfive wife,
That hath enrag'd him on to offer strokes;
As he is ftriking, holds his infant up,
And hangs refolv'd correction in the arm

Mowb. Well, by my will, we fhall admit no That was uprear'd to execution.

parley.

Weft. That argues but the fhame of your offence:
A rotten cafe abides no handling.

Haft. Hath the prince John a full commiffion,
In very ample virtue of his father,
To hear, and abfolutely to determine
Of what conditions we shall stand upon ?

Weft. That is intended in the general's name :
I mufe, you make fo flight a question.
Tork. Then take, my lord of Weftmoreland,
this schedule;

For this contains our general grievances :-
Each feveral article herein redress'd;

All members of our cause, both here and hence,
That are infinew'd to this action,

Acquitted by a true substantial form 2 ;
And prefent execution of our wills

To us,
and to our purposes, confin'd3;
We come within our awful banks 4 again,
And knit our powers to the arm of peace.

Weft. This will I fhew the general. Please
you, lords,

In fight of both our battles we may meet;
And either end in peace, which heaven fo frame!
Or to the place of difference call the swords
Which muft decide it.

Haft. Befides, the king hath wafted all his rodg
On late offenders, that he now doth lack
The very instruments of chastisement :
So that his power, like to a fangleís lion,
May offer, but not hold.

York. 'Tis very true;~

And therefore be affured, my good lord marshal,
If we do now make our atonement well,
Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
Grow stronger for the breaking.

Mowb. Be it fo.

Another part of the Foreft.
Enter on one fide Mowbray, the Archbishop, Haftingi,
and others: from the other fide, Prince John of
Lancaster, Westmoreland, Officers, &c.

Lan. You are well encounter'd here, my coufin
Mowbray

Meaning, included in the office of a general. 2 That is, by a pardon of due form an l legal validity. 3 For confined, Mr. Steevens propofes to read confirm'd. 4 Awful banks are the proper limits of reverence. Perhaps we might read - lawful. ši. e. piddling, infignificant grievances, • Alluding to a table-book of flate, ivory, &c.

Good

And let our army be discharg'd too.— [Exit Weft.
And, good my lord, so please you, let our trains

Mowb. If not, we ready are to try our fortunes March by us; that we may perule the men

Lan. You are too fhallow, Haftings, much too Now, coufin, wherefore stands our army still? fhallow,

Weft. The leaders, having charge from you to stand,

Weft. Pleaseth your grace, to answer them di- Will not go off until they hear you speak.

Each hurries towards his home, and fporting

And you, lord archbishop,-and you, lord Mow-fwallow, an arrow, or a bullet? Have 1, in my

I will perform with a moft chriftian care.
But, for you, rebels,-look to tafte the duc
Meet for rebellion, and fuch acts as yours.
Moft fhallowly did you these arms commence,
Fondly brought here, and foolishly fent hence.-him: and I beseech your grace, let it be book'd
Strike up our drums, pursue the fcatter'd stray ;
Heaven, and not we, hath fafely fought to-day.-
Some guard thefe traitors to the block of death;
Treafon's true bed, and yielder up of breath.
[Exeunt. Alarum. Excurfions.

1 i. e. foolishly. • The fenfe of dale is included in deep; a dale is a deep place; a dungeon is deep place; he that is in a dungeon may be therefore faid to be in a dile. 3 That is, the cagernels el revenge. 4 Cæfar. 5 i. e. fland my good friend in your favourable report of me.