Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes. 1 Groom. More rushes, more rushes. 2 Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice. 1 Groom. It will be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation. [Exeunt Grooms. Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPHI, and the Page. Fal. Stand here by me, master Robert Shallow; I will make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him, as he comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me. Pist. Bless thy lungs, good knight. Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me.O, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. [To SHALLOW.] But 't is no matter; this poor shew doth better: this doth infer the zeal I had to see him. Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpetclangor sounds. Enter the KING and his Train, the CHIEF JUSTICE Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame! Fal. Save thee, my sweet boy! King. My lord chief justice, speak to that vain man. Ch. Just. Have you your wits; know you what 't is you speak? Fal. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart! King. I know thee not, old man: Fall to thy prayers; How ill white hairs become a fool and jester! gape For thee thrice wider than for other men: That I have turn'd away my former self; Give you advancement.-Be it your charge, my lord, To see perform'd the tenor of our word. Set on. [Exeunt King and his Train. Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. Shal. Ay, marry, sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me. Fal. That can hardly be, master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him: look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancement; I will be the man yet that shall make you great. 287 Shal. I cannot well perceive how; unless you should give me your doublet, and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand. Ful. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard was but a colour. Shal. A colour, I fear, that you will die in, sir John. Fal. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, lieutenant Pistol;-come, Bardolph :-I shall be sent for soon at night. Re-enter PRINCE JOHN, the CHIEF JUSTICE, Ch. Just. Go, carry sir John Falstaff to the Take all his company along with him. Fal. My lord, my lord, Ch. Just. I cannot now speak: I will hear you soon. Take them away. Pist. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta. [Exeunt FAL. SHAL. PIST. BARD. Page, and Officers. P. John. I like this fair proceeding of the king's: He hath intent his wonted followers P. John. The king hath call'd his parliament, my lord. Ch. Just. He hath. P. John. I will lay odds that, ere this year expire, We bear our civil swords, and native fire, EPILOGUE. [Spoken by a DANCER.] First, my fear; then, my court'sy: last, my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my court'sy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say is of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say, will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture.-Be it known to you, (as it is very well,) I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this; which, if, like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment,-to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so will I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly. One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katherine of France where, for anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night and so kneel down before you ;but, indeed, to pray for the queen. : 1 SCENE I." By cock and pye." In a little book of great popularity, originally published in 1601, entitled, "The Plaine Man's Pathway to Heaven,' by Arthur Dent, we have the following passage :-"I know a man that will never swear but by cock or py, or mouse-foot. I hope you will not say these be oaths. For he is as honest a man as ever brake bread. You shall not hear an oath come out of his mouth." We here see, that the exclamation "by cock and pye," was not of the class of oaths from which Hotspur might choose a good mouth-filling oath." Steevens supposes that the service-book of the Romish church being denominated a Pie, the oath had reference to that, and to the sacred name. Douce has, however, given the following very ingenious explanation of the origin of the word :-"It will, no doubt, be recollected that in the days of ancient chivalry It was the practice to make solemn vows or engagements for the performance of some considerable enterprise. This ceremony was usually performed during some grand feast or entertainment, at which a roasted peacock or pheasant, being served up by ladies in a dish of gold or silver, was thus presented to each knight, who then made the particular vow which he had chosen, with great solemnity. When this custom had fallen into disuse, the peacock, nevertheless, continued to be a favourite dish, and was introduced on the table in a pic, the head, with gilded beak, being proudly elevated above the crust, and the splendid tail expanded. Other birds of smaller value were introduced in the same manner, and the recollection of the old peacock-vows might occasion the less serious, or even burlesque, imitation of swearing, not only by the bird itself, but also by the pie; and hence, probably, the oath by cock and pie, for the use of which no very old authority can be found." to town to transact their business and to learn the fashions. "He comes up every term to learn to take tobacco, and see new motions." (Ben Jonson, 'Every Man out of his Humour.') Falstaff computes that six fashions would wear out in four terms, or two actions. This particularity may, perhaps, be taken as another proof of Shakspere's technical knowledge, and fondness for legal allusions. * SCENE II.-" Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,' Amurath the Third, Emperor of the Turks, died in 1596. He was succeeded by his eldest son Ma homet, who immediately put to death all his brothers. Malone thinks that Shakspere alludes to this transaction; for the allusion, although not literally correct, might be sufficient to convey a notion of the difference between a regulated monarchy and a despotism : "This is the English, not the Turkish court." A gentleman, very well acquainted with Turkish history and literature, has pointed out to us that Amurath, in Greek Auvpäs, is Emeer-the Greek v being pronounced ee. In old books the sultan is sometimes called "the Amyrath;" and the style of Mohammed II. in the Greek version of his treaty with the Genoese of Galata is "I, the great Effendi and great Emeer (Auvpäs), and son of Mourad Bey (Mouρar). We thus find Amurath in the same sentence as distinct from Murad. 5 SCENE III." Do nothing but eat, and make good cheer." Every lover of Shakspere must recollect that most exquisite passage in the Twelfth Night, which describes the higher species of minstrelsy that had found an abiding place in the hearts of the people : "Give me some music: .... but that piece of song, Mark it, Cæsario; it is old, and plain : And dallies with the innocence of love, The outpouring of snatches of old songs by Mas ter Silence, in this hour when the taciturnity of a feeble intellect was overwhelmed by the stimulant which wine afforded to his memory, is a truly poetical conception. In his prosaic moments the worthy Justice is contented to echo his brother of the quorum:-" We shall all follow, cousin." But when his "merry heart" expands in "the sweet of the night," he unravels his fag-ends of popular ditties with a volubility which not even the abuse of Pistol can stop. Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Knight of the Burning Pestle,' have a character, Old Merry-thought, who "evermore laughs, and dances, and sings;" and he introduces himself to us with: "Nose, nose, jolly red nose, And who gave thee this jolly red nose," The humour of Old Merry-thought is little better than farce; but the extravagance of Silence is the richest comedy, from the contrast with his habitual character The snatches which Silence sings are not the "light airs, and recollected terms, Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times," but fragments of old ballads that had been long heard in the squire's hall, and the yeoman's chimney-corner-"old and plain." For example, the expression, Edward II. (See Warton's History of English Poetry, section 6.) In the 'Serving Man's Coinfort,' 1598, we have this passage, descriptive of the merriment in which the retainers of the great partook, in the time of Elizabeth :-"Grace said, and the table taken up, the plate presently conveyed into the pantry, the hall summons this consort of companions (upon payne to dine with Duke Humphrey, or to kiss the hare's foot) to appear at the first call; where a song is to be sung, the under song or holding whereof is, 'It is merry in hall, where beards wag all.'" The concluding line, before the command to "carry Master Silence to bed," is a portion of the old ballad of "Robin Hood and the Pindar of Wakefield: " "All this beheard three wighty yeomen, 'Twas Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John: In the Introductory Notice, page 164, we have mentioned the story told by Sir Thomas Elyot, in his book of The Governor,' of the committal of Prince Henry to the Fleet by the Lord Chief Justice. This tradition was believed (perhaps upou the authority of Elyot) by Sir Edward Coke and Sir John Hawkins; and was referred to by them in legal arguments. The anecdote, as detailed by Elyot, is very amusing: “A good Judge, a good Prince, a good King. "The most renowned prince, King Henry V., late king of England, during the life of his father, was noted to be fierce and of wanton courage. It happened that one of his servants whom he favoured well was for felony by him committed arraigned at the King's Bench: whereof the prince being advertised, and incensed by light persons about him, in furious rage came hastily to the bar, where his servant stood as a prisoner, and commanded him to be ungyved and set at liberty. Whereat all men were abashed, reserved the chief justice, who humbly exhorted the prince to be contented that his servant might be ordered ac |