King Henry the Fourth: Henry, Prince of Wales, afterwards K. Henry V. Thomas, Duke of Clarence. Prince John of Lancaster, afterwards (2 Henry his fons. V.) Duke of Bedford. Prince Humphrey of Glofter, afterwards (2Henry V.) Duke of Glofter. Earl of Warwick. Earl of Westmoreland. Gower. Harcourt. Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. A Gentleman attending on the Chief Justice. Scroop, Archbishop of York; Lord Mowbray; Lord Haftings; Lord Bardolph; Sir John Colevile ; Senemies to the king. Travers and Morton; domefticks of Northumberland. Falstaff, Bardolph, Piftol, and Page. Poins and Peto; attendants on Prince Henry. Shallow and Silence, country juftices. Davy, fervant to Shallow. Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, Feeble, and Bullcalf; recruits. Phang and Snare; fheriff's officers. Rumour. A Porter. A Dancer, Speaker of the Epilogue. Lady Northumberland. Lady Percy. Hoftefs Quickly. Doll Tear-fheet. Lords and other Attendants; Officers, Soldiers, Messenger, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, &c. SCENE, England. * Our author has in one place improperly called this prince, Duke of Lancaster; but in general, throughout the play, he is rightly entitled Prince John, or Lord John, of Lancafter. MALONE. INDUCTION. Warkworth. Before Northumberland's Caftle. Enter Rumour1, painted full of tongues2. Rum. Open your ears; For which of you will ftop The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks? 1 Enter Rumour.-] This fpeech of Rumour is not inelegant or unpoetical, but it is wholly ufelefs, fince we are told nothing which the first scene does not clearly and naturally difcover. The only end of fuch prologues is to inform the audience of fome facts previous to the action, of which they can have no knowledge from the perfons of the drama. JOHNSON. Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues.] This the author probably drew from Holinthed's Defcription of a Pageant, exhibited in the court of Henry VIII. with uncommon coft and magnificence: "Then entered a perfon called Report, apparelled in crimson fattin, full of toongs, or chronicles." Vol. III. p. 805. This however might be the common way of representing this perfonage in mafques, which were frequent in his own times. T. WARTON. Stephen Hawes, in his Paftime of Pleafure, had long ago exhibited her [Rumour] in the fame manner: "A goodly lady, envyroned about "With tongues of fire." And fo had fir Thomas Moore, in one of his Pageants: "Fame I am called, mervayle you nothing "Thoughe with tonges I am compaffed all rounde." Not to mention her elaborate portrait by Chaucer, in The Booke of Fame and by John Higgins, one of the affiftants in The Mirrour for Magiftrates, in his Legend of King AlbanaƐte. FARMER. In a mafque prefented on St. Stephen's night, 1614, by Thomas Campion, Rumour comes on in a fkin-coat full of winged tongues. Rumour is likewife a character in Sir Clyomon, Knight of the Golden Shield, &c. 1599. So alfo in the whole magnificent entertainment given to king James, the queen his wife, &c. &c. 15th March, 1603, by Thomas Decker, 4to. 1604: "Directly under her in a cart by herself, Fame ftood upright: a woman in a watchet roabe, thickly fet with open eyes and tongues, a payre of large golden winges at her backe, a trumpet in her hand, a mantle of fundry cullours traverfing her body: all these enfignes difplaying but the propertie of her fwiftneffe, and aptness to disperse Rumoure." STEEVENS. T 2 I, from |