Have you read o'er the letters I fent you? War. We have, my Liege. K. Henry. Then you perceive the body of our Kingdom, How fowl it is; what rank difeafes grow, And with what danger, near the heart of it. 2 Wor. It is but as a body yet distemper'd, Which to its former ftrength may be reftor'd, With good advice and little medicine; 3 My lord Northumberland will foon be cool'd. K. Henry. Oh heav'n, that one might read the book of fate, And see the revolution of the times Make Mountains level, and the Continent, Weary of folid firmness, melt itself Into the Sea; and, other times, to fee The beachy girdle of the Ocean Too wide for Neptune's hips; how Chances mock. 4 With divers liquors! O, if this were feen, The happiest youth viewing his progrefs through, All, to two Peers. THEOBALD. 2 It is but as a body YET, diftemper'd,] What would he have more? We should read, It is but as a body SLIGHT diftemper'd. WARBURTON. The prefent reading is right. Diftemper, that is, according to the old phyfick, a disproportionate mixture of humours, or inequality of innate heat and radidical humidity, is less than actual difeafe, being only the ftate which foreruns or produces difeafes. The difference between diftemper and difeafe, feems to be VOL. IV. much the fame as between dif pofition and babit. 3 My lord Northumberland will foon be COOL'D.] I believe Shakespeare wrote SCHOOL'D ; tutor'd, and brought to fubmiffion. WARBURTON. Cool'd is certainly right. 4 O, if this were feen, &c.] Thefe four lines are fupplied from the Edition of 1600. WARB. My copy wants the whole scene, and therefore these lines. U There is fome difficulty in the line, What perils paf, what craffes to enfue, because it feems to make paft perils equally terrible with enfuing craffes. Wou'd Wou'd fhut the book, and fit him down and die... i P My coufin Bolingbroke afcends my Throne otac of Though then, Heav'n knows, I had no fuch intent; A But that Neceffity fo bow'd the State, iM moY That I and Greatnefs were compell'd to kifs. A The time will come, thus did he follow it my vind The time will come, that foul fin, gathering head, • Shall break into corruption: fo went on,home LuA Foretelling this fame time's condition, rob bow 577 And the divifion of our amity. War. There is a history in all Figuring the Nature of the times deceas'd; With a near aim, of the main chance of things be Such things become the hatch and brood of time;3Å And by the neceffary form of this wollot di vige stom King Richard might create a perfect guefs, 5. He refers to King Richard, a&t 5 fcene 2. But whether the King's or the authour's memory fails him, fo it was, that War wick was not prefent at that converfation. • And by the neceffary form of this, I think we might better read, a difqalq ain't The neceffary form of things. The word this has no very evident antecedent. That great Northumberland, then falfe to him, K. Henry. Are thefe things then neceffities *? And that fame word even now cries out on us, Wary It cannot be : a Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo, The Pow'rs, that you already have fent forth, To comfort you the more, I have receiv'd K. Henry, I will take your counsel; And were these inward wars once out of hand, through the firft edition, and there is therefore no evidence that the divifion of the acts was made by the authour. Since then every editor has the fame right to mark the intervals of action as the players, who made the prefent diftribution, I should propofe that this fcene may be added to the foregoing act, and the remove from London to Gloucesterfire be made in the intermediate time, but that it would fhorten the next act too much, which has not even now its due proportion to the rest. U 2 SCENE SCENE III. Changes to Justice Shallow's Seat in Gloucestershire. Enter Shallow and Silence, Juftices; with Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, Feeble, and Bull-calf. Shal. COM 8 OME on, come on, come on; give me And how doth my good coufin Silence? by the Shal. And how doth my coufin, your bed-fellow? and your fairest daughter, and mine, my god-daughter Ellen? Sil. Alas, a black ouzel, coufin Shallow. Shal. By yea, and nay, Sir, I dare fay, my coufin William is become a good fcholar. He is at Oxford ftill, is he not? Sil. Indeed, Sir, to my coft. Shal. He must then to the Inns of Court fhortly. E was once of Clement's Inn; where, I think, they will talk of mad Shallow yet. Sil. You were call'd lufty Shallow then, cousin. Shal. I was call'd any thing, and I would have done any thing, indeed, too, and roundly too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Bare, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele a Cotswold man, you had not four fuch fwinge-bucklers in all the Inns of Court again; and I may fay to you, we knew where the Bona-Roba's were, and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. Sil. This Sir John, coufin, that comes hither anon about Soldiers? Shal. The fame Sir John, the very fame. I faw him break Schoggan's head at the Court-gate, when he was a crack, not thus high; and the very fame day I did fight with one Sampfon Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's-Inn. O, the mad days that I have spent! and to fee how many of mine old acquaintance are dead? Sil. We fhall all follow, coufin. Shal. Certain, 'tis certain, very fure, very fure. Death (as the Pfalmift faith) is certain to all, all fhall die. How a good yoke of Bullocks at Stamford Fair? Sil. Truly, coufin, I was not there. Shal. Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet? Sil, Dead, Sir. 9 Shal. Dead!-fee, fee-he drew a good bow. And dead?-he hot a fine fhoot. John of Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead!-he would have clapt in the clowt at twelve fcore, and carried you a fore hand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a half, that it would have done a man's heart good to fee.How a fcore of ewes now? Sil. Thereafter as they be. A fcore of good ewes may be worth ten pounds. ९ Shal. And is old Double dead? SCENE IV. Enter Bardolph, and Page. Sil. Here come two of Sir John Falstaff's men, as lo think. So .!! HotShal. Good-morrow, honest gentlemen. 9 Bard. I befeech you, which is Juftice Shallow? clapt in the clowt] i. e. hit the white mark. WARBURT. fourteen and fourteen and a half,] That is, fourteen fcore of yards. U 3 Shal. |