FAL. [Rising slowly.] Embowelled! if thou embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave to powder me3, and eat me too, to-morrow. 'Sblood, 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit: To die, is to be a counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man, who hath not the life of a man: but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is-discretion; in the which better part, I have saved my life. 'Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead: How, if he should counterfeit too, and rise? I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure; yea, and I'll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise, as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, [Stabbing him.] with a new wound in your thigh come you along with me. [Takes HOTSPUR on his back, persed throughout the kingdom. And having been outlawed by our lord the king, and by common assent, you have unwarrantably returned into court; and therefore you shall be beheaded. And because you have procured and abetted discord between our lord the king, and the queen, and others of the realm, you shall be embowelled, and [your bowels] afterwards burnt. Begone, traitorous renegade tyrant, and await the execution of your sentence. Wicked and attainted traitor! Knighton, inter Historia Anglicana decem Scriptores, col. 2549. The author of Aulicus Coquinariæ, 1650, speaking of the opening of King James the First's body, has these words: “The next day was solemnly appointed for imbowelling the corps, in the presence of some of the counsell, all the physicians, chirurgions, apothecaries, and the Palsgrave's physician." We got this word from the old French eboeler, the orthography of which at once declares its meaning. With us it might perhaps be more properly written ebowel, if the ear were not likely to be offended by the change. Douce. ३ to POWDER me,] To powder is to salt. JOHNSON. Re-enter Prince HENRY and Prince JOHN. P. HEN. Come, brother John, full bravely hast thou flesh'd Thy maiden sword. P. JOHN. But, soft! whom have we here? Did you not tell me this fat man was dead? P. HEN. I did; I saw him dead, breathless and bleeding On the ground 4 Art thou alive? or is it phantasy That plays upon our eyesight? I pr'ythee, speak; FAL. No, that's certain; I am not a double man5: but if I be not Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There is Percy: [Throwing the body down.] if your father will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself, I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you. P. HEN. Why, Percy I killed myself, and saw thee dead. FAL. Didst thou ?-Lord, lord, how this world is given to lying!—I grant you, I was down and out of breath; and so was he: but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them, that should reward valour, bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh: if the man were alive, and 4 UPON the ground.] Old copies 5 "On the ground." STEEVens. a double man:] That is, I am not Falstaff and Percy together, though having Percy on my back, I seem double. JOHNSON. Dryden has adopted this phrase in his Indian Emperor : Upon the ground, the other ran away." STEEVENS. gave him this wound in the thigh :] The very learned would deny it, I would make him eat a piece of my sword. P. JOHN. This is the strangest tale that e'er I P. HEN. This is the strangest fellow, brother Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back: [A Retreat is sounded. [Exeunt Prince HENRY and Prince JOHN. FAL. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him! If I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do. [Exit bearing off the Body. SCENE VI. Another Part of the Field. The Trumpets sound. Enter King HENRY, Prince HENRY, Prince JOHN, WESTMORELAND, and Others, with WORCESTER, and VERNON, prisoners. K. HEN. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.- Lord Littleton observes, that Shakspeare applied an action to Falstaff, which William of Malmsbury tells us was really done by one of the Conqueror's knights to the body of King Harold. I do not however believe that Lord Littleton supposed Shakspeare to have read this old Monk. The story is told likewise by Matthew Paris and Matthew of Westminster; and by many of the English Chroniclers, Stowe, Speed, &c. &c. FARMER. 7 Thus ever did REBELLION find REBUKE.] Thomas Churchyard, in a catalogue of his own printed works, prefixed to his Ill-spirited Worcester ! did we not send grace, If, like a christian, thou had'st truly borne WOR. What I have done, my safety urg'd me to; And I embrace this fortune patiently, Since not to be avoided it falls on me. K. HEN. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too: Other offenders we will pause upon. [Exeunt WORCESTER and VERNON, guarded. How goes the field? P. HEN. The noble Scot, lord Douglas, when he saw The fortune of the day quite turn'd from him, K. HEN. With all my heart. Go to the Douglas, and deliver him Up to his pleasure, ransomless, and free: His valour, shown upon our crests to-day, 8 Hath shown us how to cherish such high deeds, Challenge, 1593, informs us, that he had published “a booke called A Rebuke to Rebellion [dedicated] to the good old Earle of Bedford." STEEVENS. 8 Hath TAUGHT us-] This reading, which serves to exclude an inelegant repetition, (and might have been derived from the quarto 1598, corrected by our author,) is refused by Mr. Malone, Even in the bosom of our adversaries". K. HEN. Then this remains,-that we divide our power. You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland, Towards York shall bend you, with your dearest speed, To meet Northumberland, and the prelate Scroop, Who, as we hear, are busily in arms: Myself, and you, son Harry,—will towards Wales, Meeting the check of such another day: Let us not leave till all our own be won. [Exeunt. See the subsequent note. And yet, are we authorized to reject the fittest word, merely because it is not found in the earliest copy? In a note on p 403, Mr. Malone accepts a reading from a late quarto, which he acknowledges to be of no value. STEEVENS. "Hath shown us-" Thus the quarto 1598. In that of 1599, shown was arbitrarily changed to taught, which consequently is the reading of the folio. The repetition is much in our author's manner. MALONE. 9 Here Mr. Pope inserts the following speech from the quartos: "Lan. I thank your grace for this high courtesy, "Which I shall give away immediately." But Dr. Johnson judiciously supposes it to have been rejected by Shakspeare himself. STEEVENS. I can see no reason for its rejection. Prince John would naturally thank his brother for his kind delegation to him of so honourable an office. BosWELL. Be "As the honey of Hybla, MY OLD LAD OF THE CASTLE." p. 193. Mr. Rowe took notice of a tradition, that this part of Falstaff was written originally under the name of Oldcastle. An ingenious correspondent hints to me, that the passage above quoted from our author, proves what Mr. Rowe tells us was a tradition. "Old lad of the castle" seems to have a reference to Oldcastle. sides, if this had not been the fact, why, in the Epilogue to The Second Part of King Henry IV. where our author promises to continue his story with Sir John in it, should he say, "Where, for any thing 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." This looks like declining a point that had been made an objection to him. I'll give a farther matter in proof, which seems almost to fix the charge. I have read an old |