me, God reward him! If I do grow great again,12 I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do. [Exit, bearing off the Body.

The Trumpets sound.

Enter the KING, Prince HENRY, Prince JOHN, WESTMORELAND, and Others, with WORCESTER, and VERNON, Prisoners.

King. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.
Ill-spirited Worcester! did we not send grace,
Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?
And would'st thou turn our offers contrary?
Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman's trust?
Three knights upon our party slain to-day,
A noble earl, and many a creature else,
Had been alive this hour,

If, like a Christian, thou hadst truly borne
Betwixt our armies true intelligence.

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.

King. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too: Other offenders we will pause upon.

[Exeunt WORCESTER and VERNON, guarded.

How goes the field?

Prince. The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw
The fortune of the day quite turn'd from him,

The noble Percy slain, and all his men
Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest;
And falling from a hill he was so bruis'd
That the pursuers took him.13 At my tent
The Douglas is, and I beseech your Grace
I may dispose of him.

King.

With all my heart.

Prince. Then, brother John of Lancaster, to you This honourable bounty shall belong.

Go to the Douglas, and deliver him

Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free:

12 Again is found only in the folio. As Mr. White observes, it gives an important addition of meaning, as inferring Falstaff to have been born and bred to a social position which he has forfeited by loose and riotous living. The passage thus agrees with what he says in a previous scene: "Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me."

18 Thus Holinshed: "To conclude, the kings enemies were vanquished and put to flight, in which flight the earle of Dowglas, for hast falling from the crag of an hie mounteine, brake one of his cullions, and was taken, and, for his valiantnesse, of the king franklie and freelie delivered."

His valour, shown upon our crests to-day,
Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds
Even in the bosom of our adversaries.

King. 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,
To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March.
Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway,
Meeting the check of such another day:
And since this business so fair is done, 14
Let us not leave till all our own be won.

[Exeunt.

14 Business is here used as a word of three syllables. The usage was common, and Shakespeare has it in several instances.

Finished Fel; 14th 1870.

22

Lords, and Attendants; Officers, Soldiers, Messenger, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, &e.

SCENE, England.

INDUCTION.

Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND'S
Castle.

Enter RUMOUR, painted full of Tongues.1

you

will stop

Rum. OPEN your ears; for which of
The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
I, from the Orient to the drooping West,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of Earth:
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
I speak of peace while covert enmity,

Under the smile of safety, wounds the world:

1 Such was the common way of representing this personage, no unfre quent character in the masques of the Poet's time. In a masque on St. Stephen's Night, 1614, by Thomas Campion, Rumour comes on in a skin coat full of winged tongues.

And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful musters and prepar'd defence;
Whilst the big year, swol'n with some other grief,
Is thought [so made] by the stern tyrant war,
And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures;
And of so easy and so plain a stop,2

That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it. But what need I thus
My well-known body to anatomize

Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
I run before King Harry's victory;
Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,

Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion

Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
To speak so true at first? my office is
To noise abroad, that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword;
And that the King before the Douglas' rage
Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumour'd through the pleasant towns
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,*
Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news

Than they have learn'd of me: from Rumour's tongues

They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.

[Exit.

2 The stops are the holes in a flute or pipe.

3 The old copies have "peasant towns."

Pleasant is Dyce's reading;

who asks "why Rumour should mention only the peasant towns, as if she had failed to call in at the more important places."

4 Warkworth Castle, the residence of Northumberland.