That frosts will bite them. When we mean to

build,

We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And, when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection :
Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then, but draw anew the model

In fewer offices; or, at least 5, desist

To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
(Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down,
And set another up,) should we survey

The plot of situation, and the model;
Consent upon a sure foundation";

Question surveyors; know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,

To weigh against his opposite; or else,
We fortify in paper, and in figures,
Using the names of men, instead of men :
Like one that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds,

And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.

HAST. Grant, that our hopes (yet likely of fair birth,)

Should be still born, and that we now possess'd

The utmost man of expectation;

I think, we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king.

BARD. What! is the king but five and twenty thousand?

HAST. To us, no more; nay, not so much, lord Bardolph.

S

at least,] Perhaps we should read-at last. STEEVENS. 6 CONSENT upon a sure foundation;] i. e. agree. So, in As You Like It, vol. vi. p. 437: "For all your writers do consent that ipse is he." Again, ibid. p. 489: consent with both, that we may enjoy each other." STEEVENS.

66

For his divisions, as the times do brawl,

Are in three heads: one power against the French,
And one against Glendower; perforce, a third
Must take up us: So is the unfirm king

In three divided; and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness.

ARCH. That he should draw his several strengths together,

And come against us in full puissance,

Need not be dreaded.

HAST.

If he should do so,

He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh Baying him at the heels: never fear that.

8

BARD. Who, is it like, should lead his forces

hither?

HAST. The duke of Lancaster, and Westmoreland1:

one power against the French,] During this rebellion of Northumberland and the Archbishop, a French army of twelve thousand men landed at Milford Haven, in Wales, for the aid of Owen Glendower. See Holinshed, p. 531. STEEVENS.

9 If he should do so,] This passage is read, in the first edition, thus: "If he should do so, French and Welsh he leaves his back unarmed, they baying him at the heels, never fear that." These lines, which were evidently printed from an interlined copy not understood, are properly regulated in the next edition, and are here only mentioned to show what errors may be suspected to remain. JOHNSON.

I believe the editor of the folio did not correct the quarto rightly; in which the only error probably was [as Mr. Capell has observed] the omission of the word to:

"To French and Welsh he leaves his back unarm'd,
They baying him at the heels; never fear that."

MALONE.

* The duke of Lancaster, &c.] This is an anachronism. Prince John of Lancaster was not created a duke till the second year of the reign of his brother, King Henry V. MALONE.

This mistake is pointed out by Mr. Steevens in another place. It is not, however, true, that " King Henry IV. was himself the last person that ever bore the title of Duke of Lancaster," as Prince Henry actually enjoyed it at this very time, and had done so from the first year of his father's reign, when it was conferred upon him

Against the Welsh, himself, and Harry Monmouth : But who is substituted 'gainst the French,

I have no certain notice.

ARCH.

Let us on2;

And publish the occasion of our arms.

The commonwealth is sick of their own choice,

Their over-greedy love hath surfeited :-
An habitation giddy and unsure

Hath he, that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
O thou fond many! with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
Before he was what thou would'st have him be?
And being now trimm'd in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him,
That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.
So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;

And now thou would'st eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these

times?

They that, when Richard liv'd, would have him die,
Are now become enamour'd on his grave:
Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head,
When through proud London he came sighing on
After the admired heels of Bolingbroke,
Cry'st now, O earth, yield us that king again,

in full parliament. Rot. Parl. 111, 428, 532. Shakspeare was misled by Stowe, who, speaking of Henry's first parliament, says, "-then the King rose, and made his eldest son Prince of Wales, &c. his second sonne was there made Duke of Lancaster." Annales, 1631, p. 323. He should therefore seem to have consulted this author between the times of finishing the last play, and beginning the present. RITSON.

2 Let us on ; &c.] This excellent speech of York was one of the passages added by Shakspeare after his first edition. POPE. This speech first appeared in the folio. MALONE.

3 O thou fond MANY!] Many or meyny, from the French mesnie, a multitude. DOUCE.

And take thou this! O thoughts of men accurst! Past, and to come, seem best; things present, worst. Mow B. Shall we go draw our numbers, and set

on?

HAST. We are time's subjects, and time bids be [Exeunt.

gone.

ACT II. SCENE I.

London. A Street.

Enter HOSTESS; FANG, and his Boy, with her; and SNARE following.

HOST. Master Fang, have you entered the action? FANG. It is entered.

HOST. Where is your yeoman? Is it a lusty yeoman? will a' stand to't?

FANG. Sirrah, where's Snare ?

HOST. O lord, ay: good master Snare.

SNARE. Here, here.

FANG. Snare, we must arrest sir John Falstaff. HOST. Yea, good master Snare; I have entered him and all.

SNARE. It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.

HOST. Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most beastly in good faith, a' cares not what mischief he doth, if his weapon be out: he will foin like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child. FANG. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.

5 Where is your YEOMAN?] A bailiff's follower was, in our author's time, called a serjeant's yeoman. MALONE.

Host. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. FANG. An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice";—

HOST. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an infinitive thing upon my score:— -Good master Fang, hold him sure;-good master Snare, let him not 'scape. He comes continuantly to Piecorner, (saving your manhoods,) to buy a saddle; and he's indited to dinner to the lubbar's head' in Lumbert-street, to master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and have been fubbed off,

6

9

an a' come but within my VICE;] Vice or grasp; a metaphor taken from a smith's vice: there is another reading in the old edition, view, which I think not so good. POPE.

Vice is the reading of the folio, view of the quarto. STEEVENS. The fist is vulgarly called the vice in the West of England.

HENLEY. 7-lubbar's head-] This is, I suppose, a colloquial corruption of the Libbard's head. JOHNSON.

8 A hundred mark is a long LOAN-] Old copy-long one. STEEVENS.

A long one? a long what? It is almost needless to observe, how familiar it is with our poet to play the chimes upon words similar in sound, and differing in signification; and therefore I make no question but he wrote-"A hundred mark is a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear :" i. e. a hundred mark is a good round sum for a poor widow to venture on trust. THEOBALD.

The alteration on the suggestion of Theobald, has been very unnecessarily and improperly made. The hostess means to say that a hundred mark is a long mark, that is, score, reckoning, for her to bear. The use of mark in the singular number in familiar language, admits very well of this equivoque. DoUCE.

9- a poor lone woman-] A lone woman is an unmarried woman. So, in the title-page to A Collection of Records, &c. 1642: "That Queen Elizabeth being a lone woman, and having few friends, refusing to marry," &c. Again, in Maurice Kyffin's translation of Terence's Andria, 1588: Moreover this Glycerie is a lone woman ; -"tum hæc sola est mulier." In The First