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to signify this to the doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation, would, perhaps, plunge him into more choler. Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.

Ham. I am tame, sir :-pronounce.

Guil. The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

Ham. You are welcome.

Guil. Nay good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right sort. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment: if not, your pardon, and my return, shall be the end of my

business.

Ham. Sir, I cannot.

Guil. What, my lord?

Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: But, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or, rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no more, but to the matter: My mother, you say

Ros. Then thus she says; Your behavior bath struck her into amazement and admiration.

Ham. O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother!-But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? impart.

Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed.

Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?

Ros. My lord, you once did love me.

Ham. And do still, by these pickers and stealers. Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do, surely, but bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend.

Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.

Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark?

Ham. Ay, sir, but, While the grass grows-the proverb is something musty.

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Enter the Players, with recorders.

O, the recorders :-let me see one.-To withdraw with you:-Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

Guil. My lord, I cannot.

Ham. I pray you.

Guil. Believe me, I cannot.

Ham. I do beseech you.

Ros. I know no touch of it, my lord."

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Ham. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages, with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

Ros. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.

Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak? Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon

me.

CLVIII.

PRINCE HENRY And falstaff.-Shakspeare.
Enter Falstaff, Gadshill, Bardolph, and Peto.

Poins. Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been? Fal. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! marry, and amen!-Give me a cup of sack, boy.

-Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew nether-stocks, and mend them, and foot them too. A plague of all cowards!-Give me a cup of sack, rogue.-Is there no vir[He drinks.

tue extant?

P. Hen. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter; pitiful-hearted Titan, that melted at the sweet tale of the son! if thou didst, then behold that compound.

Fal. You rogue, here's lime in this sack too: There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man: Yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it; a villainous coward.-Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good men unhanged in England; and one of them is fat, and grows old: a bad world, I say! I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms, or any thing; a plague of all cowards, I say still.

P. Hen. How now, wool-sack? what mutter you?

Fal. A king's son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee, like a flock of wild geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. You prince of Wales!

P. Hen. Why, you son of a gun! what's the matter? Fal. Are you not a coward? answer me to that; and Poins there?

Poins. Ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, I'll stab thee.

Fal. I call thee coward! I'll see thee gibbeted ere I call thee coward: but I would give a thousand pound, I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back: Call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing? give me them that will face me.-Give me a cup of sack. I am a rogue, if I drunk to-day.

P. Hen. O, villain! thy lips are scarce wiped since thou drunk'st last.

Fal. All's one for that. A plague of all cowards, still say I. [He drinks.

P. Hen. What's the matter?

Fal. What's the matter? there be four of us here have ta'en a thousand pound this morning.

P. Hen. Where is it Jack? where is it?

Fal. Where is it? taken from us it is: a hundred upon poor four of us.

P. Hen. What, a hundred, man?

Fal. I am a rogue, if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them two hours together. I have 'scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet; four, through the hose; my buckler cut through and through; my sword hacked like a hand saw, ecce sigпит. I never dealt better since I was a man; all would not do. A plague of all cowards!-Let them speak: If they speak more or less than truth, they are villains, and the sons of darkness.

P. Hen. Speak, sirs; how was it?
Gads. We four sat upon some dozen-
Fal. Sixteen, at least, my lord.
Gads. And bound them.

Peto. No, no, they were not bound.

Fal. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them: or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew.

Gads. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us

Fal. And unbound the rest, and then come in the other.

P. Hen. What, fought ye with them all?

Fal. All? I know not what ye call, all; but if I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish: If there were not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then I am no two-legged creature.

Poins. Pray, you have not murdered some of them. Fal. Nay, that's past praying for: for I have peppered two of them; two, I am sure, I have paid; two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal-if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me a horse. Thou knowest my old ward;-here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rouges in buckram let drive at me

P. Hen. What, four? thou said'st but two, even now. Fal. Four, Hal; I told thee four.

Poins. Ay, ay, he said four.

Fal. These four came all a-front, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado, but took all their seven points in my target, thus.

P. Hen. Seven? why, there were but four, even now. Fal. In buckram.

Poins. Ay, four, in buckram suits.

Fal. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.
P. Hen. Pr'ythee, let him alone; we shall have more

anon.

Fal. Dost thou hear me, Hal!

P. Hen. Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.

Fal. Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine men in buckram, that I told thee of

P. Hen. So, two more already.

Fal. Their points being broken-began to give me ground: But I followed me close, came in foot and hand; and, with a thought, seven of the eleven I paid. P. Hen. O, monstrous! eleven buckram men grown out of two!

Fal. But three knaves, in Kendal green, came at my back, and let drive at me ;—for it was so dark, Hal, that thou could'st not see thy hand.

P. Hen. These lies are like the father of them; gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou claybrained, thou knotty-pated fool; thou greasy tallowkeech.

Fal. What, art thou mad? art thou mad? is not the truth, the truth?

P. Hen. Why, how could'st thou know these men in Kendal green, when it was so dark thou could'st not see thy hand? come, tell us your reason? What sayest thou to this?

Poins. Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.

Fal. What, upon compulsion? No; were I at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell

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