too common. If you will needs say, I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God, my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion. Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition! Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth? Ch. Just. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well: Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland. [Exeunt Chief Justice and Attendant. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.-A man can no more separate age and covetousness, than he can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and so both the degrees prevent my curses.-Boy! Page. Sir? Fal. What money is in my purse? Page. Seven groats and two-pence. Fal. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.-Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this to the earl of Westmoreland; and this to old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin: About it; you know where to find me. [Exit Page.] A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one, or the other, plays the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter, if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable: A good wit will make use of any thing; I will turn diseases to commodity. [Exit. SCENE III.-York. A Room in the Archbishop's Palace. Enter the Archbishop of York, the Lords HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH. Arch. Thus have you heard our cause, and known our means; : And, my most noble friends, I pray you all, Mowb. I well allow the occasion of our arms; Hast. Our present musters grow upon the file Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth thus ; Whether our present five and twenty thousand May hold up head without Northumberland. Bard. Ay, marry, there's the point; But if without him we be thought too feeble, For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this, Of aids uncertain should not be admitted. Arch. "Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed, It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury. Bard. It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope, Eating the air on promise of supply, Flattering himself with project of a power Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts: And so, with great imagination, Proper to madmen, led his powers to death, And, winking, leaped into destruction. Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt, We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit, That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build, And when we see the figure of the house, Then must we rate the cost of the erection: What do we then but draw anew the model In fewer offices; or, at least, desist To build at all? Much more, in this great work, The plot of situation, and the model; Question surveyors; know our own estate, How able such a work to undergo, Like one, that draws the model of a house Beyond his power to build it; who, half through, A naked subject to the weeping clouds, Hast. Grant, that our hopes (yet likely of fair birth), 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. 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 unarmed, the French and Welsh Bard. Who, is it like, should lead his forces hither? Hast. The duke of Lancaster, and Westmoreland: Against the Welsh, himself, and Harry Monmouth: But who is substituted 'gainst the French, Arch. Let us on; And publish the occasion of our arms. The commonwealth is sick of their own choice, An habitation giddy and unsure Hath he, that buildeth on the vulgar heart. O thou fond many! with what loud applause And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these times? [Exeunt. |