Presume not, that I am the thing I was:

For heaven doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;

So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me; and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my

riots :

Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,—
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life, I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil :
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strength, and qualities,——
Give you advancement?.-Be it your charge, my lord,
To see perform'd the tenour of our word.

Set on.
[Exeunt King, and his Train.
Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.
Shal. Ay, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you
to let me have home with me.

Fal. That can hardly be, master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him: look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancement; I will be the man yet, that shall make you great.

Shal. I cannot well perceive how; unless you should give me your doublet, and stuff me out with straw. I

The second folio has "redeem yourselves." Boswell gave it as a various reading of the first.

7 This circumstance Shakespeare may have derived from the old play of King Henry V. But Hall, Holinshed, and Stow give nearly the same account of the dismissal of Henry's loose companions. Every reader regrets to see Falstaff so hardly used, and Johnson's vindication of the king does not diminish that feeling. Poins, Johnson thinks ought to have figured in the conclusion of the play, but I do not believe that any one had ever been sensible of the poet's neglect of him until Johnson pointed it out.

beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred my thousand.

of

Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard, was but a colour.

Shal. A colour, I fear, that you will die in, Sir John. Fal. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, lieutenant Pistol ;-come, Bardolph :-I shall be sent for soon at night.

Re-enter PRINCE JOHN, the Chief Justice,

Officers, &c.

Ch. Just. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet; Take all his company along with him.

Fal. My lord, my lord,

Ch. Just. I cannot now speak: I will hear you soon. Take them away.

Pist. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta.

[Exeunt FAL. SHAL. PIST. BARD. Page, and Officers.

P. John. I like this fair proceeding of the king's He hath intent his wonted followers

Shall all be very well provided for ;

But all are banish'd, till their conversations
Appear more wise and modest to the world.

Ch. Just. And so they are.

P. John. The king hath call'd his parliament, my lord.

Ch. Just. He hath.

P. John. I will lay odds,—that, ere this year expire, We bear our civil swords, and native fire,

As far as France: I heard a bird so sing,

Whose musick, to my thinking, pleas'd the king.
Come, will
you hence?

[Exeunt.

EPILOGUE.

Spoken by a Dancer.

FIRST, my fear; then, my court'sy; last, my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my court'sy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say, is of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say, will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture.-Be it known to you (as it is very well), I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this: which, if, like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.

If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment,-to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so will I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly.

One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless

My

already he be kill'd with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you;— but, indeed, to pray for the queen1.

1 Most of the ancient interludes conclude with a prayer for the king or queen. Hence, perhaps, the Vivant Rex et Regina, at the bottom of our modern play bills. This is the text of the folio; the quarto varies in placing the words, "and so I kneel down before you, but indeed to pray for the queen," at the end of the first paragraph.

KING HENRY V.