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SECOND PART OF

KING HENRY IV.

SCENE I.-The same.

ACT I.

The Porter before the gate; Enter Lord BARDolph.

Bardolph.

WHO keeps the gate here, ho ?-Where is the earl? Port. What shall I say you are?

Bard. Tell thou the earl,

That the lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

Port. His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard; Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,

And he himself will answer.

Enter Northumberland.

Bard. Here comes the earl.

North. What news, lord Bardolph ? every minute now Should be the father of some stratagem:1

The times are wild; contention, like a horse

Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.

Bard. Noble earl,

I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.
North. Good, an heaven will!

Bard. As good as heart can wish :—
The king is almost wounded to the death;
And, in the fortune of my lord your son,

Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
Kill'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince John,
And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field;
And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk sir John,
Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day,
So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won,
Came not, till now, to dignify the times,
Since Cæsar's fortunes!

[1] Stratagem means here some important or dreadful event.

VOL. V.

MASON.
M

North. How is this deriv'd?

Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?

Bar. I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence; A gentleman well bred, and of good name,

That freely render'd me these news for true.

North. Here comes my servant, Travers, whom I sent On Tuesday last to listen after news.

Bard. My lord, I over-rode him on the way; And he is furnish'd with no certainties,

More than he haply may retail from me.

Enter TRAVERS.

North. Now, Travers, what good tidings come with you?
Tra. My lord, sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back
With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd,
Outrode me. After him, came, spurring hard,
A gentleman almost forspent with speed,

That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse:
He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him
I did demand, what news from Shrewsbury.
He told me, that rebellion had bad luck,
And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold:
With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head; and, starting so,
He seem'd in running to devour the way,"
Staying no longer question.

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Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
Of Hotspur, coldspur? that rebellion

Had met ill luck!

Bard. My lord, I'll tell you what ;

If my young lord your son have not the day,
Upon mine honour, for a silken point

I'll give my barony: never talk of it.

North. Why should the gentleman, that rode by Travers, Give then such instances of loss?

Bard. Who, he?

He was some hilding fellow, that had stol'n

The horse he rode on and, upon my

life,

[2] I think that I have observed in old prints the rowel of those times to have been

only a single spike. JOHNSON.

[3] So in Job, xxxix. "He swalloweth the ground in fierceness and rage." [4] A point is a string tagged, or lace. JOHNSON.

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Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.
Enter MORTON.

North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume :

So looks the strond, whereon th' imperious flood
Hath left a witness'd usurpation.—

Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
Mort. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask,
To fright our party.

North. How doth my son, and brother?
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was burn'd:
But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy's death, ere thou report'st it.
This thou wouldst say,-Your son did thus, and thus ;
Your brother, thus; so fought the noble Douglas ;
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
But in the end, to stop mine ear indeed,
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with-brother, son, and all are dead.
Mort. Douglas is living, and your brother, yet:
But, for my lord your son,-
North. Why, he is dead.

See, what a ready tongue suspicion hath !
He, that but fears the thing he would not know,
Hath, by instinct, knowledge from others' eyes,
That what he fear'd is chanced.

Yet speak, Morton;

Tell thou thy earl, his divination lies;
And I will take it as a sweet disgrace,
And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.
Mort. You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.
North. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.

I see a strange confession in thine eye :

6

Thou shak'st thy head; and hold'st it fear, or sin,
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so:
The tongue offends not, that reports his death:

[5] It may not be amiss to observe, that, in the time of our poet, the title-page to an elegy, as well as every intermediate leaf, was totally black.

[6] Fear for danger.

W KEURTON.

STEEVENS.

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