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The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,

What perils past, what crosses to ensue,

Would shut the book and sit him down and die.

'Tis not ten years gone

Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,

Did feast together, and in two years after

Were they at wars. It is but eight years since

This Percy was the man nearest my soul;

Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs

And laid his love and life under my foot;

Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard

Gave him defiance. But which of you was by-

[To WARWICK] You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember-

When Richard, with his eye brim full of tears,

Then check'd and rated by Northumberland,

Did speak these words, now prov'd a prophecy?

'Northumberland, thou ladder by the which

My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne'-

Though then, God knows, I had no such intent

But that necessity so bow'd the state

That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss-

'The time shall come'- thus did he follow it-

'The time will come that foul sin, gathering head,

Shall break into corruption' so went on,

Foretelling this same time's condition

And the division of our amity.

WARWICK.

There is a history in all men's lives,

Figuring the natures of the times deceas'd;

The which observ'd, a man may prophesy,

With a near aim, of the main chance of things

As yet not come to life, who in their seeds

And weak beginning lie intreasured.

Such things become the hatch and brood of time;

And, by the necessary form of this,

King Richard might create a perfect guess

That great Northumberland, then false to him,

Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness;

Which should not find a ground to root upon

Unless on you.

KING.

Are these things then necessities?

Then let us meet them like necessities;

And that same word even now cries out on us.

They say the Bishop and Northumberland

Are fifty thousand strong.

WARWICK.

It cannot be, my lord.

Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,

The numbers of the feared. Please it your Grace

To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,

The powers that you already have sent forth

Shall bring this prize in very easily.

To comfort you the more, I have receiv'd

A certain instance that Glendower is dead.

Your Majesty hath been this fortnight ill;

And these unseasoned hours perforce must ad

Unto your sickness.

KING.

I will take your counsel.

And, were these inward wars once out of hand,

We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land. Exeunt

SCENE II. Gloucestershire. Before Justice, SHALLOW'S house

Enter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting; MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULLCALF, and servants behind

SHALLOW.

Come on, come on, come on; give me your hand, sir;

give me

your hand, sir. An early stirrer, by the rood! And how doth my

good cousin Silence?

SILENCE.

Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.

SHALLOW.

And how doth my cousin, your bed-fellow? and your fairest

daughter and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?

SILENCE.

Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow!

SHALLOW.

By yea and no, sir. I dare say my cousin William is become

a good scholar; he is at Oxford still, is he not?

SILENCE.

Indeed, sir, to my cost.

SHALLOW.

'A must, then, to the Inns o' Court shortly. I was once of

Clement's Inn; where I think they will talk of mad Shallow yet.

SILENCE.

You were call'd 'lusty Shallow' then, cousin.

SHALLOW.

By the mass, I was call'd anything; and I would have done

anything indeed too, and roundly too. There was I, and little

John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Barnes, and Francis

Pickbone, and Will Squele a Cotsole man- you had not four such

swinge-bucklers in all the Inns of Court again. And I may say to

you we knew where the bona-robas were, and had the best of them

all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John,

boy,

and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.

SILENCE.

This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers?

SHALLOW.

The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break

Scoggin's head at the court gate, when 'a was a crack not thus

high;