Chief Justice.’--But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping
wolf.
Sir John Falstaff.--To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox.
Chief Justice.--What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.
Sir John Falstaff.--A wassel candle, my lord: all tallow: if I did say
of wax, my growth would approve the truth.
Chief Justice.--There is not a white hair on your face, but should have
his effect of gravity.
Sir John Falstaff.--His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.
Chief Justice__You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill
angel.
Sir John Falstaff.--Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but, I
hope, he that looks upon me will take me without weighing: and yet,
in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell. Virtue is of so
little regard in these coster-monger times, that true valour is turned
bearherd. Pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in
giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice
of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You, that are old,
consider not the capacities of us that are young: you measure the heat
of our livers with the bitterness of your galls; and we that are in the
vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.
Chief Justice.--Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that
are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a
moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg?
an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken? your wind short? your
chin double? your wit single? and every part about you blasted with
antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir
John!
Sir John Falstaff.--My lord, I was born about three of the clock in
the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. For my
voice,--I have lost it with hollaing, and singing of anthems. To approve
my youth farther, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgment
and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks,
let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box o’ the ear that
the Prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like
a sensible lord. I have checked him for it, and the young lion repents;
marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk, and old sack.
Chief Justice.--Well, God send the Prince a better companion!
Sir John Falstaff.--God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid
my hands of him.
Chief Justice.--Well, the King hath severed you and Prince Harry. I hear
you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the Archbishop and the
Earl of Northumberland.
Sir John Falstaff.--Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look
you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join
not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with
me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, an
I brandish any thing but my bottle, I would I might never spit white
again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am
thrust upon it: well, I cannot last ever. [But it was always yet the
trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it 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. ]
Chief Justice.--Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your
expedition!
Sir John Falstaff.--Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to
furnish me forth?
Chief Justice.--Not a penny, not a penny: you are too impatient to bear
crosses. Fare you well: commend me to my cousin Westmoreland.
I consider this utter defeat of my Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne one of
the most brilliant triumphs of Sir John Falstaff’s victorious life.
“If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle,” said Jack, looking after
the retreating form of his defeated adversary with ineffable contempt.
“Boy!”
“Sir?” said the small page.
“What money is in my purse?”
“Seven groats and twopence.”
“I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing
only 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.”
And pray, who was old Mistress Ursula? We may chance to hear of her by
and bye.