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then?

Can honour set to a l? Nɔ. Or an armı? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then?

What is honour? A word. What is in that word honour? What is that honour? Air. A trim rocking !— Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it nesible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it :none of it: honour is a mere scutcheon, and so ends my catechism.

therefore I'll

Vernon's Description of Prince Henry's Challenge. No, by my soul; I never in my life Did hear a challenge urg'd more modestly, Unless a brother should a brother dare To gentle exercise and proof of arms. He gave you all the duties of a man: Trimm'd up your praises with a princely tongue; Spoke your deservings like a chronicle; Making you ever better than his praise, By still dispraising praise, valued with you : And, which became him like a prince indeed, He made a blushing cital of himself; And chid his truant youth with such a grace, As if he master'd there a double spirit

Of teaching and of learning instantly,

There did he pause; but let me tell the world,—
If he outlive the envy of this day,

England did never owe so sweet a hope,
So much misconstrued in his wantonness.

Life demands Action.

O gentlemen, the time of life is short;

To spend that shortness basely, were too long,
If life did ride upon a dial's point,

Still ending at the arrival of an hour.

Prince Henry's Speech on the Death of Hotspur.

Fare thee well, great heart!

Ill-weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk !
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound:
But now, two paces of the vilest earth

Is room enough :-this earth, that bears thee dead,
Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.

If thou wert sensible of courtesy,

I should not make so dear a show of zeal :
But let my favours* hide thy mangled face;
And, even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself
For doing these fair rites of tenderness.
Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven :
Thy ignomy sleep with thee in the grave,
But not remember'd in thy epitaph !

·000

KING HENRY IV.-PART. II.

The second part of King Henry the Fourth continues his reign from the battle of Shrewsbury till his death. One of the most prominent scenes in this play is that in which the Prince of Wales finds the crown by the side of his dying father, and places it on his own head. Another striking feature is the determination or the prince, on his father's death, to forsake the scenes of

*The scarf with which he covers Hotspur.

his former revels, and to cease to associate with his old roystering companions, Falstaff and the rest. His noble conduct, too, towards the Chief Justice (who for an act of violence had committed him to prison in his profligate days), imparts great interest to the conclusion of the play.

INDUCTION.

Rumour.

;

OPEN your ears; for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride ;
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
I speak of peace, while covert enmity,
Under the smile of safety, wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful musters, and prepar'd defence

Аст I.

Contention.

Contention, like a horse

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

A Post Messenger.

After him came spurring hard,

*

A gentleman almost forespent with speed,

That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse: * Spent, exhausted.

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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.

A Messenger with Ill News.

This man's brow, like to a title leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:

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

*

*

*

*

*

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—

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Thou shak'st thine 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;
And he doth sin that doth belie the dead;
Not he, which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue

*The strand, the shore.

Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,

Remember'd knolling a departing friend.

Description of the Death of Hotspur and Defeat of his Army.

I am sorry

I should force you to believe

That which I would to heaven I had not seen :
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rend'ring faint quittance, wearied and outbreath'd
To Harry Monmouth: whose swift wrath beat down
The never-daunted Percy to the earth,

From whence with life he never more sprung up.
In few,* his death (whose spirit lent a fire
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp),
Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
From the best temper'd courage in his troops :
For from his metal was his party steel'd;
Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.
And as the thing that's heavy in itself,
Upon enforcement, flies with greatest speed;
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear,
That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim,
Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
Fly from the field: Then was that noble Worcester
Too soon ta'en prisoner: and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
Had three times slain the appearance of the king,‡
'Gan vail his stomach, and did grace the shame
Of those that turn'd their backs; and, in his flight,
Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all

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Had slain three persons whom he mistook for the king.

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