[ [90] This story has been adapted from the German of Zschokke.
[ [91] "Eripiunt subito nubes cœlumque diemque."—Virg. Æn. i. v. 88.
[ [92] He is once called so by Westmoreland, Second Part of Henry IV. Act iv. Sc. 1.
"Health and fair greeting from our general,
The prince Lord John and Duke of Lancaster;"
but it occurs nowhere else, and we must not place much reliance on the authenticity or the verbal accuracy of such verses. He was Prince John of Lancaster, and afterwards Duke of Bedford. The king was then, as the king is now, Duke of Lancaster.
[ [93] Henry IV. Part 1. Act iii. Sc. 3.
"Fal. Now Hal, to the news at court: for the robbery, lad? How is that answered? P. Hen. My sweet beef, I must Still be good angel to thee. The money is paid back. Fal. I do not like That paying back; it is a double labour. P. Hen. I am good friends with my father, and may do anything. Fal. Rob me the exchequer, the first thing thou dost; And do't with unwashed hands too. Bard. Do, my lord."
The quiet and business-like manner in which Bardolph enforces on the heir-apparent his master's reasonable proposition of robbing the exchequer, is worthy of that plain and straightforward character. I have always considered it a greater hardship that Bardolph should be hanged "for pix of little price" by an old companion at Gadshill, than that Falstaff should have been banished. But Shakspeare wanted to get rid of the party; and as, in fact, a soldier was hanged in the army of Henry V. for such a theft, the opportunity was afforded. The king is not concerned in the order for his execution however, which is left with the Duke of Exeter.
I have omitted a word or two from the ordinary editions in the above quotation, which are useless to the sense and spoil the metre. A careful consideration of Falstaff's speeches will show that, though they are sometimes printed as prose, they are in almost all cases metrical. Indeed, I do not think that there is much prose in any of Shakspeare's plays.
[ [94] These passages also are printed as prose: I have not altered a single letter, and the reader will see not only that they are dramatical blank-verse, but dramatical blank-verse of a very excellent kind. After all the editions of Shakspeare, another is sadly wanted. The text throughout requires a searching critical revision.