[ [95] See footnote "[94]" above.
[ [96] I consider this epilogue to be in blank-verse,—
"First my fear, then my courtesy, then my speech," &c.
but some slight alterations should be made: the transposition of a couple of words will make the passage here quoted metrical.
"One word more I beseech you. If you be not Too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author The story will continue with Sir John in't, And make you merry with fair Kate of France. Where (For any thing I know) Falstaff shall die of A sweat, unless already he be killed with Your hard opinions; Oldcastle died a martyr, And this is not the man. My tongue is weary, when my legs are too, I'll bid you good-night; and kneel down before you, But indeed to pray for the queen."
[ [97] It may be thus attempted in something like the metre of the original, which the learned know by the sounding name of Tetrameter Iambic Acatalectic:
"Does Clinia talk of misery? Believe his idle tale who can? What hinders it that he should have whate'er is counted good for man,— His father's home, his native land, with wealth, and friends, and kith and kin? But all these blessings will be prized according to the mind within: Well used, the owner finds them good; if badly used, he deems them ill. Cl. Nay, but his sire was always stern, and even now I fear him still," &c.
[ [98] This is printed as prose, but assuredly it is blank verse. The alteration of a syllable or two, which in the corrupt state of the text of these plays is the slightest of all possible critical licenses, would make it run perfectly smooth. At all events, in the second line, "emulation" should be "emulative," to make it agree with the other clauses of the sentence. The courtier's melancholy is not pride, nor the soldier's ambition, &c. The adjective is used throughout,—fantastical, proud, ambitious, politic, nice.
[ [99] "Senectus ipsa est morbus."—Ter. Phorm. iv. i. 9.
[ [100] Query on? "Wherein we play in" is tautological. "Wherein we play on," i.e. "continue to play."