PUT NOT YOUR TRUST IN PRINCES!

Give you advancement.-Be it your charge, my lord,

To see perform'd the, tenor of our word,
Get on."

185

And then King Henry the Fifth, with his crown on, followed by his brothers, cousins, nobles, ambassadors, clergy, mace-bearers, sword-bearers, pages, retainers, and what not-by no means forgetting James the First, poet and King of Scotland (who, I am sure, cast a glance of sympathy at the paralysed figure of Sir John Falstaff, kneeling aghast and open-mouthed among the damp rushes of the courtyard), and Master John Lydgate, the laureate monk of Bury (who also, I am willing to believe, was rather distressed at the turn things had unfortunately taken)-took the arm of the triumphant Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, and proceeded to dinner in the hall of Richard the Second, as though such a person as John Falstaff had never had existence.

Sir John, after a moment's stupefaction, started to his feet. He pressed his hand over his burning eyeballs. A convulsive shudder passed through his entire system; and one brief sob escaped him. It was over. Sir John relieved his oppressed lungs of a long-pent-up breath; wiped his smoking forehead, and looked composedly at Justice Shallow. Justice Shallow looked at Sir John Falstaff. Not composedly though, by any means.

"Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pounds," said Sir John Falstaff. It was a fact at all events, and, therefore, worthy of mention.

"Ay, marry Sir John," the justice faltered, "which I beseech you to let me have home with me."

"That can hardly be, Master Shallow," was the reply. "Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him! Look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancement; I will be the man yet that shall make you great.”

"I cannot well perceive how, unless"-imminent pecuniary danger had lent the worthy justice unwonted smartness,-"you should give me your doublet and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand."

"Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard was but a colour."

"A colour, I fear, that you will die in, Sir John."

"Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, Lieutenant Pistol*; come, Bardolph; I shall be sent for to-night."

Sir John Falstaff had not to wait until nightfall ere he was sent for. Scarcely had he spoken when the Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, accompanied

A spontaneous promotion of the worthy Ancient, as it would seem, upon the brevet principle.

by Prince John of Lancaster (whose grudge against our knight, for the Gualtree affair, was, if possible, stronger than that of the justice himself), reappeared on the scene with a posse of constables. These men had even quitted a royal dinner table for the gratification of private vengeance. Could the force of malignity go further?

The lord chief justice, not trusting himself to an accusation which might have led to discussion, wherein he would inevitably have been discomfited, ordered Sir John Falstaff and his companions to be conveyed to the Fleet Prison!

Sir John naturally attempted to protest against a persecution so unprecedented.

"My lord, my lord,

"I cannot now speak," said the chief justice. "I will hear you soon. Take them away."

And they were taken away Bardolph, Pistol, and poor little Robin included-aye, and even Master Robert Shallow, of Gloucestershire, in the commission of the peace, custos rotulorum, whose only offence was one against the laws of ordinary human judgment; to wit, that he had lent Sir John Falstaff the sum of one thousand pounds under the impression that he would one day get it back again.

Now I should be very much obliged to any individual learned in the antiquities of English law, who will inform me by what then existing statute Sir John Falstaff, with his friend and retainers, were committed to the Fleet Prison? If, after all I have been at the pains of writing in the course of this publication,- since the acknowledged failure of my attempt to make out a case in favour of the Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne — there should remain any apologists for the character and conduct of that eminent justiciary, I should also feel thankful to them if they can inform me how they intend reconciling the behaviour of their protégé, on this occasion, with his hitherto established reputation as an upright judge. With regard to Prince John of Lancaster, afterwards Duke of Bedford, I trouble myself but little. History can have left him no friends. No amount of apologetic whitewash would serve to frost over the thick coating of smut from the funeral pyre of Joan of Arc, by which his memory must stand blackened to all eternity.

Apropos des bottes. I am happy to be able to convict Henry the Fifth in a glaring falsehood. He did not banish, "on pain of death,” the whole of his early associates in debauchery and misdemeanour, nor forbid them all "to come near his person by ten mile." Master Edward Poins, a discreet, timeserving young gentleman, continued in the enjoyment of court favour, and received the dignity of knig) thood on the very day of his majesty's. coronation.