Chapter 49

... “Then, _happy low, lie down_; Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

I know no argument by which to persuade any one to be of my opinion, or rather of my feeling; but yet I cannot help feeling that “Happy low-lie-down!” is either a proverbial expression, or the burthen of some old song, and means, “Happy the man, who lays himself down on his straw bed or chaff pallet on the ground or floor!”

_Ib._ sc. 2. Shallow’s speech:—

“_Rah, tah, tah_, would ’a say; _bounce_, would ’a say,” &c.

That Beaumont and Fletcher have more than once been guilty of sneering at their great master, cannot, I fear, be denied; but the passage quoted by Theobald from the _Knight of the Burning Pestle_ is an imitation. If it be chargeable with any fault, it is with plagiarism, not with sarcasm.

“Henry V.”