He makes fun of Peele's _Turkish Mahomet and Hyren the fair Greek_, when Pistol, alluding to his sword, exclaims, "Have we not Hiren here?" And again it is George Peele who is aimed at when Pistol says to the hostess:-- "Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis; Come, give's some sack." In _The Battle of Alcazar_ (see above, p. 31), Muley Mahomet brings his wife some flesh on the point of his sword and says-- "Hold thee, Calipolis, feed and faint no more!" But Falstaff himself is, and must ever remain, the chief attraction of the comic scenes. Never was the Fat Knight wittier than when he answers the Lord Chief-Justice, who has told him that his figure bears "all the characters of age" (i. 2):-- "My Lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. For my voice, I have lost it with hollaing and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him." The play is a mere bundle of individual passages, but each of these passages is admirable. A great example is King Henry's soliloquy which opens the third act, the profoundly imaginative apostrophe to sleep:-- "O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile, In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch, A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell? Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge, And in the visitation of the winds, Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them With deaf'ning clamours in the slippery clouds, That with the hurly death itself awakes? Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude; And in the calmest and most stillest night, With all appliances and means to boot, Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down! Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."