War. Exceeding well; his cares are now all
ended.

Ch. Just. I hope, not dead.
War.

He's walk'd the way of nature;
And, to our purposes, he lives no more.

Ch. Just. I would, his majesty had call'd me

with him:

The service that I truly did his life,
Hath left me open to all injuries.

War. Indeed, I think, the young king loves you

not.

Ch. Just. I know, he doth not; and do arm my-
self,

To welcome the condition of the time;
Which cannot look more hideously upon me
Than I have drawn it in my fantasy.

Enter PRINCE JOHN, PRINCE HUMPHREY, CLA-
RENCE, WESTMORELAND, and others.

War. Here come the heavy issue of dead Harry:
O, that the living Harry had the temper
Of him, the worst of these three gentlemen!
How many nobles then should hold their places,
That must strike sail to spirits of vile sort!

Ch. Just. Alas! I fear, all will be overturn'd.
P. John. Good morrow, cousin Warwick.
P. Humph. Cla. Good morrow, cousin.

And wear it in my heart. Why then, be sad:
But entertain no more of it, good brothers,
Than a joint burden laid upon us all.
For me, by heaven, I bid you be assur'd,
I'll be your father and your brother too;
Let me but bear your love, I'll bear your cares.
Yet weep, that Harry's dead; and so will I:
But Harry lives, that shall convert those tears,
By number, into hours of happiness.

P. John, &c. We hope no other from your ma
jesty.

King. You all look strangely on me;-and you
most;
[To the Chief Justice.

You are, I think, assur'd I love you not.
Ch. Just. I am assur'd, if I be measur'd rightly,
Your majesty hath no just cause to hate me.
King. No!

How might a prince of my great hopes forget
So great indignities you laid upon me?
What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
The immediate heir of England? Was this easy ?
May this be wash'd in Lethe, and forgotten?

Ch. Just. I then did use the person of your father;
The image of his power lay then in me:
And, in the administration of his law,
Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,
Your highness pleased to forget my place,

P. John. We meet like men that had forgot to The majesty and power of law and justice,

speak.

War. We do remember; but our argument Is all too heavy to admit much talk.

P. John. Well, peace be with him that hath made us heavy!

Ch. Just. Peace be with us, lest we be heavier!
P. Humph. O, good my lord, you have lost a
friend, indeed:

And I dare swear, you borrow not that face
Of seeming sorrow; it is, sure, your own.
P. John. Though no man be assur'd what grace
to find,

You stand in coldest expectation:

I am the sorrier; 'would, 'twere otherwise.
Cla. Well, you must now speak Sir John Fal-
staff fair;

Which swims against your stream of quality.
Ch. Just. Sweet princes, what I did, I did in ho-

nour,

Led by the impartial conduct of my soul;
And never shall you see, that I will beg
A ragged and forestall'd remission.-
If truth and upright innocency fail me,
I'll to the king my master that is dead,
And tell him who hath sent me after him.
War. Here comes the prince.

Enter KING HENRY V.

Ch. Just. Good morrow; and heaven save your
majesty!

King. This new and gorgeous garment, majesty,
Sits not so easy on me as you think.-
Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear;
This is the English, not the Turkish court;
Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,
But Harry Harry: Yet be sad, good brothers,
For, to speak truth, it very well becomes you;
Sorrow so royally in you appears,
That I will deeply put the fashion on,

1A ragged and forestalled remission' is a remission or pardon obtained by beggarly supplication. Forestal. ling is prevention. In a former scene the prince says to his father :

But for my tears, &c.

I had forestall'd this dear and deep rebuke.' 2 Amurath IV. emperor of the Turks, died in 1596; his second son, Amurath, who succeeded him, had all his brothers strangled at a feast, to which he invited them, while yet ignorant of their father's death. It is highly probable that Shakspeare alludes to this transaction. The play may have been written while the fact was still recent.

3 Was this easy? was this a light offence?

4 It has already been remarked that Sir William Gascoigne, the chief justice in this play, died in the reign of Henry IV.; and consequently this scene has

The image of the king whom I presented,
And struck me in my very seat of judgment ;*
Whereon, as an offender to your father,
I gave bold way to my authority,
And did commit rou. If the deed were ill,
Be you contented, wearing now the garland,
To have a son set your decrees at nought;
To pluck down justice from your awful bench;
To trip the course of law, and blunt the sword
That guards the peace and safety of your person;
Nay, more; to spurn at your most royal image,
And mock your workings in a second body.*
Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours;
Be now the father, and propose a son:
Hear your own dignity so much profan'd,
See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted,
Behold yourself so by a son disdain'd;
And then imagine me taking your part,
And, in your power, soft silencing your son:
After this cold considerance, sentence me;
And, as you are a king, speak in your state,"
What I have done, that misbecame my place,
My person, or my liege's sovereignty.

King. You are right, justice, and you weigh this
well;

Therefore still bear the balance and the sword:
And I do wish your honours may increase,
Till you do live to see a son of mine
Offend you, and obey you, as I did.
So shall I live to speak my father's words ;-
Happy am I, that have a man so bold,
That dares do justice on my proper son:
And not less happy, having such a son,
That would deliver up his greatness so
Into the hands of justice.-You did commit me :
For which, I do commit into your hand
The unstain'd sword that you have us'd to bear;
With this remembrance," That you use the same
With the like bold, just, and impartial spirit,

no foundation in fact. Shakspeare was misled by
Stowe, or probably was careless about the matter.
While Gascoigne was at the bar, Henry of Bolingbroke
was his client, who appointed him his attorney to sue
out his livery in the Court of Wards: but Richard II.
defeated his purpose. When Bolingbroke became
Henry IV. he appointed Gascoigne chief justice. In
that station he acquired the character of a learned, up-
right, wise, and intrepid judge. The story of his com
mitting the prince is told by Sir Thomas Elyot, in his
book entitled The Governor; but Shakspeare followed
the Chronicles.

5 Treat with contempt your acts executed by a representative.

6 i. e. image to yourself that you have a son.

7 In your regal character and office.

8 Remembrance; that is admonition or warning

As you
have done 'gainst me. There is my hand;
You shall be as a father to my youth:
My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine car;
And I will stoop and humble
my intents
To your well practis'd, wise directions.-
And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you ;-
My father is gone wild into his grave,'
For in his tomb lie my affections;
And with his spirit sadly I survive,
To mock the expectation of the world;
To frustrate prophecies; and to raze out
Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down
After my seeming. The tide of blood in me
Hath proudly flow'd in vanity, till now:
Now doth it turn, and ebb back to the sea;
Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,
And flow henceforth in formal majesty.
Now call we our high court of parliament:
And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel,
That the great body of our state may go
In equal rank with the best-govern'd nation;
That war, or peace, or both at once, may be
As things acquainted and familiar to us ;-
In which you, father, shall have foremost hand.—
[To the Lord Chief Justice.
Our coronation done, we will accite,4
As I before remember'd, all our state:
And (God consigning to my good intents,)
No prince, nor peer, shall have just cause to say,
Heaven shorten Harry's happy life one day.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. Glostershire. The Garden of Shallow's House. Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, SILENCE, BARDOLPH, the Page, and DAVY. Shal. Nay, you shall see mine orchard: where, in an arbour, we will eat a last year's pippin of own grafbug, with a dish of carraways, and so forth;-come, cousin Silence;-and then to bed. Fal. Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling, and a rich.

my

Fal. There's a merry heart!-Good master Silence, I'll give you a health for that anon.

Shal. Give master Bardolph some wine, Davy. Davy. Sweet sir, sit; [Seating BARDOLPH and the Page at another table.] I'll be with you anon:inost sweet sir, sit.--Master page, good master page, sit: proface! What you want in meat, we'll have in drink. But you must bear; The heart's all. [Exit. Shal. Be merry, master Bardolph ;-and my little soldier there, be merry.

Sil. Be merry, be merry, my wife has all;

[Singing.

For women are shrews, both short and tall:
'Tis
merry in hall, when beards wag all,"
And welcome merry shrove-tide."
Be merry, be merry, &c.

Fal. I did not think, master Silence had been a man of this mettle.

Sil. Who I? I have been merry twice and once,

And a merry heart lives long-a.
Fal. Well said, master Silence.
Sil. And we shall be merry;-now comes in the
sweet of the night.

Fal. Health and long life to you, master Silence.
Sil. Fill the cup, and let it come;

I'll pledge you a mile to the bottom.

Shal. Honest Bardolph, welcome: if thou wantest any thing, and wilt not call, beshrew thy heart.-Welcome, my little tiny thief; [To the Page.] and Shal. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beg-welcome, indeed, too.I'll drink to master Bargars all, Sir John:-marry, good air.-Spread, Davy; spread, Davy; well said, Davy.

Fal. This Davy serves you for good uses; he is your serving-man, and your husbandman.

Shal. A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet, Sir John.-By the mass, I have drunk too

much sack at supper:—a good varlet. Now sit
down, now sit down:-come, cousin.

Sil. Ah, sirrah! quoth-a,-we shall
Do nothing but eat, and make good cheer,

And praise heaven for the merry year;
When flesh is cheap, and females dear,
And lusty lads roam here and there,
So merrily,

And ever among so merrily.

[Singing.

5 This passage, which was long a subject of dispute, some pertinaciously maintaining that carraways meant apples of that name, has been at length properly explained by the following quotations from Cogan's Haven of Health, 1599:- For the same purpose careway seeds are used to be made in comfits, and to be eaten with apples, and surely very good for that purpose, for all such things as breed wind, would be eaten with other things that breake wind.' Again:- Howbeit we are wont to eate carruwaies, or biskets, or some other kind of comfits or seedes, together with apples, thereby to breake winde ingendred by them; and surely this is a verie good way for students. The truth is, that apples and carraways were formerly always eaten together; and it is said that they are still served up on particular days at Trinity College, Cambridge.

6 The character of Silence is admirably sustained; he would scarcely speak a word before, and now there is no end to his garrulity. He has a catch for every oc

casion:

dolph, and to all the cavaleroes about London.
Davy. I hope to see London once ere I die.
Bard. An I might see you there, Davy,-
Shal. By the mass, you'll crack a quart together.
Ha! will you not, master Bardolph ?

Bard. Yes, sir, in a pottle pot.

thee, I can assure thee that: he will not out; he is Shal. I thank thee:-The knave will stick by

true bred.

Bard. And I'll stick by him, sir.

Shal. Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing be merry. Knocking hard.] Look who's at door there: Ho! who knocks? [Exit DAVY. Fal. Why, now you have done me right. [To SILENCE, who drinks a bumper. Sil. Do me right,11 [Singing.

"When flesh is cheap and females dear. Here the double sense of dear must be remembered. 7 An expression of welcome equivalent to Much good may it do you!

8 This proverbial rhyme is of great antiquity; it is found in Adam Davie's Life of Alexander :

'Merrie swithe it is in hall

When the berdes waveth alle.'

9 Shrovetide was the ancient carnival; 'In most places where the Romish religion is generally profess ed, it is a time wherein more than ordinary liberty is tolerated, as it were in recompense of the abstinence (penance which is to be undergone for a time) for the future; whence by a metaphor it may be taken for any time of rioting or licence.-Philips's World of Words. T. Warton does not seem to have known that shrovetide and carnival were the same, or that carniscapium and carnisprivium were the low Latin terms for the latter. Shrovetide was a season of such mirth that shroving, or to shrove, signified to be merry.

10 Apples commonly called russetines

11 To do a man right and to do him reason were for merly the usual expressions in pledging healths; he who drank a bumper expected that a bumper should be drunk to his toast. To this Bishop Hall alludes in his Quo Vadis:- Those formes of ceremonious quaffing, in which men have learned to make gods of others and

And dub me knight :1

Samingo,

Is't not so ?

Fal. 'Tis so.

Fal. What is the old king dead?

Pist. As nail in door:" The things I speak, are just. Ful. Away, Bardolph; saddle my horse.-Master Robert Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the

Sil. Is't so? Why, then say, an old man can do land, 'tis thine.-Pistol, I will double charge thee somewhat.

Re-enter DAVY.

Davy. An it please your worship, there's one
Pistol come from the court with news.
Fal. From the court, let him come in.-

Enter PISTOL.

Fal. How now, Pistol?

Pist. God save you, Sir John!

Fal. What wind blew you hither, Pistol? Pist. Not the ill wind which blows no man to good.--Sweet knight, thou art now one of the greatest men in the realm.

Sil. By'r lady, I think 'a be; but goodman Puff of Barson.*

Pist. Puff?

Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base!-
Sir John, I am thy Pistol, and thy friend,
And helter-skelter have I rode to thee;
And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys,
And golden times, and happy news of price.

Fal. I pr'ythee now, deliver them like a man of this world.

Pist. A foutra for the world, and worldlings base! I speak of Africa, and golden joys.

Fal. O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news?
Let king Cophetua know the truth thereof.

Sil. And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John. [Sings,
Pist. Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons?
And shall good news be baffled?
Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap.

Shal. Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding.
Pist. Why then, lament therefore,

Shal. Give me pardon, sir:-If, sir, you come with news from the court, I take it, there is but two ways; either to utter them, or to conceal them. I am, sir, under the king, in some authority.

Pist. Under which king, Bezonian ? speak, or die.
Shal. Under King Harry.
Pist.

Harry the Fourth? or Fifth?

Shal. Harry the Fourth.
Pist.
A foutra for thine office!
Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king;
Harry the Fifth's the man. I speak the truth:
When Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like
The bragging Spaniard.

6

with dignities.

Bard. O joyful day!-I would not take a knighthood for my fortune.

Pist. What? I do bring good news?

Fal. Carry master Silence to bed.-Master Shallow, my Lord Shallow, be what thou wilt, I am for. tune's steward. Get on thy boots; we'll ride all night :--O, sweet Pistol:-Away, Bardolph. [Ezit BARD.]--Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and, withal, devise something to do thyself good.-Boot, boot, master Shallow; I know, the young king is sick for me. Let us take any man's horses; the laws of England are at my commandment. Happy are they which have been my friends; and woe to my lord chief justice!

beasts of themselves: and lose their reason, whiles they pretend to do reason.'

Pist. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also!
Where is the life that late I led, say they:
Why, here it is; Welcome these pleasant days.
[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. London. A Street. Enter Beadles,
dragging in Hostess QUICKLY, and DOLL TEAR-

they most probably had it from the Romans. seems to accompany the phrase with an appropriate gesticulation. In explaining the higas dar of the Span 1 He who drank a bumper on his knees to the health iards, Minshew says, after describing it, a manner as of his mistress, was dubbed a knight for the evening. they use in England to bore the nose with the finger, o 2 In Nashe's play called Summer's Last Will and in disgrace.' The phrase is amply explained in Mr. Testament, 1600, Bacchus sings the following catch:-Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 492. 'Monsieur Mingo for quaffing doth surpass

7 Steevens remarks that this proverbial expression is oftener used than understood. The door nail is the ma in ancient doors on which the knocker strikes. therefore used as a comparison for one irrecoverably dead, one who has fallen (as Virgil says) mulia morté,

In Rowland's Epigrams, 1600, Mousieur Domingo isi. e. with abundant death, such as reiterated strokes on celebrated as a toper. It has been supposed that the in- the head would produce.

troduction of Domingo as a burthen to a drinking song 8 In the quarto, 1600, we have Enter Sinckle, and was intended as a satire on the luxury of the Domini-three or four officers. And the name of Sucklo is precans; but whether the change to Samingo was a blun-fixed to the Beadle's speeches. Sincklo is also introder of Silence in his cups, or was a real contraction of duced in The Taming of the Shrew, he was an actor in San Domingo, is uncertain. Why Saint Dominick the same company with Shakspeare. should be the patron of topers does not appear. 3 So in Bulleine's Dialogue of the Fever Pestilence,

1564:

No winde but it doth turn some man to good.' 4 Barston is a village in Warwickshire, lying between Coventry and Solyhull.

5 Bezonian, according to Florio a bisogno, is a new levied souldier, such as comes nerdy to the wars.' Cotgrave, in bisongne, says a filthie knave, or clowne, a raskall, a bisonian, base humoured scoundrel.' Its original sense is a beggar, a needy person; it is often met with very differently spelt in the old comedies.

6 An expression of contempt or insult by putting the thumb between the fore and middle finger, and forming a coarse representation of a disease to which the name of ficus has always been given. The custom has been regarded as originally Spanish, but without foundation,

9 It has already been observed (Merry Wives of Windsor, Act i. Sc. 1) that nut-hook was a term of reproach for a bailiff or constable. Cleveland says of a committee-man :- He is the devil's nut-hook, the sign with him is always in the clutches.

10 That is to stuff her out, that she might couseries pregnancy. In Greene's Dispute between a He Cast catcher, &c. 1592-to wear a cushion under her own kirtle, and to faine herself with child.

11 Doll humorously compares the beadle's spere figure to the embossed figures in the mairle of de pierced convex lid of a censer made of thin metal. The sluttery of rush-strewed chambers rendered censers of fire pans in which coarse perfumes were burna s necessary utensils. In Much Ado About Nothing, Br chio says that he had been entertained for a perfumero smoke a musty room at Leonato's.

you blue-bottle rogue! you filthy famished correctioner! if you be not swinged, I'll forswear halfkirtles.2

1 Bend. Come, come, you she knight-errant, come. Host. O, that right should thus overcome might! Well; of sufferance comes ease.

Dol. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a justice.

Host. Ay; come, you starved blood-hound.
Dol. Goodman death! goodman bones!
Host. Thou atomy thou!

Dol. Come, you thin thing; come, you rascal!
1 Bead. Very well.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V. A public Place near Westminster
Abbey. Enter Two Grooms, strewing Rushes.
1 Groom. More rushes, more rushes.
2 Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice.
1 Groom. It will be two o'clock ere they come
from the coronation: Despatch, despatch.

[Exeunt Grooms. Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and the Page.

Fal. Stand here by me, master Robert Shallow ; I will make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him, as 'a comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me.

Pist. God bless thy lungs, good knight. Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me.-O, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. [To SHALLOW.] But 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this doth infer the zeal I had to see him.

Pist. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver,
And make thee rage.

Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
Is in base durance, and contagious prison;
Haul'd thither

By most mechanical and dirty hand :

Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's
snake,

For Doll is in; Pistol speaks nought but truth.
Fal. I will deliver her.

[Shouts within, and the Trumpets sound. Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.

Enter the King and his Train, the Chief Justice among them.

Fal. God save thy grace, King Hal! my royal

Hal!

1 Beadles usually wore a blue livery.

Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!

Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy!

King. My lord chief justice, speak to that vain

man.

Ch. Just. Have you your wits? know you what 'tis you speak?

Fal. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

King. I know thee not, old man: Fall to thy

prayers;

How ill white hairs become a fool, and jester!
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane;"
But, being awake, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know, the grave doth
gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men:-
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest ;
Presume not, that I am the thing I was:
For heaven doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me; and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,-
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,-
Not to come near our person by ten mile."
For competence of life, I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil :
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will,--according to your strength, and quali-
ties,-
Give you advancement."-Be it your charge, my
lord,

To see perform'd the tenor of our word.

Set on.
[Exeunt King, and his Train.
Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand
pound.

Shal. Ay, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me.

Fal. That can hardly be, master Shallow. 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.

Shal. I cannot perceive how; unless you give me your doublet, and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand.

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

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

Fal. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, lieutenant Pistol;-come, Bardolph:-1 shall be sent for soon at night.

Re-enter PRINCE JOHN, the Chief Justice, Officers,

9 This circumstance Shakspeare may have derived from the old play of King Henry V. But Hall, Holinshed, and Stowe give nearly the same account of the dismissal of Henry's loose companions. Every reader

2 A half kirtle was a kind of apron or fore part of the dress of a woman. It could not be a cloak, as Ma-regrets to see Falstaff so hardly used, and Johnson's lone supposed; nor a short bedgown, as Steevens imagined.

3 The hostess's corruption of anatomy.
4 Warburton thought that we should read:-
"Tis all in all and all in every part.'

5 A similar scene occurs in the anonymous old play of King Henry V. Falstaff and his companions address the king in the same manner, and are dismissed as in this play.

6 Child, offspring.

vindication of the king does not diminish that feeling. Poins, Johnson thinks, ought to have figured in the conclusion of the play, but I do not believe that any one had ever been sensible of the poet's neglect of him until Johnson pointed it out.

10 Johnson confesses that he does not see why Falstaff is carried to the Fleet; he has committed no new fault, and therefore incurred no punishment; but the different agitations of fear, anger, and surprise in him and his company, made a good scene to the eye; and

7 Profane (says Johnson) in our author often signi- our author, who wanted them no longer on the stage,

fes love of talk.

62

was glad to find this method of sweeping them away'

Pist. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta.
[Exeunt FAL. SHAL. PIST. BARD. Page,
and Officers.

P. John. I like this fair proceeding of the king's:
He hath intent, his wonted followers
Shall all be very well provided for;
But all are banish'd, till their conversations
Appear more wise and modest to the world.
Ch. Just. And so they are.

These scenes, which now make the fifth art of Henry the Fourth, might then be the first of Henry the Fija; but the truth is, that they do not unite very com believe they ended as they are now ended in the books ly to either play. When these plays were represented, but Shakspeare seems to have designed that the whole series of action, from the beginning of Richard the Second to the end of Henry the Fifth, should be consid ered by the reader as one work upon one plan, only broken into parts by the necessity of exhibition.

None of Shakspeare's plays are more read than the

P. John. The king hath call'd his parliament, my First and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth. Per

lord.

Ch. Just. He hath.

haps no author has ever, in two plays, afforded so much delight. The great events are interesting, for the fate

P. John. I will lay odds,-that, ere this year of kingdoms depends upon them; the slighter occur

expire,

We bear our civil swords, and native fire,

As far as France: I heard a bird so sing,
Whose music, to my thinking, pleas'd the king.
Come, will you hence?

EPILOGUE.

Spoken by a Dancer.

[Exeunt.

FIRST, my fear; then, my court'sy; last, my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my court'sy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say, is of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say, will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you (as it is very well,) I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this: which, if, like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.

rences are diverting, and, except one or two, sufficiently probable; the incidents are multiplied with wonderful fertility of invention, and the characters diversified with the utmost nicety of discernment, and the profoundest skill in the nature of man.

The prince, who is the hero both of the comic and tragic part, is a young man of great abilities and violent passions, whose sentiments are right, though his actions are wrong; whose virtues are obscured by negli gence, and whose understanding is dissipated by levity. when the occasion forces out his latent qualities, he is In his idle hours he is rather loose than wicked; and great without effort, and brave without tumult The trifler is roused into a hero, and the hero again reposes in the trifler. The character is great, original, and just. Percy is a rugged soldier, choleric and quarrelsome, and has only the soldier's virtues, generosity and cou

rage.

shall I describe thee? thou compound of sense and vice
But Falstaff, unimitated, unimitable Falstaff, bow
of sense which may be admired, but not esteemed; of
vice which may be despised, but hardly detested. Fal-
staff is a character loaded with faults, and with those
faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief
and a glutton, a coward and a boaster, always ready to
cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the
timorous, and insult the defenceless. At once obsequi-
ous and malignant, he satirizes in their absence those
whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the
prince only as an agent of vice, but of this familiarity he
is so proud, as not only to be supercilious and haughty
with common men, but to think his interest of impor
tance to the Duke of Lancaster. Yet the man thus cor-
prince that despises him, by the most pleasing of all
qualities, perpetual gaiety; by an unfailing power of ex-
citing laughter; which is more frequently indulged, as
his wit is not of the splendid or ambitious kind, but cos
sists in easy scapes and sallies of levity, which make
sport, but raise no envy. It must be observed, that be
is stained with no enormous or sanguinary crimes, so
be borne for his mirth.
that his licentiousness is not so offensive but that it may

If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment,--to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satis-rupt, thus despicable, makes himself necessary to the faction, and so will I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly. One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you;-but, indeed, to pray for the queen.'

I FANCY every reader, when he ends this play, cries out with Desdemona, O most lame and impotent conclusion! As this play was not, to our knowledge, divided into acts by the author, I could be content to conclude it with the death of Henry the Fourth :

In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.'

1 Most of the ancient interludes conclude with a prayer for the king or queen. Hence perhaps, the Vivant Rez et Regina, at the bottom of our modern play bills.

The moral to be drawn from this representation is, that no man is more dangerous than he that with a will to corrupt, hath the power to please; and that neither wit nor honesty ought to think themselves safe with such a companion, when they see Henry seduced by Falstaff.

the First and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth. The Mr. Upton thinks these two plays improperly called first play ends, he says, with the peaceful settlement of Henry in the kingdom by the defeat of the rebels. This is hardly true; for the rebels are not yet finally sup pressed. The second, he tells us, shows Henry the Fifth in the various lights of a good-natured rake, till, on his father's death, he assumes a more manly character. This is true; but this representation gives us no idea of a dramatic action. These two plays will appear to every reader, who shall peruse them without ambition of critical discoveries, to be so connected, that the second is merely a sequel to the first; to be two only because they are too long to be one. JOHNSON.