Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies, And make imaginary puissance: Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray, And make imaginary puissance :] This shows that Shakspeare was fully sensible of the absurdity of showing battles on the theatre, which, indeed, is never done, but tragedy becomes farce. Nothing can be represented to the eye, but by something like it, and within a wooden O nothing very like a battle can be exhibited. KING HENRY V. ACT I. SCENE I.-London. An Ante-Chamber in the Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury', and Bishop Canterbury. My lord, I'll tell you, that self bill is urg'd, Did push it out of further question. Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now? For all the temporal lands, which men devout Would they strip from us; being valued thus,- Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil, 7 of Canterbury,] Henry Chicheley, a Carthusian monk, recently promoted to the see of Canterbury. 8 Ely.] John Fordham, consecrated 1388; died 1426. A hundred alms-houses, right well supplied; A thousand pounds by the year: Thus runs the bill. Cant. 'Twould drink the cup and all. Ely. But what prevention? Cant. The king is full of grace, and fair regard. And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him ; To envelop and contain celestial spirits. With such a heady current, scouring faults; So soon did lose his seat, and all at once, Ely. We are blessed in the change. Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity, And, all-admiring, with an inward wish You would desire, the king were made a prelate : You would say,-it hath been all-in-all his study: A fearful battle render'd you in musick: The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, 9 Never came reformation in a flood,] Alluding to the method by which Hercules cleansed the famous stables, when he turned a river through them. Hercules still is in our author's head, when he mentions the hydra. JOHNSON. The air, a charter'd libertine, is still ', Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it, His companies' unletter'd, rude, and shallow; Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle: And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best, Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality : And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation Cant. It must be so; for miracles are ceas'd; Ely. But, my good lord, How now for mitigation of this bill 1 The air, &c.] This line is exquisitely beautiful. So that the art and practick part of life-] He discourses with so much skill on all subjects, that the art and practice of life must be the mistress or teacher of his theorick; that is, that his theory must have been taught by art and practice; which, says he, is strange, since he could see little of the true art or practice among his loose companions, nor ever retired to digest his practice into theory. Art is used by the author for practice, as distinguished from science, or the ory. JOHNSON. 3 companies] Is here used for companions. It is used by other authors of Shakspeare's age in the same sense. 4 the word. - popularity.] i. e. plebeian intercourse; an unusual sense of crescive in his faculty.] Increasing in its proper power. Urg'd by the commons? Doth his majesty Cant. And in regard of causes now in hand, Did to his predecessors part withal. Ely. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord? Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms : Ely. What was the impediment that broke this off? Cant. The French ambassador, upon that instant, Crav'd audience: and the hour, I think, is come, To give him hearing: Is it four o'clock ? It is. Ely. [Exeunt. • The severals, and unhidden passages,] This line I suspect of corruption, though it may be fairly enough explained: the passages of his titles are the lines of succession by which his claims descend. Unhidden is open, clear. JOHNSON. |