sence 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 importance to the Duke of Lancaster. Yet the man thus corrupt, thus despicable, makes himself necessary to the prince that despises him, by the most pleasing of all qualities, perpetual gaiety; by an unfailing power of exciting laughter, which is the more freely indulged, as his wit is not of the splendid or ambitious kind, but consits in easy scapes and sallies of levity, which make sport, but raise no envy. It must be observed, that he is stained with no enormous or sanguinary crimes, so that his licentiousness is not so offensive but that it may be borne for his mirth.

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. JOHNSON.

Mr. Upton thinks these two plays improperly called the Frst and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth. The 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 suppressed. 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 dramatick action. These two plays will appear to every reader, who shall peruse them without ambition of critical discoveries, to be so connected, that the secend is merely a sequel to the first; to be two only because they are too long to be one.

JOHNSON,

EPILOGUE

Spoken by a Dancer.

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.

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 satisfaction, 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 tongne 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.6

6 Most of the ancient interludes conclude with a prayer for the King or Queen. Hence, perhaps, the Vivant Rex & Regina, at the bottom of our modern play-bills.

KING HENRY V.

4

King Henry the Fifth.

Duke of Gloster,

Duke of Bedford,

brothers to the King.

Duke of Exeter, uncle to the King.

Duke of York, cousin to the King.

Earls of Salisbury, Westmoreland, and Warwick.

Archbishop of Canterbury.

Bishop of Ely.

Earl of Cambridge,

Lord Scroop,

Sir Thomas Grey,

conspirators against the King.

Sir Thomas Erpingham, Gower, Fluellen, Macmorris, Jamy, officers in King Henry's army.

Bates, Court, Williams, soldiers in the same. Nym, Bardolph, Pistol, formerly servants to Falstaff, now soldiers in the same.

Boy, servant to them. A Herald. Chorus.

Charles the Sixth, King of France.

Lewis, the Dauphin.

Dukes of Burgundy, Orleans, and Bourbon.

The Constable of France.

Rambures, and Grandpree, French Lords.

Governor of Harfleur. Montjoy, a French Herald. Ambassadors to the King of England.

Isabel, Queen of France.

Katharine, daughter of Charles and Isabel.

Alice, a lady attending on the Princess Katharine.

Quickly, Pistol's wife, an hostess.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and English Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants.

The SCENE, at the beginning of the Play, lies in England; but afterwards, wholly in France.