study and reflection, and the poet evidently means us to regard the alleged 'hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports,' as a gross exaggeration. And there are several hints in the three plays as to the prince having been actuated by what appeared to himself a wise purpose in his associating for a time with unworthy characters. In letting himself down to them he still keeps hold of the dignity from which he has descended, while he gives himself opportunity of learning the world without the risk of being beguiled by flattery. But his main purpose is distinctly revealed to us at the conclusion of the very first scene in which he appears. When Falstaff and Poins have retired, and he is left alone, the judicious dramatist makes him meditate as follows:

'I know you all, and will a while uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness.
If all the year were playing holidays,

To sport would be as tedious as to work;

But when they seldom come, they wished-for come;

And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.

So, when this loose behaviour I throw off,
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly, and attract more eyes,
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I'll so offend, to make offence a skill,
Redeeming time, when men think least I will.'

1 K. Hen. IV. i. 2.

In the Second Part of Henry IV. we see the King's sickness stirring the depths of the goodness that has been

all along lurking in the young Prince's heart, and he begins then to warn his companions of the approaching consummation of his purpose. To Poins he says: 'Thou thinkest me as far in the devil's book as thou and Falstaff, for obduracy and persistency: let the end try the man. But I tell thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick; and keeping such vile company as thou art, hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.' His levity of manners is continued a little longer, but he says significantly to Poins: 'in everything the purpose must weigh with the folly.' When, however, news of the rebellion in the north assails his ears, he thus renounces for ever his too long indulged wildness:

'By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame,
So idly to profane the precious time,
When tempest of commotion, like the south
Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt,
And drop upon our bare unarmed heads;
Give me my sword and cloak:-Falstaff, good night!
2 K. Hen. IV. ii. 4.

His dying father, looking back upon the troubles in which the question of his right to the throne had involved him, counselled his son to divert the public mind with

war:

'Be it thy course to busy giddy minds

With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of the former days.'

2 K. Hen. IV. iv. 4.

The prince regards himself as having become lawful

inheritor of the crown, and says to his father

You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;

Then plain and right must my possession be.'

When he has come into possession, he allows no longer the wonted freedom of access to him on the part of Falstaff; he feels bound by his regal responsibility to rebuke the old knight on an occasion of such freedom being now attempted; but the rebuke is tempered with much kind

ness:

'I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers.
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dreamed of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane;
But, being awake, I do despise my dream.
Presume not that I am the thing I was:
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turned away my former self;
So will I those have kept me company.
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 qualities,
Give
you advancement.' 1-2 K. Hen. IV. v. 5.

In no one of the other kings whom Shakspeare has portrayed in his Chronicle-Plays, did he find such scope for the exhibition of true glory as in Henry V. He is the darling of the poet's heart, who sees in him such piety,

1 In the Epilogue to King Henry IV. occurs the following vague announcement respecting the forthcoming play of King Henry V.— '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 Katherine of France; where, for anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions.' An account of his death is all that we hear of him in the present play; the opinion of the Hostess being that 'the king has killed his heart,'

But

such heroism, such moral and intellectual majesty as demand the loftiest strain of dramatic celebration. Henry accepts the crown of England with a consciousness of being its rightful heir, but one of his first acts is to make some amends to the memory of the feeble monarch whom his father dethroned, but by whom his father had been unjustly and imprudently banished. He transfers to Westminster the body of Richard II. from its obscure grave at Langley. And now his ambition, which yearns to achieve great things, and to redeem the time spent in youthful giddiness, anticipates a fair field for enterprise in the prosecution of his pretensions to the throne of France. not until he is distinctly and amply assured of the validity of these pretensions by the highest authorities in Church. and State does he enter upon that career of military prowess with which the greater portion of the present play is occupied. He finds in the defiance of the shallowminded Dauphin an opportunity of entering upon the course enjoined by the preceding king, 'to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels,' he sees the will of heaven encouraging his project by the easy defeat of a conspiracy of traitors at the outset of his expedition, and, in the conviction that on his way he has 'God before,' he presses through the most formidable obstacles, till the final triumph of his purpose excites him to exclaim: 'Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!'

There is no tendency to proud vaunting in the disposition of this monarch. Rather does he so modestly regard and speak of himself, that the dramatist employs a Chorus or Prologue to proclaim the hero's praise.

There is no plot to be foreshadowed in the opening of this play. The interpreting and eulogising Chorus preceding each Act, gives direct note of preparation for the

coming scenes; and the play altogether is peculiar among
the Histories, in being, as an American writer has aptly
described it, 'a kind of lyrical commemoration of the
victory and the victor.'

3. The meanings of the words in italics in the following

quotations should be particularly attended to:-

α O for a muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention. p. 3.

b And, all-admiring, with an inward wish. p. 6.

C The severals, and unhidden

Of his true titles. p. 8.

passages

d She hath been then more feared than harmed.

e The advised head defends itself at home.

P. 15.

p. 15.

f The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum. p. 16.

g. Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,

h

i

Tombless, with no remembrance over them. p. 17.

Shake in their fear, and with pale policy

Seek to divert the English purposes. p. 21.

Give me thy fist; thy fore-foot to me give:

Thy spirits are most tall. p. 25.

j Enlarge the man committed yesterday,
That railed against our person: we consider
It was excess of wine that set him on ;
And, on his more advice, we pardon him
k That's mercy, but too much security:

p. 29.

Let him be punished, sovereign, lest example

Breed by his sufferance more of such a kind. p. 30.

7. Our purposes God justly hath discovered. p. 33.