man of action. He has none of Hamlet's spiritual trouble, none of Hamlet's mystery of soul, none of Prospero's lofty spiritual wisdom and old experience. Shakespeare would have us take him for what he isman's helper, God's soldier; and that is much. With full consciousness of his own power he remains modest. Like his father, Henry can be politic, but his policy moves upon a higher plane. In his wrath he can be terrible being incens'd, he 's flint,' and sometimes he is carried away by passion into acts of violence or injustice. But, when free from the passing dangers of policy or passion, he is abundant in his humanity :— A largess universal, like the sun His liberal eye doth give to every one. If he does not yield himself to the full joys of friendship or love, he has no unworthy favourites like Richard II, no dishonourable loves like Edward IV. Shakespeare could see beyond and above his Henry, but assuredly he honoured and even loved his patriot king. The group of 'irregular humorists' in Henry V seems poor and shrunken after the corresponding group in Henry IV. Falstaff, as we learn from that admirable humorous and pathetic scene which tells of his death, is gone from among them, and how impoverished they appear! They are, as Hazlitt expressed it, satellites without a sun. Pistol, whose name is mentioned on the title-page of the Quarto, with his theatrical braggardism, entertained Elizabethan audiences; but has not a good deal of the Pistol caricature grown obsolete? The best character of the play, after King Henry himself, is surely the honest Welshman, Fluellen. His native valour is most pleasantly overlaid with what Shakespeare elsewhere styles the bookish theoric', and Macedon is as familiar to him as Monmouth. The Scotsman and the Irish captain seem to be introduced with no such political intention as Simpson imagined, but rather to throw out the figure of Henry's fellow countryman of Wales, for this was a play in which the leek must needs be honoured. The part assigned to women in the play is small; but it is the only one of the historical plays in which we do not hear the outcries and wailings of princesses or queens or noble ladies. Katharine and Queen Isabel have reason to be pleased at the close, for a wedding is in prospect. We cannot flatter ourselves that the hostess was inconsolable while relating with all due particularity the departure of Falstaff. The little actor who played the boy had, for a young performer, a proud part assigned him; he is a parlous knave who sometimes assumes almost the part of a chorus, and has a shrewd insight into the military prowess of the three swashers, Bardolph, Pistol, and Nym. We cannot but fear that he perished when the French at Agincourt killed 'the poys and the luggage'-—which, as Mr. Craig has said in a note of naïve tenderness, 'is a pity.' The stage history of Henry V is not of peculiar interest. Aaron Hill's version of 1723-which introduces a former mistress of the king in male attire, Harriet, niece to Lord Scroop, who discovers her uncle's conspiracy-is deservedly forgotten. Edmund Kean played the part of Henry in 1830, when his powers had failed and his memory was defective. The later revivals of the play have been more remarkable for spectacular display than for the performances of the actors. In truth, for effectiveness in the theatre King Henry V does not take rank among Shakespeare's best pieces. DRAMATIS PERSONAE KING HENRY THE FIFTH. DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, 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. SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, GOWER, FLUELLEN, MACMORRIS, JAMY, Officers in King Henry's Army. BATES, COURT, WILLIAMS, Soldiers in the Same. PISTOL, NYM, BARDOLPH. Boy. A Herald. CHARLES THE SIXTH, King of France. LEWIS, the Dauphin. DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS, and BOURBON. The CONSTABLE OF FRANCE. RAMBURES and GRANDPRÉ, French Lords. MONTJOY, a French Herald. Governor of Harfleur. Ambassadors to the King of England. ISABEL, Queen of France. KATHARINE, Daughter to Charles and Isabel. ALICE, a Lady attending on the Princess Katharine. Hostess of the Boar's Head Tavern, formerly Mistress Quickly, and now married to Pistol. Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and English Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers, and Attendants. Chorus. SCENE.-England; afterwards France. THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE FIFTH Enter Chorus. CHORUS. O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention; A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene. Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, Suppose within the girdle of these walls Think when we talk of horses that you see them 8 12 16 20 24 For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, 28 Admit me Chorus to this history; Who prologue-like your humble patience pray, ACT I. 32 [Exit. SCENE I.-London. An Antechamber in the KING'S Palace. Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY and the BISHOP CANTERBURY. urg'd, OF ELY. My lord, I'll tell you; that self bill is Which in the eleventh year of the last king's reign But that the scambling and unquiet time Did push it out of further question. ELY. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now? CANTERBURY. against us, We lose the better half of our possession; For all the temporal lands which men devout 4 If it pass Would they strip from us; being valued thus: A thousand pounds by the year. Thus runs the bill. ELY. CANTERBURY. ELY. 8 12 16 "Twould drink the cup and all. But what prevention? CANTERBURY. regard. 21 The king is full of grace and fair And a true lover of the holy church. CANTERBURY. ELY. not. The breath no sooner left his father's body 24 |