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KING HENRY IV.

PART I.

16

VOL. IV.

OBSERVATIONS.

THE FIRST PART OF HENRY IV.-The transactions contained in this historical drama are comprised within the period of about ten months; for the action commences with the news brought of Hotspur having defeated the Scots under Archibald earl Douglas at Holmedon, (or Halidown-hill) which battle was fought on Holyrood-day, (the 14th of September) 1402; and it closes with the defeat and death of Hotspur at Shrewsbury; which engagement happened on Saturday the 21st of July (the eve of Saint Mary Magdalen) in the year 1403. THEOBALD.

Shakspeare has apparently designed a regular connection of these dramatic histories from Richard the second to Henry the Fifth. King Henry at the end of Richard the Second, declares his purpose to visit the Holy-land, which he resumes in the first speech of this play. The complaint made by King Henry in the last act of Richard the Second, of the wildness of his son, prepares the reader for the frolics which are here to be recounted, and the characters which are now to be exhibited.

None of Shakspeare's plays are more read than the First and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth. Perhaps no author has ever in two plays afforded so much delight. The great events are interesting, for the fate of kingdoms depends upon them; the slighter occurrences 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 negligence, and whose understanding is dissipated by levity. In his idle hours he is rather loose than wicked; and when the occasion forces out his latent qualities, he is 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 courage.

But Falstaff, unimitated, unimitable Falstaff, how shall I describe thee? Thou compound of sense and vice; of sense which may be admired, but not esteemed, of vice which may be despised, but hardly detested. Falstaff 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 obsequious and malignant, he satirises in their absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the prince only as an agent of vice, but of his 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 consists 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.

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THOMAS PERCY, earl of Worcester.

HENRY PERCY, earl of Northumberland.
HENRY PERCY, surnamed Hotspur, his son.
EDMUND MORTIMER, earl of March.
SCROOP, archbishop of York.

ARCHIBALD, earl of Douglas.

OWEN GLENDOWER.

Sir RICHARD VERNON.

Sir JOHN FALSTAFF:

POINS,

GADSHILL.

PETO.

BARDOLPH.

Lady PERCY, wife to Hotspur, and sister to Mortimer.

Lady MORTIMER, daughter to Glendower, and wife to Mortimer.

Mrs. QUICKLY, hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap.

Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, Two Carriers, Travellers, and Attendants.

SCENE, England.

[1] The persons of the drama were originally collected by Mr. Rowe,who has given the title of Duke of Lancaster to Prince John, a mistake which Shakspeare has no where been guilty of in the first part of this play, though in the second he has fallen into the same error. King Henry IV. was himself the last person that ever bore the title of Duke of Lancaster. But all his sons (till they had peerages, as Clarence, Bedford, Gloucester,) were distinguished by the name of the royal house, as John of Lancaster, Humphrey of Lancaster, &c. and in that proper style the present John (who became afterwards so illustrious by the title of Duke of Bedford,) is always mentioned in the play before us. STEEV.

FIRST PART OF

KING HENRY IV.

ACT I.

SCENE 1-London. A Room in the Palace. Enter King HENRY, WESTMORELAND, Sir WALTER BLUNT, and Others.

King Henry.

So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils*
To be commenc'd in stronds afar remote.

No more the thirsty Erinnys2 of this soil

Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,-
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,

Shall now, in mutual, well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way; and be no more oppos'd
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulcher of Christ, 3

[] That is, let us soften peace, to rest awhile without disturbance, that she may recover breath to propose new wars. JOHNS.

[2] By Erinnys is meant the fury of discord. M. MASON.

[3] The lawfulness and justice of the holy wars have been much disputed; but perhaps there is a principle on which the question may be easily determined. If it be part of the religion of the Mahometans to extirpate by the sword all other religions, it is, by the laws of self-defence, lawful for men of every other religion, and for Christians among others, to make war upon Mahometans, simply as Mahometans, as men obliged by their own principles to make war upon Christians, and only lying in wait till opportunity shall promise them success. JOHNS

Upon this note Mr. Gibbon makes the following observation: "If the reader will turn to the first scene of the First part of king Henry IV. he wäi

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