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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,
Assume the port of Mars; and, at his heels,

Leash'd in, like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire,
Crouch for employment. 2 But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirit, that hath dar'd,
On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth
So great an object: Can this cock-pit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O,3 the very casques,*
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon since a crooked figure may
Attest, in little place, a million;

And let us, cyphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work:5

Suppose, within the girdle of these walls
Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,
Whose high-upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous, narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts ;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance :

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i'the receiving earth:

For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times;
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: For the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;

Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

[1] This goes upon the notion of the Peripatetic system, which_imagined several heavens one above another; the last and highest of which was one of fire. WARB.-It alludes likewise to the aspiring nature of fire, which, by its levity, at the separation of the chaos, took the highest seat of all the elements. JOHNS.

[2] This image of the warlike Henry very much resembles Montfaucon's description of the Mars discovered at Bresse, who leads a lion and a lioness in couples, and crouching for employment. TOLLET.

[3] Nothing shows more evidently the power of custom over language, than that the frequent use of calling a circle an O could so much hide the meanness of the metaphor from Shakspeare, that he has used it many times where he makes his most eager attempts at dignity of style. [4] The helmets. JOHNS.

[5] Imaginary for imaginative, your powers of fancy.

JOHNS.

JOHNS.

KING HENRY V.

ACT I.

SCENE I-London. An Ante-chamber in the King's Palace. Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY, and Bishop of ELY.

Canterbury.

My lord, I'll tell you, that self bill is urg'd,

Which, in the eleventh year o' the last king' reign
Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,
But that the scambling and unquiet time

Did push it out of further question.

Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
Cant. It must be thought on. If it pass against us,
We lose the better half of our possession:
For all the temporal lands, which men devout
By testament have given to the church,

Would they strip from us; being valued thus,-
As much as would maintain, to the king's honour,
Full fifteen earls, and fifteen hundred knights;
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires ;
And, to relief of lazars, and weak age,

Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil,

A hundred alms-houses, right well supplied;

And to the coffers of the king beside,

A thousand pounds by the year: Thus runs the bill.
Ely. This would drink deep.

Cant. 'Twould drink the cup and all.

Ely. But what prevention?

Cant. The king is full of grace, and fair regard.

Ely. And a true lover of the holy church.

Cant. The courses of his youth promis'd it not.
The breath no sooner left his father's body,

But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem'd to die too: yea, at that very moment,
Consideration like an angel came,

And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him ;
Leaving his body as a paradise,

To envelop and contain celestial spirits.5
Never was such a sudden scholar made :
Never came reformation in a flood,6

With such a heady current, scouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.

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 :
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say, it hath been all-in-all his study:
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music :
Turn him to any cause of policy,

The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,"
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences;
So that the art and practick part of life,
Must be the mistress of this theorick:8

Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it
Since his addiction was to courses vain :

His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow;
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,

Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.'

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
Under the veil of wildness: which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet cressive in his faculty.2

JOH.

[5] As paradise, when sin and Adam were driveu out by the angel, became the habitation of celestial spirits, so the king's heart, since consideration has driven out his follies, is now the receptacle of wisdom and of virtue. [6] Alluding to the method by which Hercules cleansed the famous stables, when he turned a river through them Hercules is still in our author's head when he mentions the Hydra JOHNS

[7] This line is exquisitely beautiful. JOHNS.
[8] Theorick is what terminates in speculation.
[9] Companies for companions. MALONE.
[That is plebeian intercourse.

STEEV.

STEEV.

Cant. It must be so: for miracles are ceas'd; And therefore we must needs admit the means, How things are perfected.

Ely. But, my good lord,

How now for mitigation of this bill

Urg'd by the commons? Doth his majesty
Incline to it, or no?

Cant. He seems indifferent;

Or, rather, swaying more upon our part,
Than cherishing the exhibiters against us :
For I have made an offer to his majesty,-
Upon our spiritual convocation,

And in regard of causes now in hand,
Which I have open'd to his grace at large,
As touching France,-to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet

Did to his predecessors part withal.

Ely. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?
Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty ;
Save, that there was not time enough to hear
(As, I perceiv'd, his grace would fain have done)
The severals, and unhidden passages, 3

Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms ;
And, generally, to the crown and seat of France,
Deriv❜d from Edward, his great grandfather.

Ely. What was the impediment that broke this off
Cant. The French ambassador, upon that instant,
Cray'd audience: and the hour, I think, is come,
To give him hearing: is it four o'clock?
Ely. It is.

Cant. Then go we in to know his embassy; Which I could, with a ready guess, declare, Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.

Ely. I'll wait upon you; and I long to hear it. [Exe.

SCENE II.

The same. A room of state in the same. Enter King HENRY, GLOSTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and others.

K. Hen. Where is my gracious lord of Canterbury? Exe. Not here in presence.

[2] Increasing in its proper power. JOHNS.

"Crescit occulto velut arbor ævo.

"Fama Marcelli." STEEV.

[3] This line I suspect of corruption, though it may be fairly enough ex. 31*

VOL. IV.

K. Hen. Send for him, good uncle.

West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin ; we would be resolv'd, Before we hear him, of some things of weight, That task our thoughts, concerning us and France. Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY, and Bishop of ELY. Cant. God, and his angels, guard your sacred throne, And make you long become it!

K. Hen. Sure, we thank you.

My learned lord, we pray you to proceed;

And justly and religiously unfold,

Why the law Salique, that they have in France,

Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim.

And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,

That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth;
For God doth know, how many, now in health,
Shall drop their blood in approbation

Of what your reverence shall incite us to :

Therefore take heed how you impawn our person, 5
How you awake the sleeping sword of war;
We charge you in the name of God, take heed:
For never two such kingdoms did contend,
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,

'Gainst him, whose wrongs give edge unto the swords That make such waste in brief mortality.

Under this conjuration, speak, my lord:

And we will hear, note, and believe in heart,

That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd

As pure as sin with baptism.

Can. Then hear me,gracious sovereign, and you peers, That owe your lives, your faith, and services,

To this imperial throne ;-There is no bar

plained the passages of his titles of the lines of succession by which his claims descended Unhidden is open, clear. JOHNS.

[4] Take heed, lest by nice and subtle sophistry you burthen your knowing soul, or knowingly burthen your soul, with the guilt of advancing a false title, or of maintaining, by specious fallacies, a claim which, if shown in its native and true colours, would appear to be false. JOHNS.

[5] The allusion here is to the game of chess, and to the disposition of the pawns with respect to the King, at the commencement of this mimetic HENLEY.

contest.

[5] This whole speech is copied (in a manner verbatim) from Hall's Chron icle, Henry V. year the second, folio iv. xx, xxx, xl. &c. POPE:

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