Go to the Douglas, and deliver him K. Hen. Then this remains,-that we divide our power. You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland, Towards York shall bend you, with your dearest speed, To meet Northumberland, and the prelate To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March. [Exeunt. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV. THIS play occupies a period of about nine years: it commences immediately after the defeat of the rebels at Shrewsbury in 1403, and terminates with the death of Henry IV. and the coronation of Henry V. It takes up the history precisely where the first play left it; and, in the language of Dr. Johnson, the two parts will appear to every reader "to be so connected, that the second is merely a sequel to the first; to be two only because they are too long to be one." The opening of this drama is remarkably fine: the various rumours of the result of the battle at Shrewsbury, which reach the Earl of Northumberland in his "worm-eaten hold of ragged stone," at Warkworth; his parental agony on learning the death of his brave son Hotspur, and the def at of his party, are vigorously and touchingly drawn. Cibber has transferred several passages of this powerful scene to his hash of our poet's tragedy on the life of the third Richard. In Morton's speech, Shakespeare reveals his knowledge of the necessary constituents of a successful revolution: the Archbishop of York having taken up arms, "turns insurrection to religion." Superstition has ever entered largely into the conduct of every successful national change. But notwithstanding this aid, we plainly foresee the defeat of Northumberland's party: the want of capacity and unanimity in its leaders, and the evident hollowness of their professions, prove them much too weak for the great task they have undertaken. The insincerity of their pretensions was too glaring to deceive any except the most ignorant: they had all assisted in the deposition of King Richard, and let his death pass unquestioned; yet they pretended to avenge his fate and to war against his murderer. Northumberland, indeed, had been the chief persecutor of the wretched king; and this pretended compassion for his fate is either rank hypocrisy or self-delusion. Time is the sure avenger of injustice; and the powerful noble who triumphed over the humiliated monarch, is now bowed down to the earth by the man whom he himself had placed in the regal chair. Falstaff continues his vagaries, and is not a whit less amusing in this drama than in the first. His interview with the Lord Chief Justice bubbles over with fun, sparkles with wit, and is unctuous with humour. Nothing can make the knight long serious; life is, with him, one continued jest. His assumed deafness, and his assertion that he is young, are eminently characteristic. "The truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him." Very natural, too, is the description of age by the Justice he sees through Falstaff; has a just estimate of his abandoned character, and yet is softened by the conversational powers of the fat knight. The scene of the arrest of the latter, at the suit of the hostess, for a hundred marks, gives an excellent instance of his persuasiveness; but, like Milton's Belial "All was false and hollow; though his tongue Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason." Falstaff pacifies the enraged Mrs. Quickly, and induces her to pawn her plate and tapestries, to add another loan to what he already owes her. He possesses the chief end of oratory in no mean degree, and never fails in winning the good graces of those whom he desires to please. The speech of the hostess, in which she reminds Sir John of his promise to marry her, when he was sitting in her "Dolphin-chamber, at the round table by the sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun-week," &c., has been often quoted for its humour and natural quaintness of description. The wit of the prince is frequently forced; it consists of rough practical jests: he is altogether deficient of that spontaneous humour which dwells in Falstaff. His wit is chiefly derived from association with the fat knight; when he is with Poins only he is perpetually recurring to his rank, and condescends to jest. "What a disgrace is it in me to remember thy name," he exclaims to his humble companion, who, with the spirit of a parasite, pockets up the affront. For the true display of wit there must be freedom of speech and equality of position; it never flashes in fetters, or steps gracefully on stilts. A king cannot jest with his courtiers, for his tongue is bridled, and his limbs swathed round with the frigid etiquette of royalty; and although Prince Henry strives to divest himself of all the usual conventionalities of his rank, and put on "the cunning of a carper," still a consciousness of his position will peep through the disguise, and the wit frequently disappears in the heirapparent to the throne. He talks at random, and banters drawers, and such poor rogues as have neither wit nor courage to reply. He provokes retorts from Falstaff, and answers them by abuse and threats of personal violence. He would make the knight his humble dependant and jocular parasite; but the facetious old reveller has sufficient address to place his companionship with the prince on terms of equality. As the death of his father approaches, we see him gradually assuming his state; he becomes less familiar with his associates; sometimes he is sarcastic; and then turning moralist, exclaims: "Well thus we play the fools with the time; and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us:"-a reflection which is true enough, but one that does not come gracefully from his lips. His final abrupt dismission of Falstaff with reproach and disgrace, though it was expedient, was the more harsh from the fact that the knight had not made that pecuniary use of him that he might have done. Falstaff seems to have been really attached to his royal and profligate pupil; and depraved as the old rogue was, he still possessed so much of the spirit of a gentleman, as restrained him from making a purse out of the liberality or vanity of the prince. He appears to gain nothing from the latter but the settlement of a few tavern bills-no very imperial recompense, even for a court jester. Although this play is certainly deficient in female interest, still the introduction of Lady Percy, widow of the unfortunate Hotspur, is very touching: her devotion to the memory of her brave husband, places her in an exceedingly interesting and amiable light. The poet was always just to the character of woman, and threw around her a winning charm of tenderness and purity which fascinates and attracts all hearts. The third act introduces the sick and wornout king, with his beautiful apostrophe to sleep: illness and rebellion keep him waking; the "rank diseases" of his kingdom have infected him; and his retrospect of life is sad and solemn. If, he exclaims, we could see into the future"The happiest youth, viewing his progress through, What perils past, what crosses to ensue, Would shut the book, and sit him down and die." The scene where Prince Henry takes away the crown from the pillow of his apparently lifeless father; the anguish of the dying monarch on this discovery of what he deems to be his son's anxiety for his death; and the latter's vindication of his conduct, are in Shakespeare's most powerful style. The sovereign disappears in the father, and we feel an active sympathy for this usually iron and cold-hearted man. We see that his race is run; the flame of life flickers in the socket; the chilled blood flows languidly from the heart: and we are prepared to hear, in the next act, that "he's walked the way of nature." The shameful treachery of Westmoreland and Prince John ought not to pass unnoticed. This act is without parallel, even in those barbarous days when people were accustomed to look with leaden eyes on deeds of violence and blood. Our poet, deviating from his usual mode, utters no condemnation of this atrocious act-a circumstance which has brought upon him the censure of the critics; for the poet should always be the friend of virtue, although he may have to be the historian of villany. Mowbray, Hastings, and the Archbishop, are lured into a trap by Prince John, and then murdered by the axe of the executioner. It is an historical fact, that Scroop was the first prelate of his rank that had been publicly executed in England. Bishops had been imprisoned, and secretly starved or tortured, but had never before suffered death on the scaffold. But Henry was stern and pitiless; rebellion had been the spectre that had ever haunted him, and distilled bitterness into his cup of triumph; and he was resolved to crush it with an iron grasp. Usurpation is a gate through which a swollen flood of evils rush into the state: not only did it plunge England, during Henry's life, into civil war, but, to conciliate the clergy and reconcile them to his usurpation, he passed the horrible statute for the burning of heretics; and in his reign men were first consumed at the stake, in this country, for exercising their own judgment on religious subjects. William Sawtre, who had been rector of Lynn, was condemned for heresy, and the first who perished in the flames at Smithfield. This tragedy took place in March, 1401, and was the beginning of a long series of horrors, the bare contemplation of which creates sensations of terror and disgust. Great variety is made in this play by the introduction of the scenes at Justice Shallow's, in Gloucestershire-the lean bragging septuageand of his doings at Clement's Inn, Turnbull narian, who talks of the wildness of his youth, Street, and Mile-end Green. His reminiscences respecting John Doit of Staffordshire, black George Bare, Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele the Cotswold man, are highly natural and amusing. With what glee does he refer to his fight with one Sampson Stockfish behind Gray's Inn! His confusion of ideas is a satire on the sort of men who too often occupied the seat of justice in our poet's time: with the same breath he laments the death of old Double, the archer, and asks the market price of a score of ewes. And with the forgetfulness and mental wandering of age, he unites a moral reflection on the certainty of death, with the price of “a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford Fair." What a rare group of oddities, too, are thrust upon us in the recruiting scene; ragged abortions of humanity such as Shakespeare had perhaps sometimes seen at a fair or marketday at Stratford-on-Avon. They are not, however, altogether mere caricatures, such as Ben Jonson too often drew; they have a spirit of vitality: we laugh heartily at the poor fellows, but we feel for them nevertheless, and wish them well home again from their encounter with the rebels. They are like some of the sketches of that great genius of the pencil, Hogarth; which, though struck off by a few masterly touches, yet seem to reveal a whole history. King Henry the Fourth. Persons Represented. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. HENRY, Prince of Wales, afterwards\ King Henry V., THOMAS, Duke of Clarence, TRAVERS and MORTON, Domestics of Northumberland. FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and Page. POINS and PETO, attendants on Prince Henry. PRINCE JOHN of Lancaster, afterwards his Sons. SHALLOW and SILENCE, Country Justices. (2 Henry V.) Duke of Bedford, PRINCE HUMPHREY, of Gloster, after wards (2 Henry V.) Duke of Gloster, EARL OF WARWICK, EARL OF WESTMORELAND, GOWER, HARCOURT, DAVY, Servant to Shallow. MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, and BULLCALF, Recruits. FANG and SNARE, Sheriff's Officers. RUMOUR. A Porter. A Dancer, Speaker of the Epilogue. LADY NORTHUMBERLAND. LADY PERCY. Hostess QUICKLY. to the Lords and other Attendants; Officers, Soldiers, SCENE.-England. Induction. Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND'S Castle. Enter RUMOUR, painted full of Tongues. Rum. OPEN your ears; For which of you will stop The vent of hearing, when loud Rumour speaks? Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war, That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, Act First. SCENE I.-The same. The Porter before the Gate; Enter LORD L. Bard. WHо keeps the gate here, ho?- Port. What shall I say you are? Please it your honour, knock but at the gate, Enter NORTHUMBERLAND. L. Bard. The still discordant wavering multitude, They bring smooth comforts false, worse than I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. L. Bard. Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day, * Important or dreadful event. Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury? A gentleman well bred, and of good name, On Tuesday last to listen after news. [way; on the North. Now, Travers, what good tidings come He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him North. Ha!-Again. Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold? L. Bard. My lord, I'll tell you what ;- Your brother, thus; so fought the noble Douglas; Why, he is dead. Morton; Tell thou thy earl, his divination lies; Mor. I am sorry I should force you to be- To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat North. Why should the gentleman that rode From the best temper'd courage in his troops; by Travers, Give, then, such instances of loss? L. Bard. Who, he? Enter MORTON. For from his metal was his party steel'd; North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title- That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim, Foretels the nature of a tragic volume: So looks the strond, whereon the imperious flood North. How doth my son, and brother? Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand. But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue, * Lace tagged. + Hilderling, base, cowardly. Worcester Too soon ta'en prisoner: and that furious Scot, The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword Had three times slain the appearance of the king, Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all mourn. In poison there is physic; and these news, Out of his keeper's arms; even so my limbs, Weaken'd with grief, being now enrag'd with grief, [nice crutch; Are thrice themselves: hence, therefore, thou A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel, Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif;+ Thou art a guard too wanton for the head, To frown upon the enrag'd Northumberland! Tra. This strain'd passion doth you wrong, my lord. L. Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour. Mor. The lives of all your loving complices Let us make head. It was your presurmise, L. Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss, I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,- SCENE II.-London. A Street. Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, with his Page, bearing his Sword and Buckler. Fal. The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. I was never manned with an agate ¶ till now: but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel; the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand, than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say, his face is a face-royal: nature may finish it when she will, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him.-What said Master Dumbleton about the satin for my short cloak and slops? Page. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his bond and yours; he liked not the security. Fal. A rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security! -The smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough ** with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon-security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. I looked he should have sent me two-and-twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security. Well, where's Bardolph ? Page. He's gone into Smithfield, to buy your worship a horse. Fal. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.tt Enter the Lord Chief Justice, and an Attendant. Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about BarFal. Wait close, I will not see him. [dolph. Ch. Just. What's he that goes there? Atten. Falstaff, an 't please your lordship. Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery? Atten. He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is |