Ib. sc. 4. See here the skill and judgment of our poet in giving reality and individual life, by the introduction of accidents in his historic plays, and thereby making them dramas, and not histories. How beautiful an islet of repose-a melancholy repose, indeed is this scene with the Gardener and his Servant. And how truly affecting and realizing is the incident of the very horse Barbary, in the scene with the Groom in the last act !—

Groom. I was a poor groom of thy stable, King,

When thou wert King; who, travelling towards York,
With much ado, at length have gotten leave
To look upon my sometime master's face.
O, how it yearn'd my heart, when I beheld,
In London streets, that coronation day,
When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary!
That horse, that thou so often hast bestrid;
That horse, that I so carefully have dress'd!

K. Rich. Rode he on Barbary?

Bolingbroke's character, in general, is an instance how Shakspeare makes one play introductory to another; for it is evidently a preparation for Henry IV., as Gloster in the third part of Henry VI. is for Richard III.

I would once more remark upon the exalted idea of the only true loyalty developed in this noble and impressive play. We have neither the rants of Beaumont and Fletcher, nor the sneers of Massinger ;-the vast importance of the personal character of the sovereign is distinctly enounced, whilst, at the same time, the genuine sanctity which surrounds him is attributed to, and grounded on, the position in which he stands as the convergence and exponent of the life and power of the state.

The great end of the body politic appears to be to humanize, and assist in the progressiveness of, the animal man ;—but the problem is so complicated with contingencies as to render it nearly impossible to lay down rules for the formation of a state. And should we be able to form a system of government, which should so balance its different powers as to form a check upon each, and so continually remedy and correct itself, it would, nevertheless, defeat its own aim ;-for man is destined to be guided by higher principles, by universal views, which can never be fulfilled in this state of existence,—by a spirit of progressiveness which can never be accomplished, for then it would cease to be. Plato's Republic

is like Bunyan's Town of Man-Soul,-a description of an individual, all of whose faculties are in their proper subordination and inter-dependence; and this it is assumed may be the prototype of the state as one great individual. But there is this sophism in it, that it is forgotten that the human faculties, indeed, are parts and not separate things; but that you could never get chiefs who were wholly reason, ministers who were wholly understanding, soldiers all wrath, laborers all concupiscence, and so on through the rest. Each of these partakes of, and interferes with, all the others.

HENRY IV. PART I.

Act i. sc. 1 King Henry's speech :

No more the thirsty entrance of this soil

Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood.

A MOST obscure passage: but I think Theobald's interpretation right, namely, that thirsty entrance' means the dry penetrability, or bibulous drought, of the soil. The obscurity of this passage is of the Shaksperian sort.

Ib. sc. 2. In this, the first introduction of Falstaff, observe the consciousness and the intentionality of his wit, so that when it does not flow of its own accord, its absence is felt, and an effort visibly made to recall it. Note also throughout how Falstaff's pride is gratified in the power of influencing a prince of the blood, the heir-apparent, by means of it. Hence his dislike to Prince John of Lancaster, and his mortification when he finds his wit fail on him—

P. John. Fare you well, Falstaff: I, in my condition,

Shall better speak of
you than

you deserve.

Fal. I would you had but the wit; 'twere better than your dukedom.Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me ;—nor a man can not make him laugh.

Act ii. sc. 1. Second Carrier's speech :

breeds fleas like a loach.

Perhaps it is a misprint, or a provincial pronunciation, for leach, that is, blood-suckers. Had it been gnats, instead of

F*

fleas, there might have been some sense, though small probability, in Warburton's suggestion of the Scottishloch.' Possibly loach,' or lutch,' may be some lost word for dovecote, or poultry-lodge, notorious for breeding fleas. In Stevens's or my reading, it should properly be 'loaches,' or 'leeches,' in the plural; except that I think I have heard anglers speak of trouts like a salmon. Act iii. sc. 1.

Glend. Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad.

This nay' so to be dwelt on in speaking, as to be equivalent to a dissyllable-o, is characteristic of the solemn Glendower; but the imperfect line

She bids you

Upon the wanton rushes lay you down, &c..

is one of those fine hair-strokes of exquisite judgment peculiar to Shakspeare-thus detaching the Lady's speech, and giving it the individuality and entireness of a little poem, while he draws attention to it.

HENRY IV. PART II.

Act ii. sc. 2.

P. Hen. Sup any women with him?

Page. None, my lord, but old mistress Quickly, and mistress Doll Tearsheet.

P. Hen. This Doll Tear-sheet should be some road.

I AM sometimes disposed to think that this respectable young lady's name is a very old corruption for Tear-street-street-walker, terere stratam (viam). Does not the Prince's question rather

show this?

This Doll Tear-street should be some road?'

Act iii. sc. 1. King Henry's speech :

Then, happy low, lie down ;

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

I know no argument by which to persuade any one to be of my opinion, or rather of my feeling; but yet I can not help feeling that Happy low-lie-down!' is either a proverbial expression,

or the burthen of some old song, and means, 'Happy the man, who lays himself down on his straw bed or chaff pallet on the ground or floor!'

Rah, tah, tah, would 'a say; bounce, would 'a say, &c.

That Beaumont and Fletcher have more than once been guilty of sneering at their great master, can not, I fear, be denied ; but the passage quoted by Theobald from the Knight of the Burning Pestle is an imitation. If it be chargeable with any fault, it is with plagiarism, not with sarcasm.

Act i. sc. 2.

HENRY V.

Westmoreland's speech :

They know your grace hath cause, and means, and might ;
So hath your highness; never King of England

Had nobles richer, &c.

DOES 'grace' mean the king's own peculiar domains and legal revenue, and highness' his feudal rights in the military service of his nobles?—I have sometimes thought it possible that the words grace' and cause' may have been transposed in the copying or printing;

They know your cause hath grace, &c.

What Theobald meant, I can not guess. To me his pointing makes the passage still more obscure. Perhaps the lines ought to be recited dramatically thus:

They know your Grace hath cause, and means, and might :—

So hath your Highness-never King of England

Had nobles richer, &c.

He breaks off from the grammar and natural order from earnestness, and in order to give the meaning more passionately. Ib. Exeter's speech :

Yet that is but a crush'd necessity.

Perhaps it may be 'crash' for crass' from crassus, clumsy; or it may be curt,' defective, imperfect; any thing would be better

than Warburton's 'scus'd,' which honest Theobald, of course, adopts. By the by, it seems clear to me that this speech of Exeter's properly belongs to Canterbury, and was altered by the actors for convenience.

Act iv. sc. 3. K. Henry's speech :—

We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

Should it not be 'live' in the first line?
Ib. sc. 5.

Const. O diable!

Orl. O seigneur! le jour est perdu, tout est perdu!
Dan. Mort de ma vie ! all is confounded, all !
Reproach and everlasting shame

Sit mocking in our plumes !-O meschante fortune!
Do not run away!

Ludicrous as these introductory scraps of French appear, so instantly followed by good, nervous mother-English, yet they are judicious, and produce the impression which Shakspeare intended,—a sudden feeling struck at once on the ears, as well as the eyes, of the audience, that here come the French, the baffled French braggards!'-And this will appear still more judicious, when we reflect on the scanty apparatus of distinguishing dresses in Shakspeare's tiring-room.

HENRY VI. PART I

Act i. sc. 1. Bedford's speech :

Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night;

Comets, importing change of times and states,

Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky;

And with them scourge the bad revolting stars
That have consented unto Henry's death!
Henry the fifth, too famous to live long!

England ne'er lost a king of so much worth.

READ aloud any two or three passages in blank verse even from Shakspeare's earliest dramas, as Love's Labor's Lost, or Romeo and Juliet; and then read in the same way this speech, with especial attention to the metre; and if you do not feel the