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There is a shrewdness in him almost amounting to wisdom, and he has the most dexterous way of getting out of scrapes. Thus, when the Prince, in the disguise of a drawer, overhears him undervaluing him to Doll Tearsheet and, throwing off the disguise, charges him with the treason, Jack has his answer ready: "I dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked might not fall in love with him".

No scene could be funnier than when they agree that Falstaff should personate the King, Hal's father, and give the Prince a lecture on the wildness of his ways. As if he were on the throne, Jack begins: "Stand aside, nobility!" and, when the hostess utters an ejaculation, he says, with kingly pomp, "Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain" and orders her to be led out of the presence. Then, turning to the Prince, he says: "Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also, how thou art accompanied. If thou be son to me, here lies the point-why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher and eat blackberries?—a question not to be asked. the Son of England prove a thief and take purses?— a question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch: this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest: for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee

Shall

in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but in woes also. And yet there is a virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name. A goodly, portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty or, by'r lady, inclining to threescore; and, now I remember me, his name is Falstaff. If that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If, then, the tree may be known by his fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then-peremptorily I speak it-there is virtue in that Falstaff: him keep with, the rest banish.”

Such is the world of low life into which Prince Henry, fleeing from the ceremonies of the court, loves to descend. But Shakspeare's representation is that, though in it, he is in nowise of it. He goes into it merely as a spectator, to gain acquaintance with real life, and is no more corrupted than the sun is by looking on a dunghill. When he was summoned out of it to take part in the civil war, he instantly answered to the summons; and, when he appeared in camp, one who saw him thus described him :

I saw young Harry-with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed-
Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,

And vaulted with such ease into his seat,

As if an angel dropped down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus

And witch the world with noble horsemanship.

He distinguished himself in the war; yet, after it was over, the attractions of low London drew him back again. His evil courses were a grief to his father, who spoke ominously of what might befal the nation under such a king; but other observers were more hopeful :—

You shall find, his vanities forespent

Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly;

As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
That shall first spring and be most delicate.

His father's death is the turning-point of his career. The dying king deals closely with him; and the Prince comes out of the death-chamber an altered man. At the same time the responsibility of kingship, descending on his head, steels his resolution. Falstaff, hearing in the country of the old king's death, hastens to town, thinking that his fortune is now made and squandering places and titles, by anticipation, among his comrades, and he salutes Harry in the old way, as he passes in procession through the street; but Harry cries:

I know thee not, old man, fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!

and forbids him on pain of death to come within ten
miles of his person.
For a moment Falstaff believes
that this is but a jest, and that he will be sent for in
private; but he finds it to be sad earnest. And we
are almost sorry for him, as we see him going away
broken-hearted to his beggars' kingdom, from which
the sun has been removed. He is allowed enough to
live on; but his circle scatters, his companions drifting
asunder to their natural ends in the lazar-house or on
the gallows. His own end soon ensues; and the
description of it, in the mouth of Mrs. Quickly, is a
triumph of Shakspeare's art: "He made a fine end,
and went away, an it had been any Christom child.
After I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with
flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there
was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen;
and a' babbled o' green fields." 1

Harry, being settled on the throne, shoots up as a man of the most varied and perfect genius:—

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,

1 Was Falstaff a coward? Did King Henry treat him fairly? On both questions see BRADLEY, Oxford Lectures on Poetry, pp. 263, 267, 268.

You'd say it hath been all-in-all his study;

List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle rendered you in music;
Turn him to any cause of policy,

The gordian knot of it he will unloose

Familiar as his garter.

The most marked strain of his new character, however, is religion :—

The breath no sooner left his father's body
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seemed to die too; yea, at that very moment,
Consideration, like an angel came,

And whipped the offending Adam out of him.

Henry the Fifth is the most deeply religious character in Shakspeare's works. His religion is not fanatical or obtrusive; but it completely changes the course of his life; and, ever after this date, with all his gay and manly temper there mingles, at every turn, the acknowledgment of God.

The culminating scene of his life is the Battle of Agincourt-one of Shakspeare's most wonderful performances. The English army, decimated with disease and hunger, creeps along the shore to Agincourt, while the French, with health, food and many times their numbers, prepare to sweep them into the sea. It seems a fatal moment; but the King bates not a jot of heart or hope. One of the English leaders having

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