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But all this liberality appears to have been forgotten in a moment :—

"Ch. Justice. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet. Take all his company along with him."

Johnson can find no better reason for this harsh measure than the dramatist's desire to get his hero off the stage.* The Doctor's criticism on these two plays of "Henry the Fourth" are, for him, unusually favourable :—

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'Perhaps no author has 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."

I agree with Dr. Johnson in deeming these two of the best of the historical plays; and they are remarkable for nothing more eminently than the diversity of the characters. Of these, some are pure inventions; others are skilfully adopted from the writers of history. Such is the character of Prince Henry, of which the Chronicles, whether true or false, furnish an outline sufficiently definite. To complete the characters of Hotspur and Glen

* Bosw. 239.

dower, the poet necessarily drew more largely on his imagination, but each of the three characters is consistent and natural. So also is that of Northumberland, and, so far as they are developed, Mowbray and the Archbishop. The little that we have of a Prince John, except as a commander, is imaginary. There is no ground for imputing to him more sobriety than is allowed to his brothers. There is nothing very striking in Shakspeare's delineation of Henry the Fourth himself; but nothing, assuredly, to offend nature or violate history.

160

HENRY V.

I Now come to a play illustrative of a period which has recently been the subject of elaborate research. Indeed, not only the play of "Henry the Fifth," but that which precedes it is the object of historical criticisms, rather more particular than those which have been applied to preceding plays, but not one of these goes deeper than the comparatively modern Chronicles to which Shakspeare himself resorted. Even Malone never corrects Hall or Holinshed from more ancient historical records. This remark is in no degree applicable to Mr. Tyler, to whose memoirs of Henry the Fifth, I have already referred, or to Sir Harris Nicolas, whose History of the battle of Agincourt I deem, notwithstanding a few faults which I still find with its conclusions, a pattern for historical pieces.*

* Sir H. Nicolas is not only full and precise in his references, but he gives at length in his appendix the passages upon which he founds his history. I feel myself justified in referring to him, in many cases, instead of naming each separate authority which he quotes. I wish that Mr. Tyler had enabled me to show him equal respect.

The necessity of going farther than the Chronicles, if one would ascertain how far Shakspeare may be received as an historian, appears in the first scene of this play.

The Archbishop of Canterbury* and the Bishop of Elyt are introduced at the court at Kenilworth lamenting that in parliament—

“That self bill is urged,

Which, in the eleventh year of the last king's reign Was like, and had indeed against us passed,

But that the scambling and unquiet time

Did push it out of further question.

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.

And the archbishop then enumerates the earls, knights, and esquires, whom this diverted revenue would "maintain to the king's honour," besides supporting a great many poor people, and yielding to the king a yearly surplus of 1000%. ·

*Henry Chicheley, the founder of All Soul's College. He was born in 1362, succeeded Archbishop Arundel in March, 1414, and died in 1443.

↑ John Fordham appears to have been Bishop of Ely at this time, but I know not why Shakspeare selects him.Godwin, 266.

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Ely. This would drink deep.

Cant. 'Twould drink the cup and all.”

In considering how this fatal blow is to be, the prelates advert to Henry's disposition and altered character, in terms which, for several reasons, I must quote:

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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 promised it not.
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 whipp'd the offending Adam out of him;
Leaving his body as a paradise,

To envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made:

Never came reformation in a flood,

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."

All this is scarcely beyond what I have already cited from the old historians. In what follows, Shakspeare becomes a little more poetical,* in more senses than one:

* Holinshed speaks very favourably of the king, but neither he nor any other writer with whom I am acquainted,

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