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but we have no reason to suppose that he was wanting in personal courage, where his life or material interests were at stake. "I'll forswear arms," exclaims Poins, in 1 Henry IV. I. ii. 183, 184, "if he fight longer than he sees reason." It may here be in place to point out that the form of military service upon which Falstaff is employed in the present play, after having "distinguished" himself at Shrewsbury, was unimportant and was regarded with little respect in Shakespeare's day. In Poetaster, V. i., Cornelius Gallus refers contemptuously to Tucca, who has just described himself as one of Cæsar's "commanders" and "a man of service and action": "He's one that hath had the mustering, or convoy of a company now and then I never noted him by any other employment."

The passage in the Epilogue in which Shakespeare expressly disclaims the intention of satirising Sir John Oldcastle in the character of Sir John Falstaff does not appear to have given entire satisfaction; it failed to placate some at least of his critics. A play entitled The Life of Sir John Oldcastle appeared in 1600: in the prologue to the First Part, the authors, Munday, Drayton, Wilson and Hathway, contrast their truthful presentment of the character of Oldcastle

A valiant Martyr and a vertuous peere

with the stage [Shakespeare's] perversion of history:

It is no pamperd glutton we present,
Nor aged Councellor to youthfull sinne

Let fair Truth be grac'te,

Since forg'de invention former time defac'te.

Echoes of the controversy raised by the use on the stage, at first of the name of Sir John Oldcastle, and later of that of Sir John Fastolf, reverberate through the literature of the seventeenth century. As addenda to the citations that will be found in the Introduction to 1 Henry IV., reference may here conveniently be made to Dr. Richard James's Legend and Defence of the Noble Knight and Martyr Sir Jhon Oldcastle, Dedication to Sir Henry Bourchier (c. 1625): "that offence beinge worthily taken by Personages descended from his [Sir John Oldcastle's] title, as peradventure by others allso whoe ought to have him in honourable memorie, the poet was putt

to make an ignorant shifte of abusing Sir Jhon Falstophe, a man not inferior of Vertue, though not so famous in pietie as the other," etc. [quoted by Halliwell-Phillipps, Character of Sir John Falstaff, p. 20]; and to George Daniel of Beswick, Poems, where in a poem (quoted by Boswell-Stone), written in 1647, Shakespeare is taxed with a two-fold perversion of history :

The worthy Sr whom Falstaffe's ill-vs'd name
Personates, on the Stage, lest scandall might
Creep backward, & blott Martyr, were a shame,
Though Shakespeare, Story, & Fox, legend write, etc.

(Poems, ed. Grosart, p. 112.)

Of Falstaff's satellities Bardolph and Pistol, the former had already figured in 1 Henry IV.; the latter makes his first appearance in the present play. Bardolph is still his master's trusty and bibulous henchman-still "honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his nose." True, Bardolph's honour has been impugned by commentators; it has been suggested that he dishonestly held back a portion of the sums he received from Bullcalf and Mouldy (Act III. Sc. ii.). Happily, it has been possible to show that the charge is groundless; in this particular Bardolph's honour is unstained (see note to IIL ii. 217). Pistol, a counterfeit captain, of disreputable life and antecedents, drunken, foul-mouthed, is yet an amusing rascal. He is a veritable live-wire, vivacious, voluble, with an apparently inexhaustible command of play-ends and theatrical rant, how acquired one can but speculate. His smattering of Spanish and his familiarity with Spanish military terms and with plays of the type of The Spanish Tragedy, are all perhaps part and parcel of the sham soldier's military pose, intended to suggest long service in the Spanish wars, or they may point to the possibility that Pistol may have had a Spanish prototype. It has, indeed, been suggested that the character was modelled upon Guzman de Alfarache, the hero of Mateo Aleman's picaresque romance Vida y hechos del Picaro Guzman de Alfarache. Pistol has, however, little in common with Guzman, save roguery and a smattering of learning. Aleman's romance was published in Madrid in 1599; an English translation by Don Diego Puede-ser [i.e. James Mabbe] appeared in 1623, with the title The Rogue; or, The Life of Guzman de Alfarache.

Pistol and Doll Tearsheet are representatives of types in

the underworld of the London of Shakespeare's day. Both types were frequently represented on the Elizabethan stage; their admission to the present play is a significant indication of the descent of comedy in the tavern scenes of 2 Henry IV. to the level of contemporary dramatic realism,—a descent which was an inevitable incident in the development of the poet's larger dramatic design.

Of the Prince's associates, Poins and Peto, the former shows to little advantage in 2 Henry IV., and the latter's rôle is confined to a single speech. Both now go out of the story and pass into oblivion. The Prince himself, in the scenes in which he appears in company with Poins, makes upon us the impression of rapidly ripening manhood. He has sown his wild oats and outgrown youthful folly. In his conversations with Poins there is detachment, and an unaccustomed note of gravity that bewilders and disconcerts that volatile and rattlebrained young man. The ties of friendship that bound the Prince to Poins have been loosened, if they have not yet been sundered. The Prince rises to the full height of the nobler self that he had purposed in the scene in which he pleads so wisely with his father in his own defence against the charge of unfilial conduct. That the lines of his defence are politic is no impeachment to the sincerity of a son of Bolingbroke. The dying king is a pathetic figure. He is suffering in body, and his spirit is oppressed by sorrows. He doubts the loyalty of his eldest son, whose good qualities he has yet noted with an observant and loving eye. He is concerned for the welfare of his kingdom, and tortured with apprehension lest his lifework may be undone and its fruits lost by the wastrel who is about to succeed to the throne. Dignified by the sense of approaching death, he reviews with composure and clear selfknowledge, and with a not ignoble humility, the events of his life. He is conscious of the alloy of self-seeking and unscrupulousness in his own past conduct, and is yet upheld by the conviction that he had been an instrument in the hands of a higher power, and that in maintaining his own cause he had maintained the cause of the country, to whose honour and welfare his last thoughts are dedicated. The King's last speech is the true climax of the play of Henry the Fourth; with the Fifth Act the play of Henry V. virtually begins.

PASSAGES FROM THE FAMOUs Victories of Henry the Fifth, HOLINSHED'S CHRONICLES, STOW'S CHRONICLES OF ENGLAND AND ANNALES OF England, UTILIZED BY SHAKESPEARE IN THE SECOND PART OF HENRY THE FOURTH.

FROM THE FAMOUS VICTORIES OF HENRY THE FIFTH. (1) The Recruiting Scene.

Enter a Captaine, IOHN COBLER and his wife.

Cap. Come, come, there's no remedie.

Thou must néeds serue the King.

John. Good maister Captaine let me go,

I am not able to go so farre.

Wife. I pray you good maister Captaine,

Be good to my husband.

Cap. Why I am sure he is not too good to serue ye king?
Iohn. Alasse no: but a great deale too bad,

Therefore I pray you let me go.

Cap. No, no, thou shalt go.

Iohn. Oh sir, I haue a great many shooes at home to
Cobble.

Wife. I pray you let him go home againe.

Cap. Tush, I care not, thou shalt go.

Iohn. Oh wife, and you had been a louing wife to me,
This had not bene, for I haue said many times
That I would go away, and now I must go
Against my will.

(II) The Crown Scene.

Enter the KING with his LORDS.

[He weepeth.

Hen. IV. Come my Lords, I see it bootes me not to take any phisick, for all the Phisitians in the world cannot cure me, no not one. But good my Lords, remember my last wil and Testament concerning my sonne, for truly my Lordes, I doo not thinke but he wil proue as valiant and victorious a King, as euer raigned in England.

Both. Let heauen and earth be witnesse betwéene us, if we accomplish not thy wil to the vttermost.

Hen. IV. I giue you most vnfained thanks, good my

lords,

Draw the Curtaines and depart my chamber a while.

And cause some Musicke to rocke me a sléepe.
[He sleepeth. Exeunt Lords.

Enter the PRINCE.

Hen. V. Ah Harry, thrice vnhappie that hath neglect so long from visiting of thy sicke father, I wil goe, nay but why doo I not go to the Chamber of my sick father, to comfort the melancholy soule of his bodie, his soule said I, here is his bodie indéed, but his soule is, whereas it néeds no bodie. Now thrice accursed Harry, that hath offended thy father so much, and could not I craue pardon for all. Oh my dying father, curst be the day wherin I was borne, and accursed be the houre wherin I was begotten, but what shal I do? if wéeping teares which come too late, may suffice the negligence neglected to some, I wil wéepe day and night vntil the fountaine be drie with weeping.

Enter LORD OF EXETER and OXFORD.

Exe. Come easily my Lord, for waking of the King.
Hen. IV. Now my Lords.

Oxf. How doth your Grace féele your selfe.
Hen. IV. Somewhat better after my sléepe,

But good my Lords take off my Crowne,

Remoue my chaire a litle backe, and set me right.
Ambo. And please your grace, the crown is take away.
Hen. IV. The Crowne taken away,

Good my lord of Oxford, go sée who hath done this
déed :

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[Exit.

No doubt tis some vilde traitor that hath done it,
To depriue my sonne, they that would do it now,
Would séeke to scrape and scrawle for it after my
death.

Enter LORD OF OXFORD with the PRINCE.

Oxf. Here and please your Grace,

Is my Lord the yong Prince with the Crowne.

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