The King, who is always canting about a pious pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but who bargained with Sir Pierce Exton to assassinate King Richard, and then refused to pay him for the deed, receives this glorious news with uncriticising joy, and is ready to start to Jerusalem again. I think the above recapitulation fully justifies the remark which I have previously made, that, while Shakespeare has infinite genius, he seems too often to be devoid of moral principle and conscience. There are but few other lines which demand our attention in this play. The first that fits our theme occurs in the Induction, where Rumour says: "My office is To noise abroad,—that Harry Monmouth fell This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns." In Act II, Scene 4, we have the following fling at a Protestant clergyman, through the mouth of the not very reputable Dame Quickly, hostess of the Boar's Head tavern: HOSTESS. Tilly-fally, Sir John, never tell me; your ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick, the deputy, the other day; and, as he said to me,—it was no longer ago than Wednesday last,“Neighbour Quickly," says he;-Master Dumb, our minister, was by then; "Neighbour Quickly," says he, "receive those that are civil; for,' saith he, “you are in an ill name.” I have but few observations to make upon these earlier illustrations, but I can not resist the remark that the theory of the Baconians, that the Lord Chancellor was ashamed to acknowledge himself as the author of the Shakespeare plays, has a sort of support in the gross immorality and vile language of many portions of the Second Part of" Henry IV." For, surely, any well-bred gentleman might well be ashamed of the rank brothel wit and the revolting fecundity of obscene slang which characterize the earlier scenes of this play, in which Doll Tear-sheet figures with Falstaff and Dame Quickly. Actors delivering such language and figuring through such scenes, may be said to have naturally earned the epithets of "harlotry players" and of "vagabonds." In this connection, I will avail myself of the opportunity, before passing from the Falstaffian plays, of calling a moment's attention to the puzzling character of Nym. No commentator seems to have been able to comprehend this piece of vague caprice, and, for my own part, I am forced to the conclusion that he must have represented the caricature of some well-known person-perhaps an amorous London alderman, who had been caught in some queer scrape, and possibly extricated himself with the exclamation of "That's the humour of it"; the repetition of which special expression would always be good, with a local audience, for a laugh. Without some such surmise as this, Nym must pass with most persons as a puzzle, or, at best, an idiot. I have only to add, in passing from this play, that the legalisms exhibited on Shakespeare's behalf in the course of it by Lord Chief Justice Campbell do not call for any special attention. THE date of the production of this play is fixed at 1599 or 1600. It is the opinion of some that Shakespeare approached the subject of Henry V reluctantly, in consequence of its paucity of domestic incident, and that he finally undertook it only because obliged to keep "the promise made at the close of the Second Part of King Henry IV,' to the effect that he would introduce the wars of King Henry V upon the stage, and make the audience merry with fair Katharine of France." "The date of the authorship of the play is shown decisively," says Hunter, "to have been in 1599, by the poet's allusion, in the Chorus to the fifth act, to the Earl of Essex's campaign in Ireland, and his hoped-for return, which took place in September of that year: As, by a lower but by loving likelihood, How many would the peaceful city quit, To welcome him!" "There can be no doubt," remarks Kenny, "that these lines refer to the expedition of the Earl of Essex to Ireland," adding that it was very likely "Shakespeare was the more disposed to indulge in this kindly allusion from the fact that his own special patron, the Earl of Southampton, served in 1 "Studies and Writings of Shakespeare," by Joseph Hunter, vol. ii, p. 58. London, 1845. the expedition as Master of the Horse." It is worthy of observation here, that Hunter, in his notice of "Henry V," remarks that "the name of Fluellen, given to the Welsh soldier in this play, was probably taken from the name of William Fluellen, who was buried at Stratford, July 9, 1595"; a fact which works to the support of the Stratford authorship of the Shakespearean plays. Schlegel, in speaking of "King Henry V," says it is doubtful if Shakespeare ever would have written the play of "Henry V," "had not the stage previously possessed it in the old play of 'The Famous Victories,' because 'Henry IV' would have been perfect as a dramatic whole, without the addition of Henry V'; but," adds he, "having brought the history of Henry of Monmouth up to the period of his father's death, the demands of an audience which had been accustomed to hail the madcap Prince of Wales as the conqueror of Agincourt compelled him to continue the story." Knight does not think Shakespeare would have chosen the subject of Henry V for a drama, "for," says he, "as skillfully as he has managed it, and magnificent as the whole drama is as a great national song of triumph, there can be no doubt that Shakespeare felt that in this play he was dealing with a theme too narrow for his peculiar powers, the subject being altogether one of lyric grandeur. . . . And yet, how exquisitely has Shakespeare thrown his dramatic power into this undramatic subject! The character of the King is one of the most finished portraits that has proceeded from his master hand. . . . It was for him to embody in the person of Henry V the principle of national heroism; it was for him to call forth the spirit of patriotic reminiscence." Upon this feature of the character of Shakespeare, Gervinus is not so enthusiastic as the English commentator. He thinks Shakespeare would have done better if he had not fallen too easily into the weakness of the age for boasting: "It seems to me," he says, "more than probable that a jealous patriotic feeling actuated our poet in the entire representation of his Prince Henry; the intention, namely, of ex * "Life and Genius of Shakespeare," by Thomas Kenny, p. 241. London, 1864. hibiting by the side of his brilliant contemporary, Henry IV of France, a Henry upon the English throne equal to him in greatness and originality. The greatness of his hero, however, would appear still more estimable if his enemies were depicted as less inestimable. It alone belonged to the ancients to honor even their enemies. Homer exhibits no depreciation of the Trojans, and Eschylus no trace of contempt of the Persians, even when he delineates their impiety and rebukes it. In this there lies a large-hearted equality of estimation, and a nobleness of mind, far surpassing in practical morality many subtile Christian theories of brotherly love. That Shakespeare distorts the French antagonists, and could not even get rid of his Virgil-taught hatred against the Greeks, is one of the few traits which we would rather not see in his works; it is a national narrow-mindedness with which the Briton gained ground over the man. The nations of antiquity, who bore a far stronger stamp of nationality than any modern people, were strangers to this intolerant national pride." Kenny, in treating upon the view which Shakespeare's portrait of Henry V gives us of the poet's own character, says: "We do not know any other work of his in which his national or personal predilections have made themselves so distinctly visible. . . . A large portion of the story has to be told, or merely indicated, by the choruses, in which the poet himself has to appear and to confess the inability of his art to reproduce the march and shock of armies, and, above all, the great scene on the field of Agincourt. "Some of the modern continental critics," continues this shrewd observer, "think they can see that not only was Henry V Shakespeare's favorite hero, but that this is the character, in all the poet's dramas, which he himself most nearly resembled. Many people will, perhaps, hardly be able to refrain from a smile on hearing of this conjecture. We certainly can not see the slightest ground for its adoption. The whole history of Shakespeare's life and the whole cast of Shakespeare's genius are opposed to this extravagant supposition. We have no doubt that the poet readily sympathized with the frank and gallant bearing of the King. But we find |