KING HENRY V, Page 263. CHORUS. O for a muse of fire, &c. the "THIS," says Dr. Warburton, "goes upon notion of the Peripatetic system, which imagines several heavens, one above another; the last and highest of which was one of fire." We have here one of the very best specimens of the doctor's flights of fancy. Shakspeare, in all probability, knew nothing of the Peripatetic philosophy; he simply wishes for poetic fire, and a due portion of inventive genius. The other explanation by Dr. Johnson seems likewise too refined. CHORUS. P. 264. Can this cock-pit hold The vasty fields of France? or may we cram That did affright the air at Agincourt? Dr. Johnson has elsewhere remarked that Shak speare was fully sensible of the absurdity of showing battles on the theatre, which, says he, is never done but tragedy becomes a farce. The whole of this chorus receives considerable illustration from a passage in Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of poesie, where, speaking of the inartificial management of time and place in the theatres of his time, he thus proceeds; "where you shall have Asia of the one side and Affricke of the other, and so many other under-kingdoms, that the player when he comes in, must ever begin with telling where hee is, or else the tale will not be conceived. Now shall you have three ladies walke to gather flowers, and then we must beleeve the stage to bee a garden. By and by we heare newes of shipwracke in the same place, then we are too blame if we accept it not for a rocke. Upon the backe of that comes out a hidious monster with fire and smoke, and then the miserable beholders are bound to take it for a cave: while in the meane time two armies flie in, represented with foure swordes and bucklers, and then what hard hart will not receive it for a pitched field? Now of time they are much more liberal. For ordinarie it is that two young princes fall in love, and after many traverses she is got with child, delivered of a faire boy; he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in love, and is ready to get another child; and all this in two houres space: which how absurd it is in sence, even sence may imagine: and art hath taught, and all ancient examples justified, and at this day the ordinary players in Italie will not erre in." These remarks might with great propriety be applied to the play before us, to the Winter's tale, to Pericles, and some others of Shakspeare's dramas. In France, the contemporary playwrights were com monly more observant of the unities, though many charges to the contrary might be brought against them. ACT I. Scene 2. Page 277. K. HEN. Therefore take heed how you impawn our person, How you awake the sleeping sword of war. Dr. Johnson would read your person, and then explain it, "take heed how you pledge your honour &c. in support of bad advice." The archbishop might indeed pledge his opinion in this case; but person must in all events belong to the king. It was he who had the prerogative of making war; and as the impawning of a thing is generally attended with a risque of its future. loss, so the king may here allude to the danger of his own person, which, from the practice at that time of sovereigns to engage in battle, might not be inconsiderable. CANT. Sc. 2. p. 281. Also king Lewis the tenth. Shakspeare having here adopted Holinshed's error in substituting Lewis the Tenth for Lewis the Ninth, Mr. Malone has faithfully discharged his editorial duty in permitting it to remain. It was sufficient to point out the mistake in a note; and therefore Mr. Ritson's genealogy, designed to vindicate the text, but manifestly erroneous, should be omitted. Sc. 2. p. 291. CANT. They have a king, and officers of sorts. Sorts, if the true reading, rather means portions or companies, than of different kinds, according to Mr. Steevens; and such is the sense of the word in Mr. Reed's quotation, "drummes and sortes of musicke," though adduced in support of Mr. Steevens. In that much disputed verse 13 of the 68th psalm, the Greek word cleros, very strangely introduced into the Vulgate translation, is rendered by Wicliffe sortis; and in another old translation, lottes. K. HEN. Sc. 2. p. 295. or else our grave Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth, Not worship'd with a waren epitaph. The question is whether paper, the reading of the quarto, or waxen of the folio, should be adopted. Mr. Malone very jusly remarks that the passage has been misunderstood, and, not finding any construction of waxen that agrees with the sense required, seems disposed to give the preference to paper, of which epithet he has offered a very ingenious explanation. The alteration in the folio was doubtless occasioned by some dissatisfaction with the former word, and made with a view to improvement: but no satisfactory meaning can be gathered from the term quaxen, as connected with the noun war; and the passages adduced by Mr. Steevens afford a sense entirely opposite to what is required. It |