"Turning your books to GREAVES"-The older editions have to graves," which seems a certain misprint for "greaves;" the armour for the legs so unfitted for an archbishop.

"our most quiet THERE"-So the only old copy; meaning that the Archbishop complains that he and his friends are driven from their chief quiet in the stream of time, by a rough torrent. Warburton altered "there" to sphere, which is the most usual reading.

"My brother general, the commonwealth," etc. Johnson's amendment is plausible-i. e. the reading quarrel for brother," so that the Archbishop says, My general cause of offence is the mismanagement of the state; the household injury to my brother born,' (i. e. to my natural brother,) is my personal offence." Knight prints it thus

My brother, General, the commonwealth ;and explains thus:-"The Archbishop is impatient of Westmoreland's further question, and, addressing him as General, exclaims, 'My brother! the commonwealth! These are sufficient causes for our hostility.' He then adds, I make my quarrel in particular;' and the second line retained from the quarto explains why. In the first part of this play, we are told of

The Archbishop-who bears hard

His brother's death at Bristol, the lord Scroop."

"To brother born an household cruelty,

I make my quarrel in particular." These lines are obscure, and probably they were somehow misprinted. The best explanation given of the words, as they stand, is this:-" My brother-general, who is joined with me here in command, makes the commonwealth his quarrel, (i. e. has taken up arms on account of public grievances;) a particular injury, done to my own brother, is my ground of quarrel.'

"within our AWFUL banks"-i. e. Within limits under awe and reverence to rule; a sense peculiar to Shakespeare. (See Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, act v.)

"Some guard these traitors to the block of death," etc.

"It cannot but raise some indignation, to find this horrid violation of faith passed over thus slightly by the Poet, without any note of censure or detestation.”— JOHNSON.

"Shakespeare here, as in many other places, has followed the historians who related this perfidious act without animadversion. But this is certainly no excuse; for it is the duty of a poet always to take the side of virtue."-MALONE.

In this indignation most commentators have joined. I do not see why. Chief-Justice Marshall is said to have observed to a prolix counsel, who had entered upon a demonstration of some familiar elementary doctrine, that he ought to presume that the court knew something." Shakespeare always presumes his readers to have the first principles of morals and human feelings in their hearts, and does not enter into declamatory demonstration to show the baseness or guilt of the deeds he represents in his scenes. Here he portrays the political craft of Bolingbroke and his cold-blooded son, whom he has though fit, for his dramatic purpose, with little warrant from history, to place in contrast with his nobler brother. He took it for granted that, when Mowbray asks, "Is this proceeding just and honourable?" his audience would find an unhesitating and unanimous negative and indignant reply, in their own kearts, without hearing a sermon upon it from the deceived Archbishop, or a lecture from some bystander.

"A good SHERRIS-SACK hath a two-fold operation in it: it ascends me into the brain," etc.

It is suggested, in the Introductory Remarks, in this edition, to the first part of HENRY IV., that the author must have gathered his peculiarities of Falstaff from observation of many individuals. I cannot but think that here he was indebted to the conversation of his friend Ben Jonson, borrowing this from his talk, without meaning that the resemblance went any further. It seems, from lately discovered manuscripts of old Ben's, that he had precisely this opinion of excellent" sherris," in making the brain "apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes," etc. In an unpublished sort of diary of Ben Jonson's, preserved at Dulwich College, quoted by Hughson, ("History of London,") he says:

"Mem. I laid the plot of my Volpone, and wrote most of it after a present of ten doz. of Palm sack, from my very good lord T-; that play, I am positive, will last to posterity, when I and Envy are friends with applause."

Afterwards he speaks of his "Cataline" in a similar way, but adds that he thinks one of its scenes flat; and thereupon resolves to drink no more water with his wine. The "Alchemist" and "Silent Woman," he describes as the product of much and good wine; but he adds that his comedy, "The Devil is an Ass," "was written when I and my boys drank bad wine."

"makes it APPREHENSIVE, quick, FORGETIVE”— "Apprehensive," in its old sense, meant quick to appre hand or seize a thought: "forgetive," from the verb to forge, or make-inventive, imaginative; as, in old Scotch, a poet, or narrator of fiction, was a maker.

"-learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil”— It was anciently supposed that mines of gold, hidden treasures, etc., were guarded by evil spirits.

- till sack COMMENCES it, and sets it in ACT and USE"-Tyrwhitt suggests that "Shakespeare, in these words, alludes to the Cambridge Commencement, and in what follows to the Oxford Act; for by those different names those two universities have long distinguished the season, at which each of them gives to her respective students a complete authority to use those hoards of learning which have entitled them to their several degrees in arts, law, physic, and divinity." Far-fetched as this comment appears, at first view, the explanation of these two words in the old dictionaries, and their use in old plays, (as Stevens cites them,) gives it proba bility.

being afterwards rarified and let loose by the warmth of the sun, occasion those sudden and impetuous gusts of wind which are called flaws." Edwards, the witty critic on Warburton's comments, is merry on the idea of winds being congealed, and explains the phrase by his own recollection of having heard the word "flaws" used to signify "the small blades of ice which are struck on the edges of water, in winter mornings." Mr. Dyce, a living authority, adds that "he has heard the word used to signify both thin cakes of ice and the bursting of those cakes." Still this is not satisfactory as to the context, and I suspect some misprint in "congealed."

"In the dead carrion"-" As the bee, (says Johnson,) having once placed her comb in a carcase, stays by her honey, so he that has once taken pleasure in bad company, will continue to associate with those that have the art of pleasing him."

"the MURE, that should confine it in"—" Mure," for wall, is another of Shakespeare's Latinisms. It was not in frequent use by his contemporaries. Wrought it thin is made it thin by gradual detriment; "wrought" being the preterite of work. The same thought is in Daniel's "Civil Wars," (1595, book iv.) Daniel is also speaking of the sickness of KING HENRY IV.:Wearing the wall so thin that now the mind Might well look through, and all his frailty find. Shakespeare is here, therefore, the imitator. It is highly probable that he would read Daniel's poem when composing his historical dramas.

"The people FEAR me! for they do observe
Unfather'd heirs," etc.

That is, The people alarm me, or make me fear. By "unfather'd heirs," Johnson understands "animals that had no animal progenitors."

"Unless some DULL and favourable hand,"etc. "Johnson asserts that dull' here signifies 'melancholy, gentle, soothing.' Malone says that it means 'producing dullness or heaviness.' The fact is that dull and slow were synonymous. Dullness, slowness; tarditas, tardiveté. Somewhat dull, or slowe; tardiusculus, tardelet,' (says Baret.) But Shakespeare uses dullness for drowsiness, in the TEMPEST. And Baret has also this sense:- Slow, dull, asleepe, drousie, astonied, heavie; torpidus.' It has always been thought that slow music induces sleep. Ariel enters, playing solemn music, to produce this effect, in the TEMPEST. The notion is not peculiar to our great Poet, as the following exquisite lines, almost worthy of his hand, may witness:

Oh, lull me, lull me, charming air,

My senses rock'd with wonder sweet;
Like snow on wool thy fallings are,
Soft like a spirit are thy feet.

Grief who need fear

That hath an ear?

Down let him lie,

And slumbering die,

And change his soul for harmony.

(Wit Restored, 1658.) They are attributed to Dr. Strode, who died in 1644.”— SINGER.

"whose brow, with homely BIGGIN bound"—A “biggin" was a head-band of coarse cloth; so called because such a forehead-cloth was worn by the Beguines, an order of nuns. Nash, speaking of a miser, in his " Pierce Penniless," says:-"Upon his head he wore a filthy coarse biggin, and next it a garnish of night-caps."

- this golden RIGOL"-" Rigol" (perhaps for ringol, as indeed Nash writes it) means a circle. I know not (observes Stevens) that it is used by any author but Shakespeare, who introduces it likewise in his RAPE OF LUCRECE:

About the mourning and congealed face Of that black blood a watery rigol goes. There, however, it would seem to be the same as the Welsh rhigol-a trench, or furrow. (See Owen's Dictionary.)

England shall double GILD his treble GUILT," etc. Pope and Warburton ejected these lines from their editions, as not Shakespeare's, but "the nonsense of some foolish player." Yet this was just such moralizing as King James, perhaps as Lord Bacon, or Bishop Hall, would have uttered. If a purer and simpler taste has now made puerile such plays upon words, they were not so in Shakespeare's age, nor in that preceding him. "How much this play on words was admired in the age of Shakespeare, appears from the most admired writers of the time. Thus, in Marlowe's Hero and Leander,' (1617:)

- in medicine POTABLE"-The allusion is to aurum potabile, a preparation of gold, to which great virtues were ascribed, as communicating the incorruptibility of the metal to the body impregnated with it. It seems to have been one of those results of ancient empirical science, of which qackery laid hold.

"—for what in me was PURCHAS'D"-Collier, and other English annotators, say that the word "purchase" was used of old for booty obtained by plunder, and that the King here uses the verb in a kindred sense; meaning that he had obtained the crown by robbing the right owner. As "purchase," in the sense here referred to, was a slang, or at least an ironical use, this interpretation is clearly wrong. "Purchase," in its old legal and English sense, meant any mode of acquisition of real estate, except by descent. Thus William the Conqueror purchased the crown of England. As any mode of acquiring the crown, except by hereditary descent, had its share of guilt, in Henry IV.'s days, he contrasts his own dubious title, by purchase, with his son's fairer sort" of acquisition.

"Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels," etc.

44

The Poet has preserved the consistency of Bolingbroke's heartless and dark, but very sagacious policy, to the last. He presents it in its naked truth, just as in a foregoing scene he had done the treacherous breach of faith of his son John, leaving the readers or audience to form their own judgment upon the morality of the

matter.

"How I came by the crown"-" This is a true picture of a mind divided between heaven and earth. He prays for the prosperity of guilt, while he deprecates its punishment."-JOHNSON.

"I should not die but in Jerusalem," etc. The following passage, from Hollingshed, shows the verbal accuracy with which Shakespeare sometimes

followed the old prose writers whom he happened to use, as the chronicles of Hollingshed and Hall in this scene, and North's " Plutarch" in the Roman Histories:"At length he recovered his speech and understanding; and perceiving himselfe in a strange place, which he knew not, he willed to know if the chamber had anie particular name, whereunto answer was made, that it was called Jerusalem. Then said the king; Lauds be given to the Father of heaven, for now I know that I shall die here in this chamber, according to the prophesie of me declared, that I should depart this life in Jerusalem."

ACT V.-SCENE I.

"By cock and pie"-An exclamation of frequent occurrence in the old dramatists. Its origin or etymology has been much discussed, but is purely an antiquarian question, not a Shakespearian one. The mode of using it is more to the purpose, and that seems satisfactorily shown by the following passage:-" Men, because they will not take the name of God to abuse it, sware by small things, as by cock and pie, etc."-(GIFFORD'S Catechisme, 1583.)

"William cook"-It was common to distinguish servants by the departments they filled: hence many

surnames.

"those PRECEPTS cannot be served"-Shallow, as a justice of the peace, would have to issue "precepts," or warrants; and Davy, besides being his master's man of all work, in the house and farm, is his official clerk, and moreover seems to act as constable. The whole dialogue is a pleasant peep at old English rural life, among squires and small gentry, under Elizabeth.

- The knave is mine honest friend, sir"—Whatever may have been Shakespeare's theory of politics, he was certainly a very shrewd observer and indignant rebuker of the practical abuses of power, high and low. Contemporary authorities show that this was no exaggerated picture of the abuses of the local squire-administered justice of the times, while the fall of Lord-Chancellor Bacon proves that corruption found its way to the highest tribunals. Shakespeare's satire is thus confirmed, by the following, among other grave authorities: Sir Nicholas Bacon, in a speech to parliament, (1559,) says:"Is it not a monstrous disguising to have a justice a maintainer, acquitting some for gain, enditing others for malice, bearing with him as his servant, overthrowing the other as his enemy." (D'Ewes, p. 34.) He repeats the same words again, in 1571. (b. 153.) A member of the house of commons, in 1601, says:-" A justice of peace is a living creature, that for half a dozen chickens will dispense with a dozen of penal statutes," etc.

"the wearing-out of six fashions, (which is four terms, or two actions")" In the time of Shakespeare, the law terms regulated what we now denominate the season. The country gentlemen and their families then came up to town to transact their business and to learn the fashions. He comes up every term to learn to take tobacco, and see new notions.'-(BEN JONSON'S Every Man out of his Humour.) Falstaff computes that six fashions would wear out in four terms, or two actions. This particularity may be another proof of Shakespeare's technical knowledge, and fondness for legal allusions."-KNIGHT.

SCENE II.

“— IMPARTIAL conduct"-Thus the quartos, as well as modern editions. The folio reads imperial, which Capell supports, as expressive of the absolute dominion of virtue.

“— RAGGED and FORESTALL'D remission”—Both "ragged" and "forestall'd" are puzzling epithets as applied to "remission." Ragged," however, is, in the Poet's bolder style of diction, beggarly, contemptible, base. "Forestall'd" seems rightly explained by Malone"asked for before it is granted," "a pardon won by

supplication," as opposed to one freely given before it was demanded. Massinger uses the phrase, "a forestalled remission," twice, in passages where the sense is as disputable as here; showing that the words had a sense intelligible enough at the time.

"Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds," etc. "Amurath IV., emperor of the Turks, died in 1596; his second son, Amurath, who succeeded him, had all his brothers strangled at a feast, to which he invited them, while yet ignorant of their father's death. It is probable that Shakespeare alludes to this transaction The play may have been written while the fact was still recent."-MALONE.

But though the Poet uses an allusion familiar to his audience, of course he did not mean to make Henry V. refer to an event of Elizabeth's time, but used Amurath for a general title of a Turkish despot;-one of whom, indeed, bore that name in Henry the Fifth's age.

11

mock your workings in a second body"-i. e. "Treat with contempt your acts executed by a representative."-JOHNSON.

"-speak in your STATE"-i. e. "In your regal character and office; not with the passion of a man interested, but with the impartiality of a legislator."-JOHNSON. "For which, I do commit into your hand

Th' unstained sword that you have used to bear,” etc. The reader must bear in mind, that the present independent tenure of office for life, by the English judges, is but modern; and that, under the Plantagenets and Tudors, a chief-justice might be removed like any other officer of the crown. Henry's voluntary retaining the Chief Justice in his high station is, therefore, a manly acknowledgment of his own error, and a magnanimous tribute to the uprightness of the magistrate. The story of the Prince's insolence, and his commitment to prison, is strictly historical, being related briefly by Hall and Hollingshed, and more minutely by Sir Thomas Elyot, in his book of political ethics, entitled "The Governour." But these are all silent as to Henry V.'s after treatment of the Chief-Justice, or the latter's being continued in office after the accession of Henry V. Several of the Shakespearian historical critics, as Sir John Hawkins, Malone, and Stevens, in the last century, and very lately Tyler and Courtenay, deny the fact itself, and some of them in a tone of rebuke for the "author's deviation from history." I should be sorry to lose a noble example of moderation and magnanimity, in the exercise of political patronage, from history; but if those comments are correct, Shakespeare deserves the higher honour of not having merely adopted and beautifully enforced, but having invented the striking incident, embodying a noble lesson of political ethics, which in our own days even republican rulers may profit by. I incline to the opinion that the English commentators are in error as to the fact, and that the Poet has merely decorated and enforced the truth, which probably came down to him by popular and general tradition, as a plain fact, to which he has given the impressive weight of moral instruction.

Hawkins asserts that the Poet "has deviated from historical truth by bringing the Chief-Justice and Henry IV. together," as it is expressly said by Fuller, in his "Worthies of Yorkshire," that Gascoigne died in the life-time of Henry IV., (viz. 1st Nov., 1412.) Malone also mentions Shakespeare's "anachronism," on the authority of a transcript (in the "Gentleman's Maga zine") of the inscription on the Chief-Justice's tomb, "once legible," which records his death as "17 Decr., Ann. Dom. 1412." Stevens, I know not on what authority, places his death 13th Dec., 1413. Henry IV. died March 20th, 1413. The discrepancy of these dates would throw some doubt on any one of them, or all of them, were there no contradiction as to the year. But they are all overthrown by a recent discovery, by Mr. Tyler, of the record of Sir William Gascoigne's will, bearing date 20th March, 1419, showing that there must

have been some error of the press, or of a copyist, in the dates before mentioned. But Tyler and Courtenay say that Gascoigne was left out of office at Henry V.'s accession, which is still less to the royal honour, and perhaps more to the Poet's. Yet old Stowe, the most accurate of chroniclers, says "William Gascoigne was Chief-Justice of the King's Bench from the sixt of Henry IV. to the third Henry V."

Stowe's authority may be fortified by an American author, who must have little thought, in preparing his curious and interesting volume, of being quoted by a Shakespearian annotator. The "Judicial Chronicle," (Cambridge, Mass., 1834,) by George Gibbs, of New York, is a most exact chronological list of the judges of the higher courts of England and America, from the earliest periods; the lists of the earlier English judges being compiled from Dugdale, Beatson, and Woolrycke. In that list, Gascoigne is recorded to have died or retired in 1414, the second year of Henry V.;" and the same date is given for the appointment of his successor, Hankford. Upon these statements, the more probable conclusion would seem to be that Gascoigne must have been retained in office, during the first two years of Henry V., or, as Stowe says, "to the third year of Henry V. ;" and that his retirement was then voluntary. The reader will judge for himself, on these authorities, whether the merit of this fine lesson of political magnanimity to a personal adversary is due wholly to the Poet, or whether he must share that honour with the King.

"My father is gone WILD into his grave," etc. Meaning, My wild dispositions having ceased on my father's death, and being now as it were buried in his tomb, he and wildness are interred in the same grave. Pope hastily substituted wail'd for "wild," which his adversary, Theobald, refuted, with much ostentatious triumph.

SCENE III.

"—a last year's pippin of my own graffing, with a dish of CARRAWAYS"-The "carraways," as an accompaniment to the "pippin," have been much discussed. Warburton, as usual, poured out his various reading upon it, which Edwards, as usual, ridicules; and then explains it by "the common and excellent regale of children, a roasted apple with carraway-seeds." Jackson asserts that "carraways is the name of an apple, as well known to the inhabitants of Bath as nonpareil is in London, and as generally associated with golden pippins." The controversy is at last settled, by the discovery of the following passages in a dietetic author, contemporary with Shakespeare-Cogan's " Haven of Health," (1599:)" For the same purpose careway seeds are used to be made in comfits, and to be eaten with apples, and surely very good for that purpose, for all such things as breed wind, would be eaten with other things that breake winde." Again:-"Howbeit we are wont to eate carrawaies, or biskets, or some other kind of comfits or seedes, together with apples, thereby to breake winde ingendred by them; and surely this is a verie good way for students." The truth is, that apples and carraways were formerly always eaten together; and it is said that they are still served up, on particular days, at Trinity College, Cambridge.

"-flesh is cheap and females DEAR"-"This very natural characteristic of Justice Silence is not sufficiently observed. He would scarcely speak a word before, and now there is no possibility of stopping his mouth. He has a catch for every occasion—

When flesh is cheap and females dear.

Here the double sense of the word dear must be remembered."-FARMER.

"EVER AMONG so merrily"-"Ever among" is an idiomatic expression, used by Chaucer and many later writers. No originals of this and other musical outbreaks, by Silence, have been discovered.

"Do me right"-To "do a man right," and to "do him reason," were formerly the usual expressions in pledging healths: he who drank a bumper expected a bumper should be drunk to his toast. Wise and witty Bishop Hall, after his usual fashion, moralizes and puns at the same time, upon "men who lose their reason, while they pretend to do reason. Quo Vadis." It was also customary to drink a large draught on their knees, to the health of their mistresses. He who performed this exploit was dubbed a knight for the rest of the evening.

SCENE IV.

- thou thin man in a censer"-Doll compares the beadle's spare figure to the enclosed figures in the middle of the pierced convex lid of a censer, made of thin metal. The sluttery of rush-strewed chambers rendered censers, or fire-pans, in which coarse perfumes were burnt, most necessary utensils. In MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, Borachio says that he had been entertained for a perfumer to smoke a musty room, at Leonato's. The uncleanly habits of the good old times made a frequent change of habitation necessary for the preservation of health.

"you BLUE-BOTTLE rogue"-This refers to the blue livery of the beadle, making him, as a small, thin man, thus altered, look like a blue-bottle fly, or " blue-bottle," as it was more shortly called.

SCENE V.

"Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and the Page."

The comparison of the old stage-direction is curious, as showing the original mode of representation, and perhaps the author's original idea. The old stage-direction in the quarto (1600) is, "Trumpets sound, and the King and his train pass over the stage; after them enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph, and the Boy." The king, etc., return again soon afterwards, introduced by the words, "Enter the King and his train." Thus the king was originally made to walk in procession twice, as if going to and returning from his coronation. The stage-directions in the folio are as in the text.

"Tis SEMPER IDEM, for ABSQUE HOC NIHIL EST. 'Tis all in every part"-I do not find that any of the English critics have explained this sudden burst of learning in Ancient Pistol, though they note that the "all in every part" is an old phrase of metaphysical poetry, and applied to the soul, by Sir John Davies, and Drayton. In the absence of authority, I take them all to be heraldic devices, then familiar, (as the " semper idem" certainly was,) such as Pistol would be likely to have observed, as well as Shakespeare's audiences, in the pageants and processions of the day; and they are jumbled together quite in Pistol's vein, to the great edification of Justice Shallow.

"know, the grave doth gape

For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest :

Presume not that I am the thing I was," etc. "Nature is highly touched in this passage. The King, having shaken off his vanities, schools his old companion for his follies, with great severity: he assumes the air of a preacher, bids him fall to his prayers, seek grace, and leave gormandizing. But that word unluckily presenting him with a pleasant idea, he cannot forbear pursuing it:-'Know, the grave doth gape for thee thrice wider,' etc.;-and is just falling back into Hal, by an humorous allusion to Falstaff's bulk. But he perceives it immediately, and fearing Sir John should take the advantage of it, checks both himself and the knight, with

Reply not to me with a fool-born jest ;

and so resumes the thread of his discourse, and goes moralizing on to the end of the chapter. Thus the Poet copies nature with great skill, and shows us how apt men are to fall back into their old customs, when the change is not made by degrees, and brought into a habit, but determined of at once, on the motives of honour, interest, or reason."-WARBURTON.

"Not to come near our person by ten mile." "Rowe observes, that many readers lament to see Falstaff so hardly used by his old friend. But if it be considered that the fat knight has never uttered one sentiment of generosity, and, with all his power of exciting mirth, has nothing in him that can be esteemed, no great pain will be suffered from the reflection that he is compelled to live honestly, and maintained by the King, with a promise of advancement when he shall deserve it. I think the Poet more blameable for Poins, who is always represented as joining some virtues with his vices, and is therefore treated by the Prince with apparent distinction; yet he does nothing in the time of action; and though, after the bustle is over, he is again a favourite, at last vanishes without notice. Shakespeare certainly lost him by heedlessness, in the multiplicity of his characters, the variety of his action, and his eagerness to end the play."-JOHNSON.

The banishment was originally mentioned by Hall, and is thus recorded by Hollingshed:-" Immediately after that he was invested kyng, and had receyved the crowne, he determined with himselfe to putte upon him the shape of a new man, turning insolence and wildness into gravitie and sobernesse: and whereas he had passed his youth in wanton pastime and riotous misorder, with a sorte of misgoverned mates, and unthriftie playfeers, he now banished them from his presence, (not unrewarded nor yet unpreferred,) inhibiting them upon a great payne, not once to approche, lodge or sojourne within ten miles of his courte or mansion. in their places he elected and chose men of gravitie, witte, and hygh policie, by whose wise counsell he might at all times rule to his honoure;-whereas if he should have reteined the other lustie companions aboute him, he doubted least they might have allured him unto such lewde and lighte partes, as with them before tyme he had youthfully used." Our author might have found the same circumstance in the anonymous play of "King Henry V.:"

And

your former life grieves me,

And makes me to abandon and abolish your company for ever:
And therefore not upon pain of death to approche my presence,
By ten miles' space; then, if I heare well of you,
It may be I will do somewhat for you:
Otherwise looke for no more favour at my hands,
Than at any other man's.

"For competence of life I will allow you,

That lack of means enforce you not to evil,” etc. The dismission of Henry's former associates is retained by several authors. Stowe says, that “King Henry, after his coronation, called unto him all those young lords and gentlemen that were the followers of his young acts; to every one of whom he gave rich gifts: and then commanded that as many as would change their manners, (as he intended to do,) should abide with him in his court; and to all that would persevere in their former like conversation, he gave express commandment, upon pain their heads, never after that day to come in his presence."

"-carry sir John Falstaff to the Fleet"-“I do not see why Falstaff is carried to the Fleet. We have never lost sight of him since his dismission from the King; he has committed no new fault, and therefore in curred no punishment. But the different agitations of fear, anger, and surprise, in him and his company, made a good scene to the eye; and our author, who wanted them no longer on the stage, was glad to find this method of sweeping them away."-JOHNSON

EPILOGUE.

- for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man"-Here again we have a relic of the fact that the original name of Falstaff was Oldcastle.

"—and so kneel down before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen"-It was customary for players, at the conclusion of the performance, to pray for their patrons, or for the head of the state Hence the "Virant Rex et Regina," at the bottom of modern play-bills, in England.

The two parts of HENRY IV. are so interwoven and bound together, by the history and the leading characters, that, though somewhat differing in the freer invention and more splendid poetry of the first part, they have commonly been considered together by the critics, who have found in them, and especially in Falstaff, abundant matter of disquisition. In analyzing the comic scenes and characters, so original and varied in both parts, and predominant in the latter play, we cannot but be struck with the fact that this prolific comic humour, far from impairing, really adds to the historical truth of Shakespeare's histories; for (as Hallam has well expressed it) what he invented is as truly English, as truly historical, in the large sense of moral history, as what he read."

Johnson was the first of the professed critics, who entered with zest into the enjoyment of Falstaff's char acter:-"I fancy every reader, when he ends this play, cries out, with Desdemona, O, most lame and impotent conclusion!' As this play was not, to our knowledge, divided into acts by the author, I could be content to conclude it with the death of Henry the FourthIn that Jerusalem shall Harry die.

These scenes, which now make the fifth act of HENRY IV., might then be the first of HENRY V.; but the truth is, that they do not unite very commodiously to either play. When these plays were represented, I believe they ended as they are now ended in the books; but Shakespeare seems to have designed that the whole series of action, from the beginning of RICHARD II. to the end of HENRY V., should be considered by the reader as one work, upon one plan, only broken into parts by the necessity of exhibition.

"None of Shakespeare's plays are more read than the first and second parts of HENRY IV. Perhaps no author has ever, in two plays, afforded so much delight.