ACT V.

"SOENE I.-" Busky hill." THE hill which rises over the battle-field near Shrewsbury is called Haughmond hill. Mr. Blakeway says that Shakspere has described the ground as accurately as if he had surveyed it. "It still merits the appellation of a bosky hill."

23 SCENE I.

"As that ungentle gull the cuckoo's bird Useth the sparrow," &c. Shakspere was a naturalist in the very best sense of the word. He watched the great phenomena of nature, the economy of the animal creation, and the peculiarities of inanimate existence, and he set these down with almost undeviating exactness, in the language of the highest poetry. Before White, and Jenner, and Montagu had described the remarkable proceedings of the cuckoo, Shakspere here described them, as we believe, from what he himself saw. But let us analyse this description:

"being fed by us, you used us so As that ungentle gull the cuckoo's bird Useth the sparrow."

Pliny was the only scientific writer upon natural history that was open to Shakspere. We are no believers, as our readers may have collected, in the common opinion of Shakspere's want of learning; and we hold, therefore, that he might have read Pliny in Latin, as we think he read other books. The first English translation of Pliny, that of Philemon Holland, was not published till 1601; this play was printed in 1598. Now, the description of the cuckoo in Pliny is, in many respects, very different from the description before us in Shakspere. "They always," says the Roman naturalist, "lay in other birds' nests, and most of all in the stock dove's." In a subsequent part of the same passage, Pliny mentions the titling's nest, but not a word of the sparrow's. It was reserved for very modern naturalists to find that the hedge-sparrow's nest was a favourite choice of the old cuckoo. Dr. Jenner, in 1787, says, "I examined the nest of a hedge-sparrow, which then contained a cuckoo and three hedge-sparrow's eggs." Colonel Montague also found a cuckoo, "when a few days old, in a hedge-sparrow's nest, in a garden close to a cottage." Had Shakspere not observed for himself, or at any rate, not noted the original observations of others, and had taken his de

HISTORIES.-VOL. I.

scription from Pliny, he would, in all probability have mentioned the stock dove or the titling. In Lear we have the "hedge-sparrow." But let us see further

"did oppress our nest." The word oppress is singularly descriptive of the operations of the "ungentle gull." The great bulk of the cuckoo, in the small nest of the hedge-sparrow, first crushes the proper nestlings; and the instinct of the intruder renders it necessary that they should be got rid of.

The common belief, derived from the extreme voracity of the cuckoo (to which we think Shakspere alludes when he calls it a gull-gulo), has led to an opinion, that it eats the young nestlings. Pliny says, expressly, that it devours them. How remarkable is it, then, that Shakspere does not allude to this belief! He makes Worcester simply accuse Henry, that he "did oppress our nest." Had Shakspere's natural history not been more accurate than the popular belief, he would have made Worcester reproach the king with actually destroying the proper tenants of the nest. The Percies were then ready to accuse him of the murder of Richard. We, of course, do not attempt to assert that Shakspere knew the precise mode in which the cuckoo gets rid of its co-habitants. first made known by Dr. Jenner. But, although Shakspere might not have known this most curious fact, the words, "did oppress our nest," are not inconsistent with the knowledge. The very generality of the words is some proof that he did not receive the vulgar story of the cuckoo eating his fellow-nestlings. The term, "oppress our nest," is also singularly borne out by the observations of modern naturalists; for nests in

This was

which a cuckoo has been hatched have been found so crushed and flattened, that it has been almost impossible to determine the species to which they belonged.

"Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk,

That even our love durst not come near your sight,
For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing,
We were enforc'd, for safety sake, to fly
Out of your sight."

We have here an approach to the inaccuracy of
the old naturalists. Pliny, having made the
cuckoo devour the other nestlings, says, that the
mother at last shares the same fate, for "the
young cuckoo being once fledged and ready to
fly abroad, is so bold as to seize on the old tit-

I

But that its insatiable appetite makes it apparently violent, and, of course, an object of terror to a small bird, we have the evidence of that accurate observer, Mr. White of Selborne. He saw a young cuckoo hatched in the nest of a titlark; it was become vastly too big for its nest, appearing

ling, and to eat her up that hatched her." | feeding on caterpillars and other soft substances. Even Linnæus has the same story. But Shakspere, in so beautifully carrying on the parallel between the cuckoo and the king, does not imply that the grown cuckoo swallowed the sparrow, but that the sparrow, timorous of "so great a bulk," kept aloof from her nest, "durst not come near for fear of swallowing. The extreme avidity of the bird for food is here only indicated: and Shakspere might himself have seen the large fledged "gull" eagerly thrusting forward its open mouth, while the sparrow fluttered about the nest, where even its "love durst not come near." This extraordinary voracity of the young cuckoo has been ascertained beyond a doubt; but that it should be carnivorous is perfectly impossible: for its bill is only adapted for

To have stretched its wings beyond the little nest,' and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger, as I teased it, for many feet from the nest, sparring and buffeting with its wings like a game cock. The dupe of a dam appeared at a distance, hovering about with meat in her mouth, and expressing the greatest solicitude." In the passage before us Shakspere, it appears to us, speaks from his knowledge. But he has

HISTORICAL.

"Now, Esperancé!-Percy!—and set on,”— is found in the Chroniclers :-" The adversaries cried Esperance Percy." The danger of the king, and the circumstance of others being caparisoned like him, are also mentioned by Holinshed.

"King Henry," says Holinshed, "advertised | Shakspere clothes the exhortation with his own of the proceedings of the Percies, forthwith poetical spirit. gathered about him such power as he might make, and passed forward with such speed that he was in sight of his enemies lying in camp near to Shrewsbury before they were in doubt of any such thing." The Percies, according to the Chronicler, sent to the king the celebrated manifesto which is contained in Hardyng's Chronicle. The substance of the charges contained in this manifesto are repeated in Hotspur's speech to Sir Walter Blunt in the fourth Act. The interview of Worcester with the king, and its result, are thus described by Holinshed: "It was reported for a truth that now when the king had condescended unto all that was reasonable at his hands to be required, and seemed to humble himself more than was meet for his estate, the Earl of Worcester, upon his return to his nephew, made relation clean contrary to that the king had said:"

"O, no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard,— The liberal kind offer of the king."

The prowess of Prince Henry in this his first great battle is thus described by Holinshed: "The Prince that day holp his father like a lusty young gentleman, for although he was hurt in the face with an arrow, so that divers noble men that were about him would have conveyed him forth of the field, yet he would in no wise suffer them so to do, lest his departure from his men might haply have stricken some fear into their hearts; and so, without regard of his hurt, he continued with his men, and never ceased, either to fight where the battle was most hottest, or to encourage his men where it seemed most need."

The personal triumph of Henry over Hotspur is a dramatic creation, perfectly warranted by the obscurity in which the Chroniclers leave the

In the Chroniclers, Hotspur exhorts the troops; matter.

COSTUME.

Harry Crown," which was broken up by Henry V., and pawned in pieces, A.D. 1415, to raise monies for the expenses of the French war.

THE fashions of the reign of Richard II. under- | been a faithful representation of the "great went little if any variation during that of Henry IV., as our engravings and descriptions of the monumental effigies and other portraits of the principal historical personages introduced in the two parts of this play will show.

To begin with the king; the effigy of Henry, in Canterbury Cathedral, is one of the most magnificent of the series of royal monuments. The king is represented in his robes of state, consisting of a long tunic, with pocket holes richly embroidered, as are also the borders of the sleeves. Over his shoulders is a cape which descends in front low enough to cover the girdle. The inner tunic has a rolling collar sitting close up into the neck. The mantle, with a broad edging of embroidery, is connected not only by cords and tassels, but by a splendidly-jewelled band, passing over the chest. The face has beard and moustaches, but no hair is visible on the head, it being cropped all round excessively short,-a fashion which commenced towards the close of this reign. The crown is very large and most tastefully ornamented, and may have

Of Henry Prince of Wales, there are two representations. One in a copy of Occleve's Poems in the Royal Collection, Brit. Mus., marked 17 D 6, in which the poet is depicted presenting a copy of his 'Regimine Principis' to the prince, who is dressed in a pink robe, and wears a peculiarly-shaped coronet on his head. The other is a painting by Vertue, copied from some other illuminated MS. of Occleve's Poems, also representing that poet offering a book to the prince. The prince is therein habited in a long blue robe, with the extravagantly long sweeping-sleeves of the period, lined with ermine, and escalloped at the edges. His coronet is without the high pinnacles which distinguish it in the former representation.

The decoration of the collar of SS. first appears during this reign; but of the derivation we have still no precise information. The most

this period. The Earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland have been already presented, in their civil dresses, to our readers with the play of Richard II.; but we give the former, in complete armour, from his effigy in Staindrop Church, Durham, as an illustration of the military costume of this reign. The bascinet is ornamented with a splendid border and fillet of goldsmith's work and jewellery. The jupon, emblazoned with the arms of Neville, confined over the hips by an equally-magnificent military girdle. With the difference of the armorial bearings, such would be the appointments of every knight in the field, from the sovereign downwards, the king's bascinet, or those of the knights armed in imitation of the king, being surrounded by a crown instead of a jewelled band, or fillet.

plausible conjecture is that it was formed of the | of Clarence or Prince Humphrey of Gloster at repetition of the initial letter of Henry IV.'s word or device "Souveraine;" which appears also to have been that of his father, John of Gaunt. A great gold collar, called of Ilkington, is mentioned, in Rymer's 'Foedera,' as having been a personal jewel of Henry V. while Prince of Wales. It was richly adorned with rubies, sapphires, and pearls, and pawned for £500 to the Bishop of Worcester, in 1415. To the prince also belonged a sword, the sheath of which was garnished with ostrich feathers, in goldsmith's work, or embroidery. Such dresses and decorations would, of course, be worn by Prince Henry only on state occasions. In his revels at the Boar's Head, he would wear only the dress of a private gentleman; and for the general dress of the time the best authorities are the illuminations in the MSS. marked Digby, 283, in the Bodleian Lib. Oxford, and No. 2332, in the Harleian Collect. Brit. Mus., which latter is a curious little calendar of the year 1411, every month being headed with the representation of a personage following some occupation or amusement, indicative of its peculiarities, and affording a most authentic specimen of the habit of the period. Of Prince John of Lancaster we know no representation until after he became Duke of Bedford. Nor are we aware of any portrait of Thomas Duke

Sir William Gascoigne, Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, is represented in his judicial costume on his monument in Harwood Church, Yorkshire. For the dress of Falstaff and his companions the MSS. before mentioned must be consulted.

For the proper costume of the Ladies Northumberland, Percy, and Mortimer, we should point to the effigy of the Countess of Westmoreland, in Staindrop Church, Durham.