mode in which the text of the folio was expanded and amended,—and that certainly by the Poet:- Gebon. O diabello! Con. Mort de ma vie! Orl. O what a day is this! Bour. O jour del honte! all is gone; all is lost! Con. We are enow yet living in the field To smother up the English, If any order might be thought upon. Bour. A plague of order; once more to the field, And he that will not follow Bourbon now, Let him go, etc. Con. Disorder, that hath spoil'd us, right us now! Come we in heaps, we'll offer up our lives Unto these English, or else die with fame. Come, come along, Let's die with honour; our shame doth last too long. The commentators have misused this text, without endeavouring by it to illustrate the difficulty in the text of the folio. A word is omitted of some sort:-the quarto gives them the very passage-Let's die with honour. But that they refuse to see; and although the whole scene has been so amplified and improved, they restore a line from the quarto' which is not found in the folio Unto these English, or else die with fame. Shakespeare had previously given the sentiment in 'Let's die in honour;' the word 'honour' being unquestionably omitted in the printing of what he wrote."KNIGHT. "Let us, in heaps, go offer up our lives." The quartos here have another line, worth preserving, though it seems to have been thrown out by the author, in his revision, probably as weakening the previous lines by words not adding to the force: Unto these English, or else die with fame. SCENE VI.' "The pretty and sweet manner of it"-This mixture of tender and almost girlish sentiment with the men and scenes of blood, often strikes a man of peace, in our days, as strangely discordant. It belongs to the spirit of chivalry, and has passed, in some degree, into modern warfare. You will find it in Froissart and his compeers, in Tasso, and the poets of chivalry,-very little of it in Homer and Virgil. The French have reinforc'd their scatter'd men," etc. Capell thought that this line should be spoken by a messenger, in answer to the King's "what new alarum is this same?" The conduct of Henry in giving the fatal order Then every soldier kill his prisoner,— is more natural and justifiable, than if he issued the command upon suspicion only. SCENE VII. "SCENE VII-Here in the folio the third act ends, but (as Pope showed) erroneously, the business part of the preceding scene being continued. It may be even doubted whether a new scene ought to be marked, as the place is not necessarily changed — caused every soldier to cut his prisoner's throat"— The King killed his prisoners (says Johnson) because he expected another battle, and he had not sufficient men to guard one army and fight another. Gower's reason is, as we see, different. Shakespeare followed Hollingshed, who gives both reasons for Henry's conduct, but has chosen to make the King mention one of them and Gower the other. "turned away the fat knight"-"This is the last time that Falstaff can make sport. The Poet was loth to part with him, and has continued his memory as long as he could."-JOHNSON. It is unnecessary to follow the chroniclers, or the more minute contemporary historians, through their details of the fearful carnage and victory of Agincourt. We, however, put the facts shortly before our readers, as they may be collected from Sir H. Nicolas's elaborate and careful history of the battle : "The fighting men of France wore long coats of steel, reaching to their knees, which were very heavy; below these was armour for their legs; and above, white harness, and bacinets, with camails.' They were drawn up between two woods, in a space wholly inadequate for the movements of such an immense body; and the ground was soft from heavy rains. It was with the utmost difficulty they could stand or lift their weapons. The horses at every step sunk into the mud. Henry formed his little band in one line, the archers being posted between the wings, in the form of a wedge, with sharp stakes fixed before them. The King, habited in his cote d'armes, mounted a small gray horse; but he subsequently fought on foot. He addressed his troops with his usual spirit. Each army remained inactive for some hours. A truce was at length proposed by the French. The reply of Henry, before an army ten times as great as his own, differed little from the terms he had offered in his own capital. Towards the middle of the day, the order was given to the English to advance, by Henry crying aloud, Advance banners.' Sir Thomas de Erpyngham, the commander of the archers, threw his truncheon into the air, exclaiming, Now strike!' The English immediately prostrated themselves to the ground, beseeching the protection of Heaven, and proceeded in three lines on the French army. The archers of Henry soon put the French cavalry in disorder; and the whole army rushing on, with the national huzza, the archers threw aside their bows, and slew all before them with their bill-hooks and hatchets. The immense numbers of the French proved their ruin. The battle soon became a slaughter; and the harnessed knights, almost incapable of moving, were hacked to pieces by the English archers, who were habited in jackets, and had their hosen loose, with hatchets or swords hanging from their girdles, whilst many were barefooted and without hats.' The battle lasted about three hours. The English stood on the heaps of corpses, which exceeded a man's height;' the French, indeed, fell almost passive in their lines. Henry, at one period of the battle, issued an order for the slaughter of his prisoners. Even the French writers justify this horrible circumstance as an act of self-preservation. The total loss of the French was about ten thousand slain on the field; that of the English appears to have been about twelve hundred. Most of the dead were afterwards buried in enormous trenches. "The English king conducted himself with his accustomed dignity to his many illustrious prisoners. The victorious army marched to Calais in fine order, and embarked for England, without any attempt to follow up their almost miraculous triumph. Henry reached Calais on the 29th of October, and on the 17th of November landed at Dover. He entered London amidst the most expensive pageantry of the citizens, contrasted with the studied simplicity of his own retinue and demeanour, on Saturday the 24th of November."-KNIGHT. - 99 ACT V.-CHORUS. like a mighty WHIFFLER 'fore the king"-A "whiffler" may be taken generally to mean an officer who leads the way in processions. A whiffler was originally a fifer, or piper, who anciently went first, on occasions of pageant and ceremony. Minshew defines him to be a club or staff bearer. Grose, in his “Provincial Glossary," mentions whifflers as "men who make way for the corporation of Norwich, by flourishing their swords." The sword-flourishers of Norwich are standard-bearers in London, under the same name. "The emperor's coming in behalf of France, To order peace between them; and omit All the occurrences, whatever chanc'd," etc. The construction is not easy, although the meaning is evident:-As yet the lamentations of the French invite or induce the king of England to remain in his own country: omit (understood) the coming of the emperor Sigismond, to procure peace between England and France, and omit besides all the occurrences, etc. It is possible that there may have been some error of the press, and that the author may have written, as Singer proposes The emperor's coming-we omit, Or, as Knight suggests 66 Now in London place him; "Till Harry's back-return again to France," etc. Henry's return to France was marked by many fearful struggles for power, before the treaty of Troyes was concluded, which gave him the hand of Katharine, and made the King of France his vicegerent. Towns had been won; armies had perished. The Dauphin, whom we have seen at Agincourt, was no more; and he was succeeded in his rank by a prince of greater profligacy. Unhappy France was assailed by a resolute enemy, and had nothing to oppose to him but the weakness of factions, more intent upon destroying each other than disposed to unite for a common cause. The Duke of Burgundy, brought in by the Poet as the advocate of peace, was certainly present at the negotiations near Meulan, on the 30th May, 1419, when Henry first saw Katharine, and was struck with her grace and beauty. But this Duke of Burgundy, Jean Sans Peur, was murdered by the Dauphin, on the bridge of Montereau, on the following 10th September. This event led to a close connexion between Henry and the young Duke of Burgundy, who was anxious to revenge the death of his father; and perhaps this circumstance mainly contributed to Henry's success in negotiating the treaty of Troyes. All "The meeting of Henry with the French king, who in his unhappy state of mind was governed and ordered' by his ambitious and crafty queen, is thus described by Hollingshed :— The Duke Burgoigne, accompanied with many noble men, received him two leagues without the town, and conveyed him to his lodging. his army was lodged in small villages thereabout. And after that he had reposed himself a little, he went to visit the French king, the queen, and the Lady Katharine, whom he found in St. Peter's Church, where was a joyous meeting betwixt them. And this was on the xx. day of May, and there the King of England and the Lady Katharine were affianced.'”—KNIGHT. SCENE I. "a squire of low degree"-The title of an old popular romance, called "The Squyre of Lowe Degre." 66 -you have ASTONISHED him"-i. e. Stunned him with the blow, (says Johnson.) Mason explains it confounded him. Johnson was clearly right: "astonished" is still a pugilistic term, in the precise sense in which Gower uses it. "— I have seen you GLEEKING"-To "gleek" is to scoff, gird, or jest. Bottom uses the word, in MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. my DOLL is dead i' the spital"-So all the old copies. Perhaps we should, with most modern editors, substitute Nell for "Doll." We leave it as printed of old, leaving the reader to inquire whether Pistol used "Doll" as a general term of endearment, referring to Nell Quickly, or whether the author confounded the two names, or whether he meant the Doll of Henry IV. "And swear I got them in the Gallia wars. EXIT." "The comic scenes of the history of Henry the Fourth and Fifth are now at an end, and all the comic personages are dismissed. Falstaff and Mrs. Quickly are dead; Nym and Bardolph are hanged; Gadshill was lost im mediately after the robbery: Poins and Peto have vair ished since, one knows not how; and Pistol is now beaten into obscurity. I believe every reader regrets their departure."―JOHNSON. SCENE II. "Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met." "Peace, for which we are here met, be to this meeting. Here, after the chorus, the fifth act seems naturally to begin."-JOHNSON. -fatal balls of murdering BASILISKS"-The "basilisk" was a serpent, which, it was anciently supposed. could destroy the object of his vengeance by merely looking at it. Thus, in the WINTER'S TALE: Make me not sighted like the basilisk. It was also a great gun; and the allusion here is double. "-her hedges even-pleached, Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,” etc. Meaning, that the hedges, formerly" even-pleached," or regularly twisted and interwoven together, (plaited.) were neglected, so that the long branches, instead of being cut and intertwined, shot up irregularly, and looked like the long wildly overgrown hair of prisoners. The Rev. Mr. Barry suggests, that "even-pleached" ought to be never-pleached. DIFFUS'D attire"-Florio, in his Dictionary, explains "diffused" as synonymous with confused, and it seems so used in the MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, act v. scene 4. (See note.) The phrase, then, here means disordered dress. "Pass our ACCEPT, and peremptory ANSWER." This passage has been considered obscure; and some would read "pass or except." The difficulty has arisen from a misconception of the meaning of "accept" and "answer." Our "accept" is our consent to certain of the articles: our "peremptory answer" is our undelaying statement of objections to other articles. In the quarto we have nothing of "accept;" butWe shall return our peremptory answer. "—thou wouldst find me such a plain king”—“ I know not why Shakespeare now gives the King such a character as he made him formerly ridicule in Percy. This military grossness and unskilfulness in all the softer arts does not suit very well with the gayeties of his youth, with the general knowledge ascribed to him at his accession, or with the contemptuous message sent him by the Dauphin, who represents him as fitter for the ballroom than the field, and tells him that he is not to revel into duchies, or win provinces with a nimble galliard. The truth is, that the Poet's matter failed him in the fifth act, and he was glad to fill it up with whatever he could get; and not even Shakespeare can write well without a proper subject. It is a vain endeavour for the most skilful hand to cultivate barrenness, or to paint upon vacuity."-JOHNSON. My first impressions of this scene were like those expressed by Johnson, but after consideration showed that the criticism was unfounded. Here is a marriage of state policy, to be preceded by the brief royal courtship. of a conqueror, "without the hopes, without the fears, of humbler affections. The Poet could not give his hero monarch the passion of Romeo or of Troilus, without something like absurdity; and the doting fondness of Antony was still more out of the question. A scene of declamatory courtship, in the taste of the old classic French stage, was not according to the Poet's taste, nor would it have been as acceptable to the reader as the present one. Henry was to woo like a royal conqueror, and the language of poetic passion, whether forced or common-place, would be equally unappropriate. But the Poet chose that his hero should not treat his bride merely as an appendage to his other conquests, and that he should desire to produce an impression by his personal merits; and this could best be done by presenting himself to her as the soldier, not simply as the sovereign. He speaks to her "plain soldier," and thus gives an effect of sincerity and earnestness, which could not easily be gained, under such circumstances, in any other way. Thus, it seems to me, Shakespeare has well extricated himself and his hero from the inconvenience of one of those scenes of rhetorical courtship, such as neither Corneille's declamatory splendour, nor Racine's graceful elegance, have been able to preserve from tedium, or from ridicule, in the classic drama. "a boy, half French, half English, that shall go to Constantinople, and take the Turk by the beard"-As the Turk did not gain possession of Constantinople until 1453, thirty-one years after Henry V.'s death, this is branded, by divers critics, as "one of the Poet's anachronisms." With his familiarity with the old chroniclers, Shakespeare could not but have read the true date of the downfall of the Greek empire; and if he here meant that the Grand Turk was at Constantinople, as its sovereign, in Henry V.'s day, (as possibly he did,) it was rather from oversight, or forgetfulness, than sheer ignorance. But the writers, who undertake to correct such errors, should be careful of precise accuracy themselves. This is not necessarily an anachronism, and these words might have been used by Shakespeare with a knowledge of the chronology and history of the Lower Empire, as minute as Gibbon's. The later crusades were directed to Constantinople before its fall, not to eject the Grand Turk, but to take him by the beard" before its walls, and in its defence. Thus Bajazet threatened the city in the days of Henry IV.; and the Greek emperor invited all Christendom to aid him, and came himself to England and France to beg assistance. Notre TRÈS CHER filz Henry roy d'Angleterre, keretier de France; and thus in Latin,-PRÆCLARISSIMUS filius"-It appears here as if Shakespeare intended to translate "très cher" by the Latin word "præclarissimus;" but the fact is, he only followed Hollingshed. Malone adds, In all the old historians that I have seen, as well as in Hollingshed, I find this mistake; but in the preamble of the original treaty of Troyes, Henry is styled præcarissimus; and in the twenty-second article the stipulation is, that he shall always be called, 'in lingua Gallicana notre tres cher fils,' etc.; in lingua vero Latina hoc modo, noster præcarissimus filius Henricus,' etc. (See Rymer's Fæd., ix. 893.") In Hall's "Chronicle," the epithet is precharissimus. Mr. Knight thus remarks on the error, in reference to its bearing on the disputed question of Shakespeare's scholarship:-" Dr. Farmer, in his essay on the learning of Shakespeare, winds up his many proofs of the ignorance of our Poet, by the following argument, the crown of all:-' But to come to a conclusion, I will give you an irrefragable argument, that Shakespeare did not understand two very common words in the French and Latin languages. According to the articles of agreement between the conqueror, Henry, and the King of France, the latter was to style the former, (in the corrected French of the former editions,) Nostre tres cher filz Henry roy d'Angleterre; and in Latin, Præclarissimus filius, etc. What! (says Dr. Warburton,) is tres cher in French, præclarissimus in Latin! we should read præcarissimus. This appears to be exceedingly true; but how came the blunder? It is a typographical one, in Hollingshed, which Shakespeare copied; but must indisputably have corrected, had he been acquainted with the languages.' Now really this is a very weak argument, upon Farmer's own showing; for Shakespeare, finding the passage in Hollingshed, was bound to copy it, without setting himself up as a verbal critic; nor was it necessary that the Latin words of the treaty should have exactly corresponded to the French. He might have understood the agreement to mean, that the very dear son in the one language, should be the most noble son in the other. But Malone says, that the mistake is in all the old historians, as well as in Hollingshed. He is not quite right in this statement, for the word is precharissimus in Hall. At any rate, the truth could not be ascertained till the publication of such a work as Rymer's' Fœdera,' where, in the treaty of Troyes, the word stands præcarissimus. By a super-refinement of veneration for Shakespeare, as justifiable as Farmer's coarse depreciation of him, the præclarissimus might be taken to prove his learning; for Capell maintains that præcarissimus is no Latin word. We give this note to show what stuff criticism may be made of, when it departs from the safe resting-place of common sense.' "Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me; And may our oaths well kept and prosperous be." Collier adds here the concluding lines (if such they may be called) of the quarto, (1600,) to show in what manner the end of the play was there huddled up. Shakespeare, probably, added, in the manuscript of this part of the play, from which the folio was printed, lines which were not in the drama when it was originally acted; but it is evident that what follows must have been mere fragments, extremely ill-combined by the party who furnished the copy of HENRY V. to the publishers of the quarto, (1600.) The subsequent follows the declaration of the style of Henry: Fran. Nor this have we so nicely stood upon, God. that disposeth all, give you much joy. Our marriage will we present solemnise, Then will I sweare to Kate, and Kate to mee: The whole play is written in this manner, affording evidence, that although Shakespeare rendered his HENRY V. more complete, by large additions at a subsequent date, the quarto copies give but an imperfect notion of the form in which the drama was originally produced. CHORUS "Our BENDING author"-i. e. Unequal to the weight of his subject, and "bending" beneath it. Thus Milton, in his "Apology for Smectymnus," speaking of Bishop Hall:-"In a strain as pitiful-manifested a presumptuous undertaking with weak and unexamined shoul ders." "This play has many scenes of high dignity, and many of easy merriment. The character of the King is well supported, except in his courtship, where he has neither the vivacity of Hal, nor the grandeur of Henry. The humour of Pistol is very happily continued: his character has perhaps been the model of all the bullies that have yet appeared on the English stage. "The lines given to the Chorus have many admirers; but the truth is, that in them a little may be praised, and much must be forgiven; nor can it be easily discovered why the intelligence given by the Chorus is more necessary in this play than in many others where it is omitted. The great defect of this play is the emptiness and narrowness of the last act, which a very little diligence might have easily avoided."-JOHNSON. "King Henry the Fifth is visibly the favourite hero of Shakespeare, in English history: he portrays him endowed with every chivalrous and kingly virtue; open, sincere, affable, yet still disposed to innocent raillery, as a sort of reminiscence of his youth, in the intervals between his dangerous and renowned achievements. To bring his life after his ascent to the crown on the stage was, however, attended with great difficulty. The conquests in France were the only distinguished event of his reign; and war is much more an epic than a dramatic object. If we would have dramatic interest, war must only be the means by which something else is accomplished, and not the last aim and substance of the whole." In KING HENRY V. no opportunity was afforded Shakespeare of rendering the issue of the war dramatic; but he has availed himself of other circumstances attending it, with peculiar care. "Before the battle of Agincourt, he paints in the most lively colours the light-minded impatience of the French leaders for the moment of battle, which to them seemed infallibly the moment of victory; on the other hand, he paints the uneasiness of the English king and his army, from their desperate situation, coupled with the firm determination, if they are to fall, at least to fall with honour. He applies this as a general contrast between the French and English national characters-a contrast which betrays a partiality for his own nation, certainly excusable in a poet, especially when he is backed with such a glorious document as that of the memorable battle in question. He has surrounded the general events of the war with a fullness of individual characteristic, and even sometimes comic features. A heavy Scotchman, a hot Irishman, a well-meaning, honourable, pedantic Welshman, all speaking in their peculiar dialects. But all this variety still seemed to the Poet insufficient to animate a play of which the object was a conquest, and nothing but a conquest. He has therefore tacked a prologue (in the technical language of that day a chorus) to the beginning of each act. These prologues, which unite epic pomp and solemnity with lyrical sublimity, and among which the description of the two camps before the battle of Agincourt forms a most admirable nightpiece, are intended to keep the spectators constantly in mind that the peculiar grandeur of the action there described cannot be developed on a narrow stage; and that they must supply the deficiencies of the representation from their own imaginations. As the subject was not properly dramatic, in the form also Shakespeare chose rather to wander beyond the bounds of the spe cies, and to sing, as a poetic herald, what he could not represent to the eye, than to cripple the progress of the action by putting long speeches in the mouths of the persons of the drama."-SCHLEgel. 62 "The play of HENRY V. had a forerunner in an older drama which bore the same title, and contained many of the incidents which Shakespeare has employed. The anonymous dramatist goes back to Henry's juvenile frolics, and after these, and his father's death, transfers him to Harfleur and Agincourt, without noticing his glory in the northern war with Percy. In the outset of the piece we have the inn at Eastcheap; we see the Prince familiar with dissolute company; and we have other circumstances that are similar in both pieces. These, it may be alleged, Shakespeare got from the chroniclers; but it is clear that he had consulted the elder play; for the trick by which he makes Falstaff to give himself the appearance of being wounded, is copied from the old play. But the Prince's companions, in the earlier piece, are vulgar beings, and have no Falstaff among them. "The brave officers of Henry's army are finely contrasted with the scum of England-Nym, Bardolph, and Pistol, formerly servants to Falstaff, and now exposed to the test as soldiers. As to poor Falstaff, the description of his death in the play affects us with emotions that are not profoundly serious; and yet one cannot help saying, as Prince Henry says on the belief of his feigned death, I better could have spared a better man.' The multiplicity of battles in HENRY V. is a drawback on its value as an acting play; for battles are awkward things upon the stage. A handful of combatants disappoints the spectator's imagination; and, on the other hand, the illusion produced by numbers of horse and foot, turns the spectacle into a sort of Astley exhibition. We forget this objection, however, in reading the play. It has noble passages; and, among these, the description of the night before the battle of Agincourt will be repeated by the youth of England when our children's children shall be gray with age. It was said of Eschylus, that he composed his 'Seven Chiefs against Thebes' under the inspiration of Mars himself. If Shakespeare's HENRY V. had been written for the Greeks, they would have paid him the same compliment."-T. CAMPBELL. |