coming to the upshot, as it is likely to breed some bloody work, he takes care that no harm shall be done he turns it into an occasion for letting the men know whom they had talked so freely with: he has himself invited their freedom of speech, because in his full-souled frankness of nature he really loves to be inward with them, and to taste the honest utterance of their minds: and when, upon that disclosure, Williams still uses his former plainness, he likes him the better for it; and winds up the jest by rewarding his supposed offence with a glove full of crowns; thus ending the whole with a stroke of genuine magnanimity, such as cannot fail to secure the undivided empire of his soldiers' hearts: henceforth they will make nothing of dying for such a noble fellow, whose wish clearly is, not to overawe them by any studied dignity, but to reign within them by his manliness of soul, and by making them feel that he is their best friend.

His Wooing of Catharine.

The same merry, frolicsome humour comes out again in his wooing of the Princess Catharine. It is a real holiday of the spirits with him; his mouth overruns with play; he cracks jokes upon his own person and his speaking of French; and sweetens his way to the lady's heart by genial frankness and simplicity of manner; wherein we relish nothing of the King indeed, but, which is better, much of the man. With the open and true-hearted pleasantry of a child, he laughs through his courtship; yet we feel all the while a deep undercurrent of seriousness beneath his laughter; and there is to our sense no lapse from dignity in his behaviour, because nothing is really so dignified as when a man forgets his dignity in the overflowings of a right-noble and generous

heart. The King loves men who are better than their words; and it is his nature to be better than he speaks: this is the artless disguise of modesty through which true goodness has its most effective disclosure; while, on the other hand, we naturally distrust the beauty that is not something shy of letting its charms be seen. I must add that, bearing in mind the well-known character and history of King Henry the Sixth, we cannot fail to take it as a signal stroke of irony when the hero, in his courtship, speaks to the Princess of their "compounding a boy, half French, half English, that shall go to Constantinople, and take the Turk by the beard.” This is one of those highly artful, yet seemingly-spontaneous sallies with which the Poet delights to play out his deep insight of character, and to surprise or to laugh his readers into a knowledge of themselves. It is also to be noted that, notwithstanding the hero's sportive mood in the wooing, when he comes to deal with the terms of peace, where he thinks the honour of his nation is involved, his mood is very different then he purposely forgot the King in the man; now he resolutely forgets the man in the King; and will not budge a hair from the demands which he holds to be the right of his people. The dignity of his person he freely leaves to take care of itself; the dignity of his State is to him a sacred thing, and he will sooner die than compromise it a jot.

:

His Bearing as a Christian.

In respect of piety, the King exemplifies whatever was best in the teaching and practice of his time. Nor, upon the whole, is it altogether certain that any thing better has arisen since his time. What appears as modesty in his dealings with men here takes the form of humility, deep and

unaffected; he thinks, speaks, and acts in the fear of God: this trait is indeed the central point, the very core of the whole delineation. Shakespeare found the King highly extolled in Holinshed for his piety at home, and throughout his campaigns; he accepted the matter most heartily, but construed it in a truly liberal spirit, and wrought it purposely into the brightest feature of his hero. Thus at the outset the King's demeanour is marked by calm, unobtrusive notes of severe conscientiousness: he is above all anxious that his enterprise have the Divine approval; nor are his scruples on this score any the less genuine, that he does not assume to be himself the sole ultimate judge of right and duty, but refers it to the judgment of those who stand to him as authorized interpreters of the Divine will. Then he takes it as a direct interposal of Providence, and a gracious mark of the Divine favour, that the "dangerous treason, lurking in his way," is brought to light. And all through he takes care to instruct himself and to have his men instructed, that they are to place their sole reliance in God's help, to seek that help by piety and rectitude of life, and not to arrogate to themselves the merit of success, nor get puffed with a conceit of their own sufficiency. On the eve of the battle, he remembers, from his father's own mouth, the wrongs his father did in compassing the crown, and religiously fears lest the sins of the father in this case be visited on the son in this pious and penitential thought he craves to be alone, that "he and his bosom may debate awhile"; and then, after reciting some of the "good and pious works which he has done to atone the fault, he adds, with heartfelt humility, "More will I do; though all that I can do is nothing worth." And, while the French are revelling out the night in vanity and insolence, he has his soldiers put upon

fortifying their courage, and seeking to bring good out of
evil, by solemn acts of repentance and prayer. So again,
after the great victory, which he in his pious solicitude is
slow to credit the report of, his first word is, "Praised be
God, and not our strength, for it!" and later, when the
results of the battle are fully ascertained, "O God, Thy arm
was here, and not to us, but to Thy arm alone ascribe we
all." And his sincerity in all this is approved by the order
he takes that there be no voice of boasting or arrogance on
account of what has been done, and that the Divine gift of
victory be devoutly acknowledged in "all holy rites."
the Poet himself regarded these marks of Christian piety
and humility in his hero, well appears from the account
given of the King's reception at London, in the Chorus to
Act v.:

Whereas his lords desire him to have borne
His bruised helmet and his bended sword
Before him through the city, he forbids it,
Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride;
Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent,

Quite from himself to God.

It is true, some of the King's acts of religion are in a style that is now out of date, and that was mostly out of date in England when the play was written: but this nowise detracts from their genuineness or from his integrity of heart in doing them. In the fifteenth century, piety and chivalry, which latter was then at its height, went hand in hand, forming a combination so foreign to our modes of thought, that we can hardly enter into it at all. That time is now generally, perhaps justly, regarded as an age of popular bigotry and of clerical simony; yet the Poet's hero is clearly no bigot, and is as clearly above the suspicion of unclean hands; and, whatever may be thought of his

religious modes, his Christian spirit is as lofty and pure as any age has witnessed in men of his place.

His Civil Administration.

Much the same is to be said touching the civil administration of this King. It is easy for us to observe that, instead of making useless conquests in France, he had better stayed at home, and spent his care in furthering the arts of peace, and been content with giving his people the benefit of a just and unambitious government. But what we call a liberal, humane, and judicious policy of State was in no sort the thing for that time. All men's ideas of greatness and heroism ran in the channels of war and conquest: to make the people thrifty and happy by wise laws, was nowhere a mark of public honour and applause; and no nation was then held to have any rights that other nations were bound to respect. Nor, after all our fine words and high pretensions, are the nations of our time so clear in this regard, but that those older nations may still put in some claims to respect, and may even hold up their heads in our presence. It is enough that on all these points King Henry the Fifth, as Shakespeare draws him, embodies whatever was noblest in the mind and heart of his time; though it seems hardly worth the while, even if it be true, to repeat the rather threadbare saying, that his faults were those of the age, while his virtues were those of the man. At all events, to insist, as some have done, on judging him by our standard of policy and wisdom, is too absurd or too wrong-headed to deserve any laboured exposure.