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Eyther our Chronicles shal with full mouth speak

Freely of our acts,

Or else like toonglesse mutes

Not worshipt with a paper epitaph."

Such is the speech as it is abridged and corrupted in the quarto, 1600: the correct text, as contained in the folio of 1623, may be seen on p. 477 of the following play.

It not unfrequently happened that the person who took down the lines as the actors delivered them, for the purpose of publishing the quarto, 1600, misheard what was said, and used wrong words which in sound nearly resembled the right: thus, earlier in the same scene, the Archbishop of Canterbury says, according to the folio, 1623, They of those Marches, gracious sovereign,

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Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

Our inland from the pilfering borderers."

In the quarto, 1600, the materials for which were probably surreptitiously obtained at the theatre, the passage is thus given :

"The Marches, gracious soveraigne, shalbe sufficient

To guard your England from the pilfering borderers."

We might multiply instances of the same kind, but we do not think there can be any reasonable doubt upon the point.

The quartos, as we have stated, contain no hint of the Chorusses, but a passage in that which precedes Act v. certainly relates to the expedition of the Earl of Essex to Ireland, between the 15th April and the 28th Sept. 1599, and must have been written during his absence :

"As, by a lower but loving likelihood,

Were now the general of our gracious empress
(As in good time he may) from Ireland coming,
Bringing rebellion broached on his sword,

How many would the peaceful city quit

To welcome him."

The above lines were, therefore, composed between the 15th April and the 28th Sept. 1599, and most likely the Chorusses formed part of the piece as originally acted, although the short-hand writer did not think it a necessary portion of the performance to be included in the earliest quarto, 1600, which was to be brought out with great speed; and perhaps the length of these and other recitations might somewhat baffle his skill. Upon this supposition, the question when Shakespeare wrote his "Henry V." is brought to a narrow point; and confirmed as it is by the omission of all mention of the play by Meres, in his Palladis Tamia, 1598, we need feel little doubt that his first sketch came from the pen of Shakespeare, for performance at the Globe theatre, early in the summer of 1599. The enlarged drama, as it stands in the folio of 1623, we are disposed to believe was not put into the complete shape in which it has there come down to us, until shortly before the date when it was played at Court.

KING HENRY THE FIFTH.

DUKE OF GLOSTER,

}

Brothers to the King.

DUKE OF BEDFORD,

DUKE OF EXETER, Uncle to the King.

DUKE OF YORK, Cousin to the King.

EARLS OF SALISBURY, WESTMORELAND, and WAR

WICK.

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. BISHOP OF ELY.

EARL OF CAMBRIDGE,

LORD SCROOP,

SIR THOMAS GREY,

}

Conspirators.

SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, GOWER, FLUELLEN, MACMORRIS, JAMY, Officers in King Henry's Army.

BATES, COURT, WILLIAMS, Soldiers.

PISTOL, NYM, BARDOLPH.

BOY, Servant to them. A Herald.

CHORUS.

CHARLES THE SIXTH, King of France.

LEWIS, the Dauphin.

DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS, and BOURBON.

The CONSTABLE of FRANCE.

RAMBURES, and GRANDPRE, French Lords.

MONTJOY, A French Herald.

Governor of Harfleur.

Ambassadors to England.

ISABEL, Queen of France.

KATHARINE, Daughter of Charles and Isabel.

ALICE, a Lady attending on the Princess.

MRS. QUICKLY, a Hostess.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and English Soldiers, Messengers,

and Attendants.

The SCENE in England, and in France.

1 Rowe first gave a list of the characters.

CHORUS.

Enter CHORUS'.

O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention!

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire,
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirit that hath dar'd,

On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O2 the very casques,
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;

And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.

Suppose, within the girdle of these walls

1 Enter Chorus.] The old stage-direction is "Enter Prologue," but it was the same "Chorus" as in a subsequent part of the play: near the end of the address the speaker calls himself "Chorus," and only professes to deliver the lines "Prologue-like," not absolutely as the Prologue.

2 Within this wooden O] The Globe Theatre, on the Bankside, was circular within, and probably this historical drama was first acted there; but the company to which Shakespeare belonged also played in the winter at the Blackfriars Theatre, regarding the shape of which we have no information. See Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poetry and the Stage, vol. iii. p. 296. The Globe differed from the Fortune in Cripplegate, which was a square building. Ibid. vol. iii. p. 302.

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Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous, narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance3:

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,
Turning th' accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me chorus to this history;

Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

3 And make imaginary puissance :] A chorus of a similar kind precedes the anonymous play of "The Famous History of Thomas Stukely," printed in 1605, but acted some years before. The speaker of the chorus there says, in accordance with Shakespeare,

"Your gentle favour we must needs entreat
For rude presenting such a royal fight;
Which more imagination must supply

Than all our utmost strength can reach unto."

KING HENRY V.

ACT I. SCENE I.

London. An Ante-chamber in the King's Palace.

Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY, and Bishop of ELY.

Cant. My lord, I'll tell you, that self bill is urg'd,
Which in th' eleventh year of the last king's reign
Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,

But that the scambling and unquiet time1
Did push it out of farther question.

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Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
Cant. It must be thought on. If it pass against us,

We lose the better half of our possession;

For all the temporal lands, which men devout
By testament have given to the church,
Would they strip from us; being valued thus,-
As much as would maintain, to the king's honour,
Full fifteen earls, and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
And, to relief of lazars, and weak age,
Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil,

A hundred alms-houses, right well supplied;

4 But that the SCAMBLING and unquiet time] "Scambling" is a word which occurs again in this play, and has before been employed in "Much Ado About Nothing," Vol. II. p. 259. It was in frequent use among our old authors, and is what we have changed to scrambling, though they also had it in that form.

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