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." How 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 Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride; 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. General Reflections. In respect of proper dramatic interest and effect, this play is far inferior to King Henry the Fourth; nor does it rank very high in the list of Shakespeare's achievements : but in respect of wisdom and poetry and eloquence it is among his very best. The Choruses are replete with the finest lyrical inspiration; and I know of nothing that surpasses them in vividness of imagery, or in potency to kindle and electrify the reader's imaginative forces. The King's speeches to his soldiers at Harfleur and to the Governor and citizens of that town, in Act iii. ; his reflections on ceremony, and his speech to Westmoreland just before the battle of Agincourt, and Exeter's account of the deaths of York and Suffolk, all in Act iv.; and Burgundy's speech in favour of peace, in Act v.; all these may be cited as perfect models in their kind, at once eloquent and poetical in the highest degree. Campbell the poet aptly remarks of them, “It was said of Eschylus, that he composed his Seven Chiefs against Thebes under the inspiration of Mars himself. If Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth had been written for the Greeks, they would have paid him the same compliment." Nor must I omit to mention the Archbishop's illustration from the commonwealth of bees in Act i.; which has been justly noted as "full of the most exquisite imagery and music. The art employed in transforming the whole scene of the hive into a resemblance of humanity is a perfect study; every successive object, as it is brought forward, being invested with its characteristic attributes." I have to confess that in one material respect, at least, this play is not altogether such as I could wish. The French are palpably caricatured, and the caricature is not in a spirit of perfect fairness and candour: it savours too much of running an enemy down. The Poet's English prejudices, honest as they were, are something too strongly pronounced. Frederick Schlegel well observes that "the feeling by which Shakespeare seems to have been most connected with ordinary men is that of nationality"; but in this case his nationality is not so tolerant and generous as his other plays would lead us to expect; which imparts to the workmanship some want of the right artistic calmness and equipoise. It is true that in the hero's time the French people and government were in a most deplorable condition; the King insane, the Dauphin frivolous and vain, the nobility split into reckless and tearing factions, and the whole nation bordering upon a state of anarchy; insomuch that they may have well deserved the rough discipline Henry gave them; and perhaps nothing less would have sufficed to exorcise the evil spirit out of them, and put them in training for better days: but all this does not justify the braggart, mouth-stretching persiflage and insolence which the Poet ascribes to them. It is also true that in these points he renders them very much as he found them described in the Chronicles; but the regards of Art as well as of cool justice should have softened away those satirical, distorting, and vituperative lines of description: Shakespeare ought to have seen the French with his own eyes, and not with those of the old chroniclers. Gervinus suggests that a jealous patriotic feeling may have influenced the Poet in this matter. The great Henry the Fourth, probably the most accomplished statesman and wisest ruler of his time, was then on the throne of France. And the German critic thinks that Shakespeare may have had it in mind to dash the enthusiasm of his French contemporaries about their king, by showing an English Henry who was his equal |