PARTS I. AND II.

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66

THE first edition of Henry IV., Part I.,' appeared in the time when he gave us his own idea of Henry of 1598. Five other editions were printed before the folio Monmouth,—and when we know that nearly all the of 1623. The first edition of Henry IV., Part II.,' historians up to the time of Shakspere took pretty much appeared in 1600. Another edition was issued the the same view of Henry's character,--we may, perhaps, same year. No subsequent edition appeared till the be astonished to be told that Shakspere's fascinating refolio of 1623. The text of the folio, from which we presentation of Henry of Monmouth, as an historical print, does not materially differ from the original portrait, is not ouly unlike the original, but misleading quartos, in the First Part. In the Second Part there and unjust in essential points of character.”* Shakare large additions, and those some very important pas- spere was, in truth, the only man of his age who rejected sages, in the folio. the imperfect evidence of all the historians as to the character of Henry of Monmouth, and nobly vindicated him even from his own biographers, and, what was of more importance, from the coarser traditions embodied in a popular drama of Shakspere's own day.

6

Shakspere found the stage in possession of a rude drama, The Famous Victories of Henry V.,' upon the foundation of which he constructed not only his two Parts of Henry IV.,' but his 'Henry V.' That old play was acted prior to 1588; Tarleton, a celebrated In the play of The Famous Victories of Henry V.' comic actor, who played the clown in it, having died we have, as already mentioned, the character of "Sir in that year. It is, in many respects, satisfactory that John Oldcastle." This personage, like all the other this very extraordinary performance has been preserved. companions of the prince in that play, is a low, worthNone of the old dramas exhibit in a more striking light less fellow, without a single spark of wit or humour to the marvellous reformation which Shakspere, more than relieve his grovelling profligacy. But he is also a very all his contemporaries, produced in the dramatic amuse- insignificant character, with less stage business than ments of the age of Elizabeth. Of The Famous Vic- even "Ned" and "Tom." Dericke, the clown, is, intories of Henry V.,' the comic parts are low buffoonery, deed, the leading character throughout this play. Alwithout the slightest wit, and the tragic monotonous together, Oldcastle has only thirty lines put in his stupidity, without a particle of poetry. And yet Shak-mouth in the whole piece. We have no allusion to his spere built upon this thing, and for a very satisfactory being fat; we hear nothing of his gluttony. Malone, reason the people were familiar with it.

·

however, calls this Sir Johu Oldcastle "a pampered In 'The Famous Victories' we are introduced. to the glutton." It is a question whether this Oldcastle, or young Prince" in the opening scene. His compa- Jockey, suggested to Shakspere his Falstaff. We cannions are 66 Ned," Tom," and "Sir John Oldcastle," not discover the very slightest similarity; although who bears the familiar name of "Jockey." They have Malone decidedly says, "Shakspere appears evidently been committing a robbery upon the king's receivers; to have caught the idea of the character of Falstaff from and Jockey informs the prince that his (the prince's) a wretched play entitled 'The Famous Victories of man hath robbed a poor carrier. The plunder of the King Henry V." But Malone is arguing for the supreceivers amounts to a thousand pounds; and the prince port of a favourite theory. Rowe has noticed a tradiworthily says, “As I am a true gentleman, I will have tion that Falstaff was written originally under the nane the half of this spent to-night." He shows his gentility of Oldcastle. This opinion would receive some conby calling the receivers villains and rascals. The firmation from the fact that Shakspere has transferred prince is sent to the "counter" by the Lord Mayor. other names from the old play, Ned, Gadshill,-and "Gadshill," the prince's man, who robbed the carrier, why not, then, Oldcastle? The prince in one place is taken before the Lord Chief Justice; and the young calls Falstaff" my old lad of the castle;" but this may prince, who seems to have got out of the counter as sud-be otherwise explained. The Sir John Oldcastle of denly as he got in, rescues the thief. The scene ends with the Chief Justice committing Henry to the Fleet. He is, of course, released. "But whither are ye going now?" quoth Ned. "To the court," answers the true gentleman of a prince, "for I hear say my father lies very sick. The breath shall be no sooner out of his mouth but I will clap the crown on my head." To the court he goes, and there ne bully becomes a hypocrite. The great scene in The Second Part of Henry IV.,'

"I never thought to hear you speak again," is founded, probably, upon a passage in Holinshed; but there is a similar scene in The Famous Victories.' It is, perhaps, the highest attempt in the whole play.

And now that we have seen what the popular notion of the conqueror of Agincourt was at the period when Shakspere began to write, and, perhaps, indeed, up to

history, Lord Cobham, was, as is well known, one of the most strenuous supporters of the Reformation of Wickliffe; and hence it has been argued that the original name of Shakspere's fat knight was offensive to zealous Protestants in the time of Elizabeth, and was accordingly changed to that of Falstaff. Whether or not Shakspere's Falstaff was originally called Oldcastle, he was, after the character was fairly established as Falstaff, anxious to vindicate himself from the charge that he had attempted to represent the Oldcastle of history. In the epilogue to 'The Second Part of Henry IV. we find this passage:-" For anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.'

*Henry of Monmouth,' by J. Endell Tyler, B.D., vol. i. page 356.

KING HENRY IV.-PART I.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

KING HENRY IV. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 2.

sc. 4; sc. 5.

Act V. sc. 1;

HENRY PRINCE OF WALES, son to the King.
Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 2; sc. 4. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3.
Act IV. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 4; sc. 5.

PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, son to the King.
Appears, Act V. sc. 1; sc. 4; sc. 5.

EARL OF WESTMORELAND, friend to the King.
Appears, Act I. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 4; sc. 5
SIR WALTER BLUNT, friend to the King.
Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 3.
Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3.

THOMAS PERCY, Earl of Worcester.
Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 3.
Act V. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 5.

HENRY PERCY, Earl of Northumberland.
Appears, Act I. sc. 3.

HENRY PERCY, Surnamed Hotspur, son to the Earl
of Northumberland.

Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act II. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1. Act IV.
se. 1; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 4.
EDMUND MORTIMER, Earl of March.
Appears, Act III. sc. 1.

SCROOP, Archbishop of York.

Appears, Act IV. sc. 4.

MRS. QUICKLY, hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap.
Appears, Act II. sc. 4. Act III. sc. 3.

Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain,
Drawers, Two Carriers, Travellers, and Attendants

SCENE,-ENGLAND.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-London. A Room in the Palace.
Enter KING HENRY, WESTMORELAND, SIR WALTER
BLUNT, and others.

K. Hen. So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenc'd in stronds a afar remote.
No more the thirsty entrance of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way; and be no more oppos'd
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:

• Strands-strands, shores.

The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ,
(Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross
We are impressed and engag'd to fight,)
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy;
Whose arms were moulded in their mothers' womb
To chase these pagans, in those holy fields,
Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet,
Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nail'd,
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose is a twelvemonth old,
And bootless t is to tell you-we will go;
Therefore we meet not now:-Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree,
In forwarding this dear expedience.

West. My liege, this haste was hot in question,
And many limits of the charge set down
But yesternight: when, all athwart, there came
A post from Wales, loaden with heavy news;

Entrance. In the variorum editions of Shakspere we have Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer,

the following correction of the text:—

No more the thirsty Erinnys of this soil."

The original text is somewhat obscure; but the obscurity is perfectly in the manner of Shakspere, and in great part arises from the boldness of the metaphor. Entrance is put for mouth; and if we were to read, "No more the thirsty mouth of this earth shall daub her lips with the blood of her own children," we should find little difficulty.

Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,

a Therefore we meet not now. We do not meet now on that

And a thousand of his people butchered:
Upon whose dead corpses there was such misuse,
Such beastly, shameless transformation,
By those Welshwomen done, as may not be,
Without much shame, re-told or spoken of.

K. Hen. It seems, then, that the tidings of this broil
Brake off our business for the Holy Land.

P. Hen. Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials

West. This, match'd with other like, my gracious lord. the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself

Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour;
As by discharge of their artillery,

very

heat

And shape of likelihood, the news was told;
For he that brought them, in the
And pride of their contention did take horse,
Uncertain of the issue any way.

K. Hen. Here is a dear and true-industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stain'd with the variation of each soil
Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours;
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news:
The earl of Douglas is discomfited;
Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights,
Balk'd" in their own blood, did sir Walter see
On Holmedon's plains: Of prisoners, Hotspur took
Mordake earl of Fife, and eldest son

To beaten Douglas; and the earl of Athol,

Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith.

And is not this an honourable spoil?

A gallant prize? ha, cousin, is it not?
West. In faith,

It is a conquest for a prince to boast of.

a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffata; I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.

Fal. Indeed, you come near me, now, Hal: for we, that take purses, go by the moon and seven stars; and not by Phoebus,-he, that wandering knight so fair And, I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art king, — as, God save thy grace, (majesty, I should say; for grace thou wilt have none,)

P. Hen. What! none?

Fal. No, by my troth; not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter.

P. Hen. Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly. Fal. Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the day's beauty; let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon: And let men say, we be men of good government; being governed as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.

P. Hen. Thou say'st well; and it holds well too: for the fortune of us, that are the moon's men, doth ebb and flow like the sea; being governed as the sea is, by the moon. As for proof. Now, a purse of gold most resolutely snatched on Monday night, and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing -lay by; and spent with crying-bring in: now, in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder: and, by and by,

K. Hen. Yea, there thou mak'st me sad, and mak'st in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.

me sin

In envy that my lord Northumberland
Should be the father of so bless'd a son:
A son, who is the theme of honour's tongue;
Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant;
Who is sweet Fortune's minion, and her pride:
Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and dishonour stain the brow
Of my young Harry. O, that it could be prov'd,
That some night-tripping fairy had exchang'd
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,
And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet!
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.
But let him from my thoughts:-What think you, coz',
Of this young Percy's pride? the prisoners,
Which he in this adventure hath surpris'd,

To his own use he keeps; and sends me word,
I shall have none but Mordake earl of Fife.
West. This is his uncle's teaching, this is Worcester,
Malevolent to you in all aspects;

Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up
The crest of youth against your dignity.

K. Hen. But I have sent for him to answer this:
And, for this cause, awhile we must neglect
Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.

Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we
Will hold at Windsor; and so inform the lords;
But come yourself with speed to us again;
For more is to be said, and to be done,
Than out of anger can be uttered.
West. I will, my liege.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The same. Another Room in the Palace.

Enter HENRY PRINCE OF WALES, and FALSTAFF.
Fal. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?
Balk'd. To halk is to raise into ridges.

Fal. Thou say'st true, lad. And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?

P. Hen. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle. And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance ?d

Fal. How now, how now, mad wag? what, in thy quips and thy quiddities? what a plague have I to d with a buff jerkin?

P. Hen. Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?

Fal. Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning many a time and oft.

P. Hen. Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part? Fal. No; I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.

P. Hen. Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch; and where it would not I have used my credit. Fal. Yea, and so used it, that were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent,-But, I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? and resolution thus fobbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the law? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.