as mine own, and not as yours.' 'Well, fair son,' said the king, with a great sigh, 'what right I had to it, God knoweth,' 'Well,' said the prince, if you die king, I will have the garland, and trust to keep it with the sword against all mine enemies, as you have done.' Then said the king, I commit all to God, and remember you to do well;' with that he turned himself in his bed, and shortly after departed to God."* Perhaps the answer of the young prince, rendered as a poet might have rendered it, would have been preferable to the studied speech which Shakspeare has put into his mouth; he has, however, retained a part of it in the last reply of the Prince of Wales, and the rest of the scene is full of great beauties, as are also those which follow between Gascoigne and the prince. In the whole, Shakspeare seems to have desired to redeem, by beauties of detail, the necessary coldness of the tragic part; it contains many excellences, and its style is generally more careful and more free from whimsicality than that of most of his other historical dramas.

The comic part, which is very important and very considerable in the second part of "Henry IV.," is not, however, equal in merit to the corresponding portion of the first part of the same play. Falstaff has got on in the interval; he has a pension and a rank; his relations with the prince are less frequent; his wit does not, therefore, so frequently serve to deliver him from those embarrassments which rendered him so comic; and comedy is obliged to descend a stage to represent him in his true nature, under the influence of his real tastes, and in the midst of the rascals with whom he associates or the fools whom he makes his dupes. These pictures are undoubtedly painted with striking truth, and abound in comic * Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. ii., p. 541.

features, but the truth is not always sufficiently removed from disgust for its comicality to find us disposed to enter into all the mirth which it inspires; and the personages upon whom the ridicule falls do not always appear to us to be worth the trouble of laughing at them. The character of Falstaff is, however, perfectly sustained, and will appear in all its completeness when we next meet with it in another play.

The second part of "Henry IV." appeared, it is believed, in 1598.

KING HENRY V.

(1599.)

The

It is erroneously that most critics have regarded "Henry V." as one of the weakest of Shakspeare's works. fifth act, it is true, is empty and cold, and the conversations which compose it possess as little poetic merit as dramatic interest. But the progress of the first four acts is simple, rapid, and animated; the events of the history, plans of government or of conquest, plots, negotiations, and wars, are transformed in them without effort into dramatic scenes full of life and effect. If the characters are not completely developed, they are at least well drawn and well sustained; and the double genius of Shakspeare, as a profound moralist and a brilliant poet, even in the painful and fantastic forms in which he sometimes clothes his thought and imagination, retains, in these four acts, all its abundance and its splendor.

We also meet, in the words of the chorus which fills up the intervals between the acts, with remarkable proofs of Shakspeare's good sense, and of the instinct which led him to feel the inconveniences of his dramatic system. At the very opening of the play, he thus addresses his audience. "Let us," he says,

"On your imaginary forces work;

For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,

Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times;
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass."

And in another place he says,

“Linger your patience on; and well digest

The abuse of distance, while we force a play."

The popular and comic part of the drama, although the originality of Falstaff's wit is absent, contains scenes of perfect natural gayety; and the Welshman Fluellen is a model of that serious, ingenious, inexhaustible, unexpected, and jocose military talkativeness, which excites at once our laughter and our sympathy.

KING HENRY VI.

(1589-1591.)

AMONG the editors and commentators of Shakspeare, the three parts of "Henry VI." have formed a subject of controversy which is not yet decided, nor, perhaps, even exhausted. Several of them have thought that the first of these pieces belonged to him in no respect; others, fewer in number, have also denied him the original invention of the last two parts, which, in their opinion, he had merely retouched, and the primitive conception of which belonged to one or two other authors. Neither of these three pieces was printed during Shakspeare's lifetime; but this proves nothing, for the same may be said of several other works, the authenticity of which is contested by no one, although it certainly leaves every latitude to doubt and discussion.

The general weakness of these three compositions, in which we can find only a small number of scenes which reveal the touch of a master's hand, would nevertheless not be a sufficient reason for ascribing them to another pen than his; for, if they belonged to him, they would be his first works, a circumstance that would sufficiently explain their inferiority, at least so far as regards the conduct of the drama, the connection of the scenes, and the art of sustaining and augmenting the interest progressively, by bringing all the various parts of the composition to one