The Dramatic Works of Shakspeare, from the Text of Johnson and Stevens [sic].

Ch. Just. I cannot now speak: I will hear
Take them away.
4you SOOD.
Pist. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me
contenta. [Exeunt FAL, SHALI, PIST.,
BARD., Page, and Officers.
P. John. I like this fair proceeding of the
He hath intent, his wonted followers [king's:
Shall all be very well provided for ;
But all are banish'd, till their conversations
Appear more wise and modest to the world.
Ch. Just. And so they are. [ment, my lord.
P. John. The king hath call'd his parlia
Ch. Just. He hath.
{expire,

P. John. I will lay odds,-that, ere this year
We bear our civil swords, and native fire,
As far as France: I heard a bird so sing,
Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king.
Come, will you hence?
[Exeunt.

EPILOGUE SPOKEN BY A DANCER.

First, my fear; then, my court'sy: last, my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my court'sy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say, is of mine own making; and whut, indeed, I should say, will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture.-Be it known to you, (as it is very well,) I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this: which, if, like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.

If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction; and so will 1. All the gentlewomen here have for given me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentle women, which was never seen before in such an assembly.

One word more, I beseeck you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and made you merry with fair Catharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you';-but, indeed, to pray for the queen*.

Most of the ancient interludes conclude with a prayer for the King or Queen. Hence, perhaps, the Vivant Rex et Regina, at the bottom of our modern play-bills.

I fancy every reader, when he ends this play, cries out with Desdemona, " most lame and impotent conclusion!" As this play was not, to our knowledge, divided into Acts by the author, I could be content to conclude it with the death of Henry the Fourth:

༄ས་།

In that Jerusalem shall Harry die."

These scenes, which now make the fifth Act of Henry the Fourth, might then be the first of Henry the Fifth; but the truth is, that they do not unite very commodiously to either play. When these, plays were represented, I believe they ended as they are now ended in the books; but Shakspeare seems to have designed that the whole series of action, from the beginning of Richard the Second, to the end of Henry the Fifth, should be considered by the reader as one work upon one plan, only broken into parts by the necessity of exhibition.

Mr. Upton thinks these two plays improperly called the First and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth. The first play ends, he says, with the peaceful settlement of Henry in the kingdom by the defeat of the rebels. This is hardly true; for the rebels are not yet finally suppressed. The second, he tells us, shows Henry the Fifth in the various lights of a good-natured rake, till, on his father's death, he assumes a more manly character. This is true; but this representation gives us no idea of a dramatic action. These two plays will appear to every reader, who shall peruse them without ambition of critical discoveries, to be so connected, that the second is merely a sequel to the first; to be two only because they are too long to be Gue.-JOHNSON.

King HENRY the FIFTH.

Duke of GLOSTER,

KING HENRY V.

Persons represented.

Duke of BEDFORD, brothers to the King.
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.

CHARLES the SIXTH, King of France.
LEWIS, the Dauphin."

Dukes of Burgundy, Orleans, and Bourbon.
The Constable of France.

RAMBURES and GRANDPREE, French Lords. Governor of Harfleur. MONTJOY, a French Herald.

Ambassadors to the King of England.

ISABEL, Queen of France.

Earl of CAMBRIDGE, conspirators against KATHARINE, daughter of Charles and Isabel. Lord SCROOP,

the King.

Sir THOMAS GREY,
Sir THOMAS ERPINGHAM, GOWER, FLUEL-
LEN, MACMURRIS, JAMY, officers in King
Henry's army.
BATES, COURT, WILLIAMS, soldiers in the

same.

NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, formerly servants to Falstaff, now soldiers in the

same.

Boy, servant to them. A Herald. Chorus.

ALICE, a lady attending on the Princess Katharine.

QUICKLY, Pistol's wife, an hostess.

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

The Scene, at the beginning of the Play, lies in England; but afterwards, wholly in France.

Enter CHORUS.

Ó, for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdoin for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warhke Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and, at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword,
and fire,
[all,
Crouch for employment. But pardon, genties
The flat unraised spirit, that hath dared,
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 O*, 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,

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

Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and
Bishop of Ely.

Can. My lord, I'll tell you, that self bill is
urged,
[reign
Which, in the eleventh year o' the last king's

On your imaginary forces work::
Suppose, within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined 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 puissance;
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 the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass. For the which supply
Admit me chorus to this history; el [pray
Who, prologue-like, your humble patience
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.or

まし

Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd, But that the scambling and unquiet time WEA Did push it out of further questions. Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now? [against us, Cant. It must be thought on. If it pass We lose the better half of our possession: For all the temporal lands, which men devour + Helmets.

• An allusion to the circular form of the theatre.
Powers of fancy.

Debate.

By testament have given to the church,
Would they strip from us; being valued thus,- How things are perfected.

| And therefore we must needs admit the means, Ely

But, my good lord,

As much as would maintain, to the king'sow now for mitigation of this bill

honour,

Fall 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,

Urged by the commons? Doth his majesty Incline to it, or no?

Cant.

He seems indifferent; swaying more upon our part,

A hundred alms-houses, right well supplied; Thang the exhibiters against us :

And to the coffers of the king beside,

A thousand pounds by the year. Thus runs the bill.

Ely. This would drink deep.
Cant.

"Twould drink the cup and all. Ely. But what prevention? [gard. Cunt. The king is full of grace, and fair reEly. And a true lover of the holy church. Cant. The courses of his youth promised it

not.

The breath no sooner left his father's body, But that his wildness, mortified in him, Seem'd to die too: yea, at that very moment, Consideration like an angel came,

And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him;
Leaving his body as a paradise,

To envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made:
Never came reformation in a flood,
With such a heady current, scouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.

Ely.
We are blessed in the change.
Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity,"
And, all-admiiing, with an inward wish [late:
You would desire, the king were made a pre-
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,

For I have made an offer to his majesty,-
Upon our spiritual convocation;
And in regard of causes now in hand,
Which I have open'd to his grace at large,
As touching France,-to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.

[lord?

Ely. How did this offer seem received, my Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty; Save, that there was not time enough to hear (As, I perceived, his grace would fain have The severals, and unhidden passages, [done,) Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms; And, generally, to the crown and seat of

France,

Derived from Edward, his great grandfather. "Ely. What was the impediment that broke this off? [instant, Cant. The French ambassador, upon that Craved audience: and the hour, I think, is

come,

To give him hearing: Is it four o'clock? Ely

It is.

Cant. Then go we in, to know his embassy; Which I could, with a ready guess, declare, Before the Frenchman speak a word of it. Ely. I'll wait upon you; and I long to hear it.

You would say, it hath been all-in-all his SCENE II. The the same

study:

List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music :
Turn him to any cause of policy,

The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, ful
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences;
So that the art and practic part of life
Must be the mistress to this theoric+;
Which is a wonder, how his grace should
glean it,

Since his addiction was to courses vain :maa

His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow;
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.

[nettle;
Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best,
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:
And so the prince obscured his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescives in his faculty.

Cant. It must be so: for miracles are ceased;
Theory

• Listen to. 1

[terbury?

K. Hen. Where is my gracious lord of Can Exe. Not here in presence. K Hen. Send for him, good uncle. West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?! [resolved, K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin; we would be Before we hear him, of some things of weight, That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.

Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of Ely.

Cant. God, and his angels, guard your sa cred throne, And make you long become it! K. Hen. Sure, we thank you. My learned lord, we pray you to proceed: And justly and religiously unfold, Why the law Salique, that they have in France, Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim. And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading, Companions.

Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth;
For God doth know, how many, now in health,
Shall drop their blood in approbation
Of what your reverence shall incite us to: [son,
Therefore take heed how you impawn our per-
How you awake the sleeping sword of war;
We charge you in the name of God, take heed:
For pever two such kingdoms did contend,
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint, [drops
'Gainst him, whose wrongs give edge unto the
swords

That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord:
And we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
That what you speak is in your conscience
As pure as in with baptism.
[wash'd
Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign,
and you peers,

That owe your lives, your faith, and services,
To this imperial throne;-There is no bar
To make against your highness' claim to France,
But this, which they produce froin Phara-
mond,-

In terram Salicam mulieres nè succedant,
No woman shall succeed in Satique lană:
Which Salique land the French unjustly glozet,
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm,
That the land Salique lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe:
Where Charles the great, having subdued the
Saxons,

There left behind and settled certain French;
Who, holding in disdain the Gerinan women,
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Establish'd there this law-to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land;
Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
Is at this day in Germany call'd-Meisen.
Thus doth it well appear, the Saliqne law
Was not devised for the realin of France:
Nor did the French possess the Salique land
Until four hundred one and twenty years
After defunction of king Pharamond,
Idly supposed the founder of this law;
Who died within the year of our redemption
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the great
Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year
Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childerick,
Did, as heir general, being descended [thair,
Of Blithild, which was daughter to king Clo-
Make claim and title to the crown of France.
Hugh Capet also-that usurped the crown
Of Charles the duke of Lorain, sole heir male
Of the true line and stock of Charles the great,-
To fine his title with some show of truth,
(Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and
naught),
Convey'd himself as heir to the lady Lingare,

Spurions. + Explain.

Lay open.

Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son
Of Charles the great. Also king Lewis the tenth,
Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
That fair queen Isabel, his grandmother, .`
Was lineal of the lady Ermengare,
Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of
Lorain :
[great
By the which marriage, the line of Charles the
Was re-united to the crown of France.
So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim,"
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female:
So do the kings of France unto this day;
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law,
To bar your highness claiming from the female;
And rather choose to hide them in a net,
Than amply to imbare their crooked titles
Usurped from you and your progenitors.
K. Hen. May I, with right and conscience.
make this claim?
[reign!
Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sove-
For in the book of Numbers is it writ,-
When the son dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;
Look back unto your mighty ancestors: [tomb,
Go, my dread lord, to your great grandsire's
From whom you claim; invoke his warlike
[prince;

spirit,

And your great uncle's, Edward the black
Who ou the French ground play'd a tragedy,
Making defeat on the full power of France;
Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling; to behold his lion's whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility ¶.
O noble English, that could entertain
With half their forces the full pride of France;
And let another half stand laughing by,
All out of work, and cold for action!

[dead,

Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant
And with your puissant arm renew their feats:
You are their heir, you sit upon their throne;
The blood and courage, that renowned them,
Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant
Is in the very May-morn of his youth, [liege
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.
Exe. Your brother kings and monarchs of
the earth

Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former lions of your blood.

West. They know, your grace hath cause,

and means, and might;
So hath your highness; never king of England
Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects;
Whose hearts have left their bodies here in Eng-
And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France. [land,
Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear

liege,
[right:
With blood, and sword, and fire, to win your
In aid whereof, we of the spiritualty
Will raise your highness such a mighty sum,

Make showy or specions. § Derived his title.
At the battle of Cressy.

As never did the clergy at one timetoidni
Bring in to any of your ancestors. [French;
K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the
But lay down our proportions to defend
Against the Scot, who will make road upon ns
With all advantages.

Cant. They of those marches*, gracious so-
Shall be a wall sufficient to defend [vereign,
Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing
snatchers only,

But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
For you shall read, that my great grandfather
Never went with his forces into France,
But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brim fulness of his force;
Galling the gleaned land with hot essays;
Girding with grievous siege, castles and towns;
That England, being empty of defence,
Hath shook, and trembled at the ill neighbour-
hood.
[harm'd, my liege:
Cant. She hath been then more fear'di than
For hear her but exampled by herself,-
When all her chivalry hath been in France,
And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
She bath herself not only well defended,
But taken, and impounded as a stray, [France,
The king of Scots; whom she did send to
To fill king Edward's fame with prisoner kings;
And make your chronicle as rich with praise,
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea

With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries. ^
West, But there's a saying, very old and
true,

If that you will France win,
Then with Scotland first begin:
For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs;
Playing the mouse, in absence of the cat,
To spoil and havoc more than she can eat.
Ere. It follows then, the cat must stay at
Yet that is but a cursed necessity; [home:
Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
The advised head defends itself at home:
For government, though high, and low, and
lower,

Put into parts, doth keep in one concent§;
Gongruing in a full and natural close,
Like music.

Cant. True: therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for so work the honey bees;
Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sortsT:
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad,

The borders of England and Scotland.
Harmony.

Agreeing.
11 Executioners.

Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring
To the tent-royal of their emperor: [home
Who busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil ** citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors + pale
The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,-
That many things, having full reference
To one concent, may work contrariously;
As many arrows, loosed several ways,
Fly to one mark;

As many several ways meet in one town;
As many fresh streams run in one self sea;
As many lines close in the dial's centre;
So may a thousand actions once afoot
End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.
Divide your happy England into four;
Whereof take you one quarter into France,
And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.
If we, with thrice that power left at home,
Cannot defend our own door from the dog,
Let us be worried, and our nation lose
The name of hardiness, and policy.
K. Hen. Call in the messengers sent from
the Dauphin.

[Exit an Attendant. The King as
cends his Throne.
Now are we well resolved: aud,-by God's
help;

And yours, the noble sinews of our power,-
France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
Or break it all to pieces: Or there we'll sit,
Ruling, in large and ample empery #,
O'er France, and all her almost kingly duke
Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn, [dos
Tombless, with no remembrance over them:
Either our history shall, with full mouth,
Speak freely of our acts; or else our grave,
Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless
Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph. [mouth,

Enter Ambassadors of France.
Now are we well prepared to know the plea
Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for, we hear,
Your greeting is from him, not from the king.
Amb. May it please your majesty, to give
us leave

Freely to render what we have in charge;
Or shall we sparingly show you far off
The Dauphin's meaning, and our embassy!
K. Hen. We are no tyrant, but a Christian

king;

Unto whose grace our passion is as subject,
As are our wretches fetter'd in our prisons:
Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plain
Tell us the Dauphin's mind.

Amb.

: [ness. Thus then, in Tew. Your highness, lately sending into France, Did claim some certain dukedons, in the right

General disposition.
Different degrees.

Ti Dominion.

Frightened.

** Sober, grave.

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