esy,

With a near aim, the main chance of things

As yet not come to life, which in their seeds,

And weak beginnings, lie intreasured Shakespeare would have blushed at Carlyle's panegyric, but the words are not nearly SO fantastic as they

seem:

England, before long, will hold but a small fraction of the English: in America, in New Holland, east and west to the very Antipodes, there will be a Saxondom covering great spaces of the Globe. What is it that can keep all these together into virtually one nation?

. Here, I say, is an English King, whom no time or chance, Parliament or combination of Parliaments, can dethrone! This King Shakespeare, does he not shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying signs; indestructible; really more valuable in that point of view than any other means or appliance whatsoever? We can fancy him as radiant aloft over all the nations of Englishmen, a thousand years hence. From Paramatta, from New York, wheresoever, under what sort of Parish-Constable soever, English men and women are, they will say to one another: "Yes, this Shakespeare is ours; we produced him, we speak and think by him; we are of one blood and kind with him."

The virtues that composed the character of Shakespeare's hero-king contain the seeds of Carlyle's Saxondom. "On the royal hero's manliness," says Sir Sidney Lee, "whether as soldier, ruler, or lover, Shakespeare loses no opportunity of laying emphasis. . . . Alone in Shakespeare's gallery of English monarchs does Henry's portrait evoke at once a sense of joyous satisfaction in the high potentialities of human character and a feeling of pride among Englishmen that one of his mettle is of English race." Speak

Henry embodies Shakespeare's ideal of heroic manhood. He has none of Hamlet's brooding melancholy, none of Romeo's tragic passion. He is first and foremost and almost exclusively a man of action and affairs. As statesman, warrior, ruler, he exhibits the utmost greatness that the active nature can attain. As Macaulay says of Cromwell, "He was emphatically a man”—robust, enthusiastic, brave; a model of heroic virtue, of kingly strength and grace. "Conscientious, brave, just, capable, and tenacious," says Mr. Evans, "Henry stands before us as the embodiment of worldly success; and as such he is entitled to our unreserved admiration."

Shakespeare, of course, intends us to accept his portrait with its inseparable limitations. For his own artistic purposes, he made use of certain hints of the chroniclers, and in Richard II and the two parts of Henry IV he makes too much, perhaps, of Henry's early escapades. But the "madcap prince" is not held up by the poet as a pattern for young men. His purpose, rather, is to show how, by the grace of God and by the manly efforts of a nature fundamentally sincere and sound, the "soul of goodness" may be distilled from "things evil," and how a youth with "heart of gold" may pass through the testing fires and yet emerge a "pattern for all Christian kings." The process is most skilfully described in all the plays alluded to, and in Henry V we have a finished picture of the hero's character in after life.

In the forefront of this splendid "history" the youthful king is set before us as a serious and enlightened man of affairs, fearing God and fearing naught beside. His conversion had not been so sudden as the archbishop, like a true theologian, imagined. "Consideration like an angel came" to him at the outset of his career, and

remained with him in the midst of his novitiate for the throne; and when the crown at length was placed upon his brow he cast his frivolous companions off without a pang. The change was gradual and complete. With the call of duty, his wild days ended. As king, he now appears before the world as the impersonation of England's greatness. Under his rule, the country is transformed. Profligates and adventurers like Falstaff, Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol, "the cankers of a calm world and a long peace," meet with their deserts. The conspiracy of Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey is destroyed in the bud, and the whole nation is united in one great patriotic movement, pointing the moral—

O England! model to thy inward greatness,

Like little body with a mighty heart, What might'st thou do, that honor would thee do,

Were all thy children kind and natural!

On his accession, the prince appears before us in his true character. Like Wordsworth's "Happy Warrior," when called to face the stern realities of life, he is "Happy as a lover and attired With sudden brightness, like a man inspired." The sun shines forth in all his strength and splendor and beneficence. The king "redeems the time," as he had promised, and with accustomed promptitude and energy proceeds to "give the world assurance of a man." By word and deed he gives the lie to his detractors, and by sterling qualities of mind and heart endears himself to all. How easily he rises to the height of his great office! With what wealth and versatility of gifts and powers he wields the sceptre of his realm! With what prudence he addresses himself to great affairs of State! What courage he infuses into Westmoreland, who, on the eve of Agincourt, exclaims:

O that we now had here

But one ten thousand of those men in England

That do no work today!

K. Henry. What's he that wishes so? My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:

If we are marked to die, we are enow To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honor.

What magnanimity he shows to friend and foe to his timid brothers, sorrowing for their father's death and fearful as to their position; to the Chief Justice who had committed him for his mad pranks; as previously he had shown to Douglass and to Hotspur, his beaten foes at Shrewsbury! To the trembling brothers, he says:

Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear:

This is the English, not the Turkish court;

Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,
But Harry, Harry.

For me, by heaven, I bid you be assured,

I'll be your father and your brother,

too;

Let me but bear your love, I'll bear your cares.

To the Chief Justice, who is still more apprehensive, and who offers an ingenious and dignified defense, the youthful king replies:

You are right, Justice; and you weigh this well; Therefore still bear the balance and the sword.

There is my hand; You shall be as a father to my youth.

And who does not remember his generous tribute to his rival, Hotspur, earlier in the fray?

Fare thee well, great heart!

this earth that bears thee dead Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.

Adieu and take thy praise with thee to heaven!

Thy ignominy sleep with thee in thy grave,

But not remembered in thy epitaph!

The sole exception to this magnanimity is to be found in Henry's treatment of Falstaff, whom he casts off with the words:

I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;

How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!

But even in this painful scene mercy tempers judgment. Provision is made for his banished comrades. Falstaff is shortly afterwards released from prison, and though the king has "killed his heart," and might well have spared that ill-timed and not altogether truthful lecture to "the tutor and the feeder of my riots," still the sternness was demanded by the situation, and in keeping with the young king's character.

For, like all brave men, Henry can be hard. "There is no better sign of a brave mind," said Walter Bagehot, "than a hard hand." Henry's father says of him:

For he is gracious, if he be observed:
He hath a tear for pity, and a hand
Open as day for melting charity;
Yet, notwithstanding, being incens'd,
he's flint.

Yes, hard as flint, if needs be, as the Christ Himself. See how he treats the traitorous nobles, Cambridge, Scroop and Grey, when, after plotting his murder, they cry out against his clemency towards the poor wretch who has railed against the person of the king. Henry orders the man to be set at liberty:

It was excess of wine that set him on; And on his more advice we pardon him.

But the traitors interpose. It would be the truest mercy, they urge, to punish the offender. Then, when they have unawares condemned themselves, the king unfolds their guilt. The flint strikes fire. His wrath is terrible.

His indignation flashes forth in words which make the traitors tremble. They sue for mercy, but the king, though moved to tears, does not relent: Touching our person, seek we no revenge;

But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,

Whose ruin ye have sought, that to her laws

We do deliver you. Get you, therefore, hence,

Poor miserable wretches, to your death.

Sternness and severity, if not the most attractive, are amongst the most effective of the qualities in Henry's character. He is "every inch a king," -a true Conning-a man who can -Carlyle's Able Man. With the doubtful exception of Ulysses, he is the most efficient of Shakespeare's heroes, and he is uniformly successful. He knows exactly what he wants to do, and does it. And when he has achieved his purpose he does not boast, but clothes himself in genuine humility. His modesty is beautiful; it gives a charm to the robust and virile personality. Strong men are often proud, successful men vainglorious; but King Henry, at the height of his achievement, is so far master of himself as easily, and as it were instinctively, to give the glory unto God.

His piety is the very marrow of his virtue. It nerves him in the hour of battle; it saves him from the vaunting pride of victory. How lovely is the scene on Blackheath, when the Mayor of London and the aldermen, "appareled in orient grained scarlet,” and four hundred commoners, clad in beautiful array and "trimly horsed," meet him on his return from Agincourt: Where that his lords desire him to have borne

His bruised helmet and his bended sword

Before him through the city: he forbids it,

Being free from vainness and self

glorious pride;

Giving full trophy, signal and ostent Quite from himself to God.

Nor did Shakespeare attribute to the king this pious humility as an OCcasional quality. It pervades his whole conception of the character. It is the central point and crowning glory of the picture that he paints. Throughout the play that bears his name, the favorite oath of Henry, "God before" resounds. His life was lived, a all heroic and effective lives are lived, as in his Maker's presence, and beneath his Maker's eye. "We are in God's hands," he exclaims on the eve of battle. These words and the splendid scene to which they belong diffuse a wonderful solemnity over the whole representation. The drama becomes a religious service. We are made to feel, not that "God is on the side of the biggest battalions," but that He is always on the side of those who, though inferior in numbers and equipment, humbly trust in Him. With The London Quarterly Review.

deep insight and accustomed modesty the king perceives and emphasizes this great central fact in human history when, at the close of his astounding victory, he says:

O God, Thy arm was here; And not to us, but to Thy arm alone, Ascribe we all! When, without stratagem,

But in plain shock and even play of battle,

Was ever known so great and little loss

On one part and the other? Take it, God,

For it is none but Thine!

Only with the acknowledgment that God fought for us, does he allow the list of the killed to be proclaimed:

Let there be sung "Non nobis" and "Te Deum";

The dead with charity enclosed in clay;

And then to Calais; and to England then;

Where ne'er from France arrived more happy men.

T. Alexander Seed.

CHAPTER II.

On Sunday Mr. Beamish sent his butler to the house on the opposite side of the street with a message that, as the day was a little doubtful, he would call for Miss Crawley in a taxicab. Forty, the butler, was a friend of the respectable Bodnim. He wore a presentation set of false teeth which had been given to him by his master, and he was in love with Julia's maid, upon whom he smiled with a noble display of his splendid ivory. Perry, having seen him from an upper window cross the street, opened the door because "she happened to be passing through the hall and heard the bell ringing and thought an immediate answer might be wanted,"

and the two had a few words together as they stood on the steps of the house on the cloudy and unsettled morning. It was Forty's suggestion that Miss Perry should follow his master's example and go with him to hear Mr. Burrows preach. The coterie of friends and their servants were all interested in the young man, and Perry said that if she got her mistress dressed in time she would go. She found Miss Crawley more than usually fastidious over her toilet, and she who was a woman far too handsome to require very close attendance on her mirror, and far too sumptuously dressed not to be satisfied with her appearance, was actually so wayward as to insist upon her winter

furs being put away on the plea that they looked too heavy, and she wore instead a handsome green velvet coat with jade buttons. The coat was a new one, and Perry was afraid it would get spotted with rain, but, being a wise woman, she said nothing. She and Forty sat at the back of the chapel in Mayfair and admired Miss Crawley from a distance, and good Tom Beamish enjoyed conducting the well-dressed, elegant woman up the aisle, and having her sit beside him in the red-lined pew. He carried a large Prayer-book, in the manner of long ago, and would as soon have come to church without his tall hat as without it. Miss Crawley's Prayer-book, on the other hand, was one with very small print in it, and towards the middle of the service, as the weather grew duller, she began to fumble amongst the laces of her pretty mantle, and drew from it a little pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses. This enabled her to read the print, and Tom began to bellow the hymns beside her. He was a lusty singer, and he also said the responses to the prayers loudly and reverently. His manly voice and upright, burly figure made the lady feel definitely and consciously slender. She enjoyed the contrast in their appearance, and felt happy that Tom was beside her. The intimacy that was engendered by mingling her prayers with his seemed to make them something more than mere petitions, and while she banished from her mind any feeling more personal than this, because of its intrusion into more sacred thoughts, Mr. Beamish's nearness to her produced in her gentle and well-disciplined mind a satisfaction which the time and the place seemed to sanctify and to render decorous. She was a woman generally credited with a certain independence of character induced by her manner of living alone, and in the world of London her position was not only secure but of consequence.

Yet she sang more softly LIVING AGE, VOL. II, No. 94.

than usual that morning in church, out of deference to the manly voice beside her. At the same time she knew she was gaining something by being very womanly, and was not at all sure what it was. The service was extremely pleasant to her, the singing was good, and she was one of those women to whom Morning Service in church is singularly agreeable. Always about it there seemed something of good breeding as well as devotion. She had, if o may say so, an excellent church manner, and her gracefulness was never more apparent than when she stood in the old-fashioned pew, with her hymnbook lightly held in her well-gloved hand.

Both she and her companion were contented and happy this morning, and their enjoyment was enhanced by their devotional thoughts. Tom, it is true, was sometimes a disturbing companion during sermon time because of the comments which he felt it incumbent upon him to make from time to time upon the performance of the preacher. Today Mr. Burrows had hardly begun to preach before he manifested a certain amount of annoyance, which was not explained until he turned to Miss Crawley and remarked, "I wish to goodness he wouldn't drop his voice at the end of a sentence; it's impossible to hear him."

Julia at that moment was looking up the text which Mr. Burrows had given out, and in order to find it she had placed her pince-nez upon her nose. Mr. Beamish ceased his comments upon the young clergyman, and concentrated his full gaze upon the lady beside him. She felt something disturbing in his attitude, and looked up to see what was wrong. She could find nothing amiss, but the pleasant tranquillity of the service was over.

Mr. Beamish was a man who, when he was mentally perturbed, rolled and fidgeted in his seat wherever he was.