When thou doft pinch thy bearer, thou dost fit SCENE XI. Gold. (11) How quickly nature Falls to revolt, when gold becomes her object? Have broke their fleep with thought, their brains with care, Their bones with industry: for this engroffed We bring it to the hive; and like the bees, Are murder'd for our pains. ACT V. SCENE III. The Chief Justice to King Henry V. whom he had imprisoned. -If the deed were ill, Be you contented, wearing now the garland, To (11) How, &c.] If the miferies of greatnefs be fo univerfal a topic, we have one before us that is ftill more fo: Shakespear perhaps has excelled any writer on the subject in this place and other parts of his works, but more particularly in Timon of Athens, (which fee, A. 4. Sc. 3, &c.) It would be easy to quote numberless fimilar paffages, but the univerfality of the topic, and every reader's obfervation must render it tedious and unneceffary. To trip the courfe of law, and blunt the fword And then imagine me taking your part, General Obfervations. NONE of Shakespear's plays (fays fobnfon,) are more read than the First and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth. Perhaps no author has ever in two plays afforded fo much delight. The great events are interefting, for the fate of kingdoms depends upon them; the flighter occurrences are diverting, and, except one or two, fufficiently probable; the incidents are multiplied with wonderful fertility of invention, and the characters diversified with the utmoft nicety of difcernment, and the profoundest fkill in the nature of man. The Prince, who is the hero both of the comic and tragic part, is a young man of great abilities and violent paffions, whose fentiments are right, though his actions are wrong; whofe virtues are obfcured by negligence, and whofe understanding is diffipated by levity. In his idle hours he is rather loose than wicked; and when the occafion forces out his latent qualities, he is great without effort, and brave without tumult. The trifler is roufed into a hero, and the hero again repofes in the trifler. This character is great, original, and juft. Percy is a rugged foldier, choleric, and quarrelfome, and has only the foldier's virtues, generofity and courage. But Falstaff unimitated, unimitable Falfaff, how fhall I defcribe thee? Thou compound of fenfe and vice; of fense which may be admired, but not efteemed; of vice which may be defpifed, but hardly detefted. Falftaff is a character loaded with faults, and with thofe faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief and a glutton, a coward and a boafter, always ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous, and infult C 4 infult the defencelefs. At once obfequious and malignant, he fatirizes in their abfence thofe upon whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the Prince only as an agent of vice, but of this familiarity he is fo proud, as not only to be fupercilious and haughty with common men, but to think his intereft of importance to the duke of Lancafter. Yet the man thus corrupt, thus defpicable, makes himself neceffary to the Prince that de fpifes him, by the moft pleafing of all qualities, perpetual gaiety, by an unfailing power of exciting laughter, which is the more freely indulged, as his wit is not of the splendid or ambitious kind, but confifts in eafy scapes and fallies of levity, which make fport, but raise no envy. It must be observed, that he is ftained with no enormous or fanguinary crimes, fo that his licentioufnefs is not fo offenfive but that it may be borne for his mirth. The moral to be drawn from this representation is, that no man is more dangerous than he that, with a will to corrupt, hath the power to please; and that neither wit nor honesty ought to think themselves fafe with fuch a companion, when they fee Henry feduced by Falfiaff. The VII. The Life of Henry V. (1) Prologue. For a mufe of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention! A kingdom for a ftage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the fwelling scene! Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Affume the port of Mars; and at his heels, (Leafht in, like hounds) fhould famine, sword and fire, Crouch for employment.. ACT (1) O for, &c.] Milton, who was a zealous admirer and studious imitator of our author, feems to have had the fine opening of this prologue in his eye, when he began the 4th book of his Paradife Loft. O for that warning voice! which he, who faw C 5 THEOBALD. ACT I. SCENE I. Confideration. Confideration, like an angel came, (2) And whipt th' offending Adam out of him; King Henry V. his Perfections. Hear him but reafon in divinity, And all-admiring with an inward with, You would defire the king were made a prelate. SCENE (2) And whipt, &c.] Shakespear enriched himself, and greatly improved his incomparable genius from the scriptures, that endlefs fource of true knowledge and fublimity: this, Mr. Upton has judiciously obferved, who remarks on this paffage, that according to the fcripture-expreffion, the old Adam, or the old Man, Tahaios arewos, fignifies man in his unregenerated or gentile ftate: and the new man, is man in his regenerated and chriftian state. See Rom. vi. 6. Ephef. iv. 22. Coloff. iii. 9." (3) Hear him, &c.] I have purposely avoided any historical remarks, or characters of perfons in this work, as it would fwell it much beyond the intended compass: however the English reader will find no small fatisfaction in comparing the hiftorical plays of Shakespear with the genuine hiftory, and more partiularly if he is happy enough to read that fine history of Eng land, |