UPON

KING HENRY V.

Within this wooden O-] i. c. A circumference of so small dimensions as the stage of a theatre?

2

3

-Casques-] The helmets.

imaginary forces-] Imaginary for imaginative, or your powers of fancy. Active and passive words are by this author frequently confounded. JOHNSON.

And make imaginary puissance :] This shows that Shakspeare was fully sensible of the absurdity of showing battles on the theatre, which indeed is never done but tragedy becomes farce. Nothing can be represented to the eye, but by something like it, and within a wooden O nothing very like a battle can be exhibited.

JOHNSON.

s Consideration like an angel came-] As paradise, when sin and Adam were driven out by the angel, became the habitation of celestial spirits, so the king's heart, since consideration has driven out his follies, is now the receptacle of wisdom and of virtue.

JOHNSON.

6 The air, &c.] This line, as Dr. Johnson well remarks, is exquisitely beautiful.

7 The severals and unhidden passages.] Mr. Mason thinks this line corrupt, and that we should read, several, instead of severals.

8 Shall we call in-] Here began the old play.

9-miscreate-] Spurious, illegitimate.

10 There is no bar, &c.] This whole speech is copied (in a manner verbatim) from Hall's Chronicle, Henry V. year the second, folio iv. xx. xxx. xl. &c. In the first edition it is very imperfect, and the whole history and names of the princes are confounded; but this was afterwards set right, and corrected from the original, Hall's Chronicle.

"To fine his title, &c.] Fine is here used as an opposition to corrupt in the next line. Holinshed says, 'to make his title seem true though it was stark naught.'

12 If that you will, &c.] Hall's Chronicle.

13 kneading up the honey;] To knead the honey gives an easy sense, though not physically true. The bees do in fact knead the wax more than the honey, but that Shakspeare perhaps did not know.

JOHNSON.

The old quartos read-lading up the honey.

STEEVENS.

14 Tennis-balls, my liege-] In the old play of King Henry V. already mentioned, this present consists of a gilded tun of tennis-balls and a carpet.

STEEVENS.

-Chaces-] Chace is a term at tennis.

16 -his balls to gun-stones;] When ordnance was first used, they discharged balls, not of iron, but of stone.

17

JOHNSON.

-lieutenant Bardolph.] At this scene begins the connexion of this play with the latter part of King Henry IV. The characters would be indis

tinct, and the incidents unintelligible, without the knowledge of what passed in the two foregoing plays.

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JOHNSON.

-there shall be smiles-] I suspect smiles to be a marginal direction crept into the text. It is natural for a man, when he threatens, to break off abruptly, and conclude, But that shall be as it may. But this fantastical fellow is made to smile disdainfully while he threatens; which circumstance was marked for the player's direction in the margin.

WARBURTON.

I do not remember to have met with these marginal directions for expression of countenance in any of our ancient manuscript plays: neither do I see occasion for Dr. Warburton's emendation, as it is vain to seek the precise meaning of every whimsical phrase used by this humourous character. Nym, however, having expressed his indifference about the continuation of Pistol's friendship, might have added, when time serves, there shall be smiles, i. e. he should be merry, even though he was to lose it; or, that his face would be ready with a smile as often as occasion should call one out into service, though Pistol, who had excited so many, was no longer near him.

STEEVENS.

19 I am not Barbason;] Barbason is the name of a dæmon mentioned in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

20 O, how hast thou, &c.] Shakspeare uses this aggravation of the guilt of treachery with great judgment. One of the worst consequences of breach of trust is the diminution of that confidence which makes

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the happiness of life, and the dissemination of suspicion, which is the poison of society. JOHNSON.

21 My fault, but not my body, pardon-] One of the conspirators against Queen Elizabeth, I think Parry, concludes his letter to her with these words:

a culpâ, but not a pœnâ, absolve me, most dear lady." This letter was much read at that time, [1585,] and our author doubtless copied it.

This whole scene was much enlarged and improved after the first edition; the particular insertions it would be tedious to mention, and tedious without much use.

JOHNSON.

22 -christom child-] The christom [or chrisom] was a white cloth, used to cover children with at their baptism. Mr. Whalley says that when the mother came to be churched this chrisom was no longer worn by the infant. Mrs. Quickly, therefore, means by a christom child, one who dies shortly after having received the sacrament of baptism.

23-as cold as a stone.] Such is the end of Falstaff, from whom Shakspeare had promised us in his epilogue to K. Henry IV. that we should receive more entertainment.. It happened to Shakspeare, as to other writers, to have his imagination crowded with a tumultuary confusion of images, which, while they were yet unsorted and unexamined, seemed sufficient to furnish a long train of incidents, and a new variety of merriment; but which, when he was to produce them to view, shrunk suddenly from him, or could not be accommodated to his general design. That he once designed to have brought Falstaff on the

scene again, we know from himself; but whether he could contrive no train of adventures suitable to his character, or could match him with no companions likely to quicken his humour, or could open no new vein of pleasantry, and was afraid to continue the same strain lest it should not find the same reception, he has here, for ever discarded him, and made haste to dispatch him, perhaps for the same reason for which Addison killed Sir Roger, that no other hand might attempt to exhibit him.

Let meaner authors learn from this example, that it is dangerous to sell the bear which is yet not hunted; to promise to the publick what they have not written.

This disappointment probably inclined Queen Elizabeth to command the poet to produce him once again, and to show him in love or courtship. This was, indeed, a new source of humour, and produced a new play from the former characters. JOHNSON. 24-clear thy crystals.] Dry up thy tears, dry thine eyes.

25 spend their mouths.] To spend the mouth, to give mouth, or tongue, is the sporting term for to bark. 26-rivage-] is shore, French.

27

- linstock-] The linstock is the staff to which the match is fixed when ordnance is fired.

28 the portage of the head,] Portage, open space, from port, a gate. Let the eye appear in the head as cannon through the battlements, or embrasures, of a fortification.

JOHNSON.

29 confounded base-] Confounded means here destroyed or worn.