This astonishing scene tells us plainly which of these men will finally rule the world.

The drunkenness of Cassio in "Othello" (II, iii), brought about by the machinations of Iago, is fundamental to the plot. When Othello dismisses Cassio from office, the shock sobers him. Did any man in our twentieth century ever feel more intensely than does Cassio the disgrace of intoxication?

Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse fustian with one's own shadow? O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!

O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should, with joy, pleasure, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!

To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently a beast!

Iago offers in reply the accepted view of Shakespeare's day:

Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well us'd; exclaim no more against it.

You or any man living may be drunk at a time, man.

I question whether a parallel to Cassio's intense shame at being overcome by drink can be found in the literature of that period.1 Although these utterances are thoroughly dramatic, a stream does not rise higher than its source. I am sure that these bitter words of Cassio, not the smug commonplaces of the cynical Iago, come nearer to expressing the mind of the dramatist. I believe that Shakespeare,

1 Professor Samuel C. Chew finds a parallel "in the beautiful sub-plot, largely or possibly entirely by Francis Beaumont, in The Coxcomb." See Modern Language Notes, xxxvi (1921),

too, felt keenly the disgrace of being overcome by drink, and that the subject of drunkenness had for him a very personal and poignant interest.

Two temperance sermons uttered by characters in Shakespeare, one brief, the other more elaborate, may be cited in support of this view, especially since neither of them is called for by the plot. When Adam seeks to go along with Orlando as his personal servant, we get an unexpected homily:

Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly.

As You Like It, II, iii, 47-53.

The wassailing of his uncle the King is sharply condemned by Hamlet. This noisy, systematized revelling is to him "a custom more honour'd in the breach than the observance."

This heavy-headed revel east and west

Makes us traduc'd and tax'd of other nations.

They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition;

I, iv, 17-20.

These lines begin an intense harangue against excessive drinking. Coleridge defends the naturalness of these lines in Hamlet's mouth under the circumstances, and also points out that the interest of the Prince, his friends, and the audience in this outburst causes them all to be taken completely by surprise when the Ghost suddenly appears. This is dramatically most effective. Nevertheless, the passage has no vital relation to the action, and

it is omitted from the Folio. Sir Walter Raleigh thinks that the lines may have been dropped "because they came too near to censuring the vices of Queen Anne of Denmark's court." 1 But the passage is only one of many in Hamlet that were left out of the Folio, IV, iv, 9-66 being a notable example. The shortening of the Folio text seems to represent only the first installment of that cutting which managers have always practiced upon this very long play. Raleigh says further concerning these lines about drinking: "They have little dramatic value, and illustrate Shakespeare's habit of making room in his plays for any topic that is uppermost in his mind." I am confident that Shakespeare's interest in this topic was not transient but permanent.

One other piece of evidence seems to show that the subject of excessive drinking had a very personal interest for Shakespeare. This should be interpreted from the view of his own day, not of ours. John Ward, vicar of Stratford from 1648 to 1679, left the following entry in his diary, the only information that has come to us concerning the Ideath of the dramatist:

Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted.

1

1 Shakespeare's England, Oxford, 1916, 1, 17.

THE EPIC CHARACTER OF HENRY V’1

IN the play of "Henry V," why does Shakespeare feel so intensely the limitations of the stage? The Choruses express this feeling very fully.

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!

Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts.

Prologue-Chorus to Act I, 11-15, 23.

And so our scene must to the battle fly,
Where-O for pity!-we shall much disgrace
With four or five most vile and ragged foils,
Right ill-dispos'd in brawl ridiculous,
The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,
Minding true things by what their mockeries be.

Prologue-Chorus to Act IV, 48-53.

Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,

Our bending author hath pursu'd the story,

In little room confining mighty men,

Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.

Epilogue-Chorus, 1-4.

Shakespeare had commented humorously in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" upon the lack of reality in stagepresentation. Here he is troubled also by the lack of grandeur.

The dramatist was not oppressed by the inadequacy of scenic representation in the earlier "I Henry IV." There the action shifts about between London, Northumberland, 'Reprinted from Modern Language Notes, xxxiv (1919), 7-16.

Northern Wales, and Shrewsbury. In the later "Julius Cæsar" and "Antony and Cleopatra" we readily accept the transportation of armies over much greater distances than in "Henry V." Here the short journey from London to Southampton is carefully indicated:

The King is set from London; and the scene
Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton.
There is the playhouse now, there must you sit.

Prologue-Chorus to Act II, 34-36.

One explanation of the passages cited is that the dramatist has gradually come to feel the unreality and inadequacy of stage presentation for the large movements of a historical play. With the exception of his portion of "Henry VIII," "Henry V" is the last drama of Shakespeare that sets forth well-authenticated English history.

"Henry V" was quite certainly written in 1599. Ben Jonson's comedy "Every Man in his Humour" was acted in 1598. The doctrine that comedy must "show an image of the times" was plainly implied in this realistic play. That the characters were at first given Italian names was a foolish following of the romantic fashion of the period, and English names were afterwards substituted. We know not when the Prologue was written that was first printed in 1616. This Prologue expresses the demand for realism in comedy with great force; and it may well be aimed at some of Shakespeare's plays which contained the romantic audacities that Jonson disliked. The Chorus of "Henry V" seems to receive especial notice. Jonson will not

with three rusty swords,
And help of some few foot and half-foot words,
Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars,
And in the tyring-house bring wounds to scars.