"For once the eagle England being in prey,

To her unguarded nest the weazel Scot

Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs."

It is worth observing that in all these plays, which give an admirable picture of the spirit of the good old times, the moral inference does not at all depend upon the nature of the actions, but on the dignity or meanness of the persons committing them. "The eagle England" has a right "to be in prey," but "the weazel Scot" has none 66 to come sneaking to her nest," which she has left to pounce upon others. Might was right, without equivocation or disguise, in that heroick and chivalrous age. The substitution of right for might, even in theory, is among the refinements and abuses of modern philosophy.

A more beautiful rhetorical delineation of the effects of subordination in a commonwealth can hardly be conceived than the following:

"For government, though high and low and lower, Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,

Congruing in a full and natural close,

Like musick.

Therefore heaven doth 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 art of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts

Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;

Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home

To the tent-royal of their emperour;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing mason building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanick porters crowding in
Their heavy burthens 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 consent, may work contrariously :
As many arrows, loosed several ways,

Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town ;

As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;

As many lines close in the dial's centre;

So may a thousand actions, once a foot,
End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat."

HENRY V. is but one of Shakspeare's second rate plays. Yet by quoting passages, like this, from his second rate plays alone, we might make a volume "rich with his praise,"

"As is the oozy bottom of the sea

With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries."

Of this sort are the king's remonstrance to Scroop, Grey, and Cambridge, on the detection of their treason, his address to the soldiers at the siege of Harfleur, and the still finer one before the battle of Agincourt, the description of the night before the battle, and the reflections on ceremony put into the mouth of the king.

"O hard condition; and twinborn with greatness,
Subjected to the breath of every fool,

Whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing!
What infinite heart's ease must kings neglect,

That private men enjoy? and what have kings,

That privates have not too, save ceremony?
Save general ceremony?

And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?

What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more
Of mortal griefs, than do thy worshippers?
What are thy rents? what are thy comings in?'
O ceremony, shew me but thy worth!

What is thy soul, O adoration?

Art thou ought else but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?

Wherein thou art less happy, being feared,

Than they in fearing.

What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,

But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,

And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!

Think'st thou, the fiery fever will go out

With titles blown from adulation ?

Will it give place to flexure and low bending?

Can'st thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee,
Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
That play'st so subtly with a king's repose,

I am a king, that find thee: and I know,
'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The enter-tissu'd robe of gold and pearl,
The farsed title running 'fore the king,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the shore of the world,
No, not all these, thrice gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave;
Who, with a body fill'd, and vacant mind,
Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread,
Never sees horrid night, the child of hell:

But, like a lacquey, from the rise to set,
Sweats in the eye of Phœbus, and all night
Sleeps in Elysium; next day, after dawn,
Doth rise, and help Hyperion to his horse;
And follows so the everrunning year
With profitable labour, to his grave :
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,

Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
Has the forehand and vantage of a king.

The slave, a member of the country's peace,
Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots

What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,
Whose hours the peasant best advantages."

Most of these passages are all well known: there is one, which we do not remember to have seen noticed, and yet it is no whit inferiour to the rest in heroick beauty. It is the account of the deaths of York and Suffolk.

"Exeter. The duke of York commends him to your majesty. K. Henry. Lives he, good uncle ? thrice within this hour,

I saw him down; thrice up again, and fighting;

From helmet to the spur all blood he was.

Exeter. In which array (brave soldier) doth he lie,
Larding the plain: and by his bloody side
(Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds)
The noble earl of Suffolk also lies.

Suffolk first died: and York, all haggled o'er,
Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteep'd,
And takes him by the beard; kisses the gashes,
That bloodily did yawn upon his face;
And cries aloud-Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk!
My soul shall thine keep company to heaven:
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast;
As, in this glorious and well foughten field,
We kept together in our chivalry!

Upon these words I came, and cheer'd him up :
He smil'd me in the face, raught me his hand,
And, with a 'feeble gripe, says-Dear, my lord,
Commend my service to my sovereign.

So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck

He threw his wounded arm, and kiss'd his lips;
And so, espous'd to death, with blood he seal'd
A testament of noble-ending love."

But we must have done with splendid quotations. The behaviour of the king, in the difficult and

doubtful circumstances in which he is placed, is as patient and modest as it is spirited and lofty in his prosperous fortune. The character of the French nobles is also very admirably depicted; and the Dauphin's praise of his horse shews the vanity of that class of persons in a very striking point of view. Shakspeare always accompanies a foolish prince with a satirical courtier, as we see in this instance. The comick parts of HENRY V. are very inferiour to those of Henry IV. Falstaff is dead, and without him, Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph, are satellites without a sun. Fluellen the Welchman is the most entertaining character in the piece. He is goodnatured, brave, cholerick, and pedantick. His parallel between Alexander and Harry of Monmouth, and his desire to have "some disputations" with captain Macmorris on the discipline of the Roman wars, in the heat of the battle, are never to be forgotten. His treatment of Pistol is as good as Pistol's treatment of his French prisoner. There are two other remarkable prose passages in this play : the conversation of Henry in disguise with the three sentinels on the duties of a soldier, and his courtship of Katherine in broken French. We like them both exceedingly, though the first savours perhaps too much of the king, and the last too little of the lover.