5. INDISPOSITIONS, the word here signifies not illness of body, but sadness and depression of mind.

6. THE SPLEEN, a state of melancholy and depression.

7. CALUMNY, slander; false accusation maliciously made.

8. REPREHENDED, blamed, reproved.

9. HIS PLACE, the place here referred to, is Falkland's office of Secretary of War.

10. PUSILLANIMITY, cowardice; lit., having little mind. (Lat. pusillus, very little; animus, mind or spirit.)

11. INCOMPARABLE, matchless; that which so far exceeds others that it cannot be compared with them.

DEATH-BED OF HENRY IV.

[PRINCE HENRY, thinking his father dead, has taken the crown from his pillow, and placed it on his own head. The King awakes and calls him.]

P. Henry. I never thought to hear you speak again. K. Henry IV. Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:

I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.

Dost thou so hunger for my empty chair,

That thou wilt needs invest thee with mine honours

Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth!

Thou seek'st the greatness that will overwhelm thee.
Stay but a little; for my cloud of dignity
Is held from falling with so weak a wind,

That it will quickly drop: my day is dim.

Thou hast stol'n that, which, after some few hours,
Were thine without offence; and at my death
Thou hast sealed up my expectation:

Thy life did manifest thou lov'dst me not,
And thou wilt have me die assured of it.

Thou hid'st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,

Which thou hast whetted1 on thy stony heart,
To stab at half an hour of my life.

What! canst thou not forbear me half an hour?
Then get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself;
And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear,
That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.
Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse,
Be drops of balm to sanctify thy head:
Only compound 2 me with forgotten dust;
Give that, which gave thee life, unto the worms
Pluck down my officers, break my decrees;
For now a time is come to mock at form:-
Harry the Fifth is crown'd!-Up, vanity!

Down, royal state! all you sage counsellors, hence!
And to the English court assemble now,
From every region, apes of idleness!

Now, neighbour confines,3 purge you of your scum:
Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,
Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit
The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?
Be happy, he will trouble you no more;
England shall double gild his treble guilt,—
England shall give him office, honour, might;
For the fifth Harry from curbed licence plucks
The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog
Shall flesh his tooth in every innocent.
O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!
When that my care could not withhold thy riots,
What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?

O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,

Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants !

P. Hen. [Kneeling.] O, pardon me, my liege! but for my tears,

The moist impediments unto my speech,

I had forstall'd this dear and deep rebuke,

Ere you with grief had
The course of it so far.
And He that wears the

spoke, and I had heard
There is your crown;
crown immortally,

Long guard it yours! If I affect it more,
Than as your honour, and as your renown,
Let me no more from this obedience rise,-
Which my most true and inward duteous spirit
Teacheth, this prostrate and exterior bending!
Heaven witness with me, when I here came in,
And found no course of breath within your majesty,
How cold it struck my heart! if I do feign,
O, let me in my present wildness die,

And never live to show th' incredulous world
The noble change that I have purposed!
Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,
(And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,)
I spake unto the crown, as having sense,

And thus upbraided it: "The care on thee depending,
Hath fed upon the body of my father;

Therefore thou, best of gold, art worst of gold:
Other, less fine in carat,* is more precious,

Preserving life in med'cine potable;

But thou, most fine, most honoured, most renowned,

Hast eat thy bearer up." Thus, my most royal liege,

Accusing it, I put it on my head,

To try with it,—as with an enemy

That had before my face murdered my father,

The quarrel of a true inheritor.

But if it did infect my blood with joy,

Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride;

If any rebel or vain spirit of mine

Did, with the least affection of a welcome,
Give entertainment to the might of it,-

Let God for ever keep it from my head,
And make me as the poorest vassal is,

That doth with awe and terror kneel to it!
K. Hen. O my son,

Heaven put it in thy mind to take it hence,

That thou mightst win the more thy father's love,
Pleading so wisely in excuse of it!

Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed;
And hear, I think, the very latest counsel
That ever I shall breathe. Heaven knows, my son,
By what bypaths, and indirect crooked ways,
I met this crown; and I myself know well
How troublesome it sat upon my head :
To thee it shall descend with better quiet,
Better opinion, better confirmation;
For all the soil of the achievement goes
With me into the earth. It seemed in me,

But as an honour snatched with boist'rous hand;
And I had many living to upbraid

My gain of it by their assistances;

Which daily grew to quarrel, and to bloodshed,
Wounding supposèd peace; all these bold fears,
Thou seest, with peril I have answered;
For all my reign hath been but as a scene
Acting that argument: and now my death
Changes the mode; for what in me was purchased,
Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort;

So thou the garland wear'st successively.5

Yet, though thou stand'st more sure than I could do,
Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green;
And all my friends,-which thou must make thy
friends,-

Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out;
By whose fell working I was first advanced,

And by whose power I well might lodge a fear
To be again displaced: which to avoid,

I cut them off; and had a purpose now
To lead out many to the Holy Land,

Lest rest, and lying still, might make them look
Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds

With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of the former days.

More would I, but my lungs are wasted so,
That strength of speech is utterly denied me.
How I came by the crown, O God, forgive!
And grant it may with thee in true peace live!
P. Hen. My gracious liege,

You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;
Then plain and right must my possession be:
Which I, with more than with a common pain,
'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.

SHAKESPEARE-" King Henry IV."

1. WHETTED, made keen; sharpened by rubbing. 2. COMPOUND, mingle. (Lat, pono, to place.)

3. CONFINES, borders, boundaries; thus neighbour confines signify adjacent or neighbouring countries. (Lat, finis, the end.)

4. CARAT, a weight of four grains troy, used in weighing gold and precious stones. The quantity of pure metal mixed with alloy is generally stated as so many carats out of twenty-four. So that "less fine of carat" would signify gold less pure, and containing more alloy.

5. SUCCESSIVELY, in succession after his father, thus gaining a better title.