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without doubt I must of necessity think, that you likewise have compassed the confusion of all that here be with me, and also the final destruction of your native country.

Wherefore seeing that you have enterprised so great a mischief, to the intent that your fautours being in the army, may abhor so detestable an offence by the punishment of you, haste you to receive the pain that for your demerits you have deserved, and that punishment that by the law for your offences is provided."

In the fourth Scene of this Act, the Constable only, amongst the French nobles, takes part in the dialogue; but the Duke of Burgundy is mentioned as being present. Shakspere did not find this in the Chronicles; and it is probable that the Duke of Burgundy was absent from France; as the States of Flanders proclaimed that the duke would render no assistance in the defence of France, unless the Dauphin redressed the injuries which he had heaped upon his wife, the daughter of the duke. (See 'Pictorial History of England,' vol. ii. p. 28.)

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ACT III.

12 SCENE II.-" Enter Nym, Bardolph, and Pistol."

BARDOLPH and Fluellen were names of inhabitants of Stratford, in 1592. But Pistol and Bardolph might have lived in the traditions of the French war; for we find in the Additional Charters in the British Museum, No. 1021 and 1022, that Wm. Pistail and R. Bardolf were amongst Canoniers serving in Normandy, Ao.

1435.

13 SCENE IV.-ROUEN.- "Alice, tu as esté," &c. When in the Epilogue to 'Henry IV. Part II.,' the author promised the audience "to make you merry with fair Katharine of France," he certainly was a fitting judge of the sources from which his audience would derive their merriment. Warburton, however, calls this a ridiculous Scene. Hanmer rejects it as an interpolation of the players. Not only this Scene, but the scraps of French which are put in the months of other characters, have a dramatic purpose. The great object of this play is to

excite and elevate the nationality of the Eng. lish; and this could not be done without a marked and obvious distinction between the people of the two nations. The occasional French accomplishes this much more readily than any other device. It is to be remembered that Shakspere's plays were written to be acted. Of distinguishing dresses the wardrobe of Shakspere's stage had few to boast. The introduction of Katharine in this particular Scene, learning the very rudiments of English, is a fit introduction for that of the fifth Act, where she attempts to converse with her future husband in his native tongue.

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duction into France was gravely ascribed to the power of witches. Sir John Davies, in his poem called 'Orchestra,' has given us a very spirited description of the lavolta, which shows that its grace might have recommended it without the aid of sorcery. He has described the musical time of this dance very poetically:

"And still their feet an anapest do sound:

An anapest is all their music's song,
Whose first two feet is short, and third is long."

15 SCENE VI.-" Pax of little price." The ordinary reading of pax is pix; yet all the old editions read pax. The alteration was made by Theobald. Johnson says pix and pax signify the same thing. The discussions upon this somewhat unimportant matter occupy two pages of the variorum editions. The question was treated by the commentators as one to be settled by the use of similar expressions by old authors, without inquiring into the essential differences of the things themselves. Nares, in

his Glossary, has put this matter right. A pix the casket which contains a sacred wafer-is not such an article as Bardolph could readily have stolen. The "pax of little price" is a small plate of wood or metal, with some sacred representation engraved upon it, tendered to the people to kiss at the conclusion of the mass. It was a substitute for the kiss of peace of the primitive church. The custom of kissing the pax is now disused: but such a relic of the Romish church was exhibited at the Society of Antiquaries in 1821.

16 SCENE VI.-"A beard of the general's cut."

Beards of particular cut had their appropriate names, and were sometimes characteristic of professions. The steeletto beard and the spade beard appear to have belonged to the military profession; though the cut of particular generals-setters of the fashion-might vary. Southampton is always represented with the steeletto beard,-Essex with the spade beard.

17 SCENE VI.-" There's for thy labour, Montjoy."

It was necessary in the days of chivalry not only to preserve the inviolable character of heralds, who often did the duties of ambassadors, but to reward them liberally, however unpleasant might be their messages. In his notes to 'Marmion,' Scott says, "So sacred was the herald's office, that, in 1515, Lord Drummond was by parliament declared guilty of treason, and his lands forfeited, because he had struck with his fist the Lion King-at-Arms when he reproved him for his follies. Nor was he restored, but at the Lion's earnest solicitations."

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"Suppose, that you have seen The well-appointed king at Hampton pier Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet

HISTORICAL.

With silken streamers the young Phœbus fanning."

It was not in Holinshed that Shakspere found a hint of the splendour of Henry's fleet. That Chronicler simply says, "When the wind came about prosperous to his purpose, he caused the mariners to weigh up anchors, and hoyse up sails." Speed, whose history of Great Britain was not published till 1611, speaking of Henry's second expedition into France, in 1417, describes the king as embarking in a ship whose sails were of purple silk most richly embroidered with gold. Neither Holinshed nor Hall, in their accounts of the second expedition, mention this circumstance. But our poet might have found the narrative of a somewhat similar pageantry in Froissart, where the French ships destined for the invasion of England, in 1387, are described as painted with the arms of the commanders and gilt, with banners, pennons, and standards of silk. The invading fleet of Henry V. consisted of between twelve and fourteen hundred vessels, of various sizes, from twenty to three hundred tons. On the 10th of August, 1415, the king embarked on board his ship, the "Trinity," beween Portsmouth and Southampton, and the whole fleet was under weigh on the 11th. By a curious error in the folio of 1623, the king "at Dover pier" embarks his royalty. Of course this was an error of the printer or transcriber, for the passage is incon

sistent with the chorus of the second Act. Warton tells us that amongst the records of the town of Southampton there is a minute and authentic account of the encampment before the embarkation, and that the low plain where the army lay ready to go on board is now entirely covered with sea, and called West Port.

The first Scene of this Act brings us at once before Harfleur. The negociations alluded to in the chorus had occurred at Winchester, in the July preceding the invasion. No opposition was made to the landing of Henry's army on the 14th, when the disembarkation took place at Clef de Caux (about three miles from Harfleur), before which place the fleet had arrived on the 13th. Sir H. Nicolas, in his 'History of the Battle of Agincourt,' has translated a very curious Latin manuscript in the Cotton collection, being the narrative of a priest who accompanied the expedition. In this narrative the landing is thus described: "The king, with the greater part of his army, landed in small vessels, boats, and skiffs, and immediately took up a position on the hill nearest Harfleur, having on the one side, on the declivity of the valley, a coppice wood towards the river Seine, and on the other enclosed farms and orchards." In the vignette at the head of Act III. we have given a view of the high grounds between Havre and Harfleur, as they now appear, clothed with their "coppice wood towards the river Seine." With this Illustration we also present a distant view of Harfleur. Both these interesting representa

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tions are from original sketches with which we have been favoured.

The siege of Harfleur is somewhat briefly described by Holinshed. The conduct of that enterprise was agreeable to the rules of war laid down by "Master Giles," the principal military authority of that period. The loss sustained by the besieging army was very great; and in a few days the English forces were visited by a frightful dysentery. Many of the most eminent leaders fell before its ravages. This was, probably, to be attributed to the position of the invading army; for, according to Holinshed, those who "valiantly defended the siege, damming up the river that hath his course through the town, the water rose so high betwixt the king's camp, and the Duke of Clarence's camp, divided by the same river, that the Englishmen were constrained to withdraw their artillery from one side." The mines and the counter-mines of Fluellen are to be found in Holinshed: "Daily was the town assaulted: for the Duke of Gloucester, to whom the order of the siege was committed, made three mines under the ground, and approaching to the walls with his engines and ordinance, would not suffer them within to take any rest.

For although they with their counter-mining somewhat disappointed the Englishmen, and came to fight with them hand to hand within the mines, so that they went no further forward with that work; yet they were so enclosed on each side, as well by water as land, that succour they saw could none come to them." Harfleur surrendered on the 22nd of September, after a siege of thirty-six days. The previous negociations between Henry and the governor of the town were conducted by commissioners. Shakspere, of course, dramatically brought his principal personage upon the scene, in the convention by which the town was surrendered. Holinshed, who in general has an eye for the picturesque, has no description of the gorgeous ceremony which accompanied the surrender; but such a description is found in the older narratives, which represent the king upon "his royal throne, placed under a pavilion at the top of the hill before the town, where his nobles and other principal persons, an illustrious body of men, were assembled in numbers, in their best equipments; his crowned triumphal helmet being held on his right hand upon a halbert-staff, by Sir Gilbert Umfreville." (Cotton MS.) The account of the loss which the

English army sustained, during the thirty-six days subsequent to its landing, would be almost incredible, if its accuracy were not supported by every conflicting testimony. It appears that if Henry landed with thirty thousand men, more than two-thirds must, during the short period of the siege, have been slain, have died of disease, or have been sent back to England as incapable of proceeding. The English army, when it quitted Harfleur, did not amount to much more than eight thousand fighting men. The priest who accompanied the expedition says, "There remained fit for drawing the sword or for battle not above nine hundred lancers, and five thousand archers." Monstrelet, and other French writers, rate the English forces at a much greater number.

"King Henry," says Holinshed, "after the winning of Harfleur, determined to have proceeded further to the winning of other towns and fortresses: but because the dead time of the winter approached it was determined by advice of his council, that he should in all convenient speed set forward, and march through the country towards Calais by land, lest his return as then homewards should of slanderous tongues be named a running away." From the contemporary writers it appears that this resolution was taken by Henry against the advice of his council. There was a chivalrous

hardihood in the resolve, which almost entirely covers its rashness. His trust, said the king, was in God; he was resolved to see the territories which were his own; he would not subject himself to the reproach of cowardice. "Our mind," said he, "is prepared to endure every peril, rather than they shall be able to breathe the slightest reproach against your king. We will go, if it pleases God, without harm or danger, and if they disturb our journey, we will frustrate their intentions with honour, victory, and triumph." The army commenced its perilous march about the 8th of October. The king, upon landing in France, had issued a proclamation forbidding, under pain of death, all plunder and other excesses. This proclamation was now renewed. The army was five days before it reached Abbeville. The bridges of the Somme were everywhere broken down; and the dispirited forces were, in consequence, compelled to march up the south bank of the river till they reached Nesle. There, over a temporary bridge, Henry at length crossed the Somme. The opposition to his march had now become most formidable. The daring character of his movement from Harfleur had roused the French from their supineness. The fifth Scene of this Act is a most spirited representation of the mingled contempt and anger with which the French nobility regarded Henry's progress

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