Recover breath; tell us how near is danger, That we may arm us to encounter it. York. Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know The treason that my haste forbids me show. Aum. Remember, as thou read'st, thy promise past: I do repent me; read not my name there, Boling. Good aunt, stand up. Duch. Nay, do not say-stand up; York. It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down. The word is short, but not so short as sweet; I tore it from the traitor's bosom, king; Boling. O heinous, strong, and bold conspiracy! O loyal father of a treacherous son! a Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain, York. So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd; Boling. What shrill-voic'd suppliant makes this eager cry? Duch. A woman, and thine aunt, great king; 't is I. Speak with me, pity me, open the door : A beggar begs that never begg'd before. Boling. Our scene is alter'd,-from a serious thing, And now chang'd to "The Beggar and the King." My dangerous cousin, let your mother in; I know she's come to pray for your foul sin. York. If thou do pardon, whosoever pray, More sins, for this forgiveness, prosper may. This fester'd joint cut off, the rest rests sound; This, let alone, will all the rest confound. Enter DUCHESS. Duch. O king, believe not this hard-hearted man; Love, loving not itself, none other can. York. Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here? [Ill mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!] Our knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow: Our prayers do out-pray his; then let them have Sheer means separated unmingled, free from admixture and thus pure. No word like pardon, for kings' mouths so meet. York. Speak it in French, king: say, pardonnez moy, Duch. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy? Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord, That sett'st the word itself against the word! Speak, pardon, as 't is current in our land; The chopping French we do not understand. Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there : Or, in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear; That, hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce, Pity may move thee pardon to rehearse. Boling. Good aunt, stand up. Duch. I do not sue to stand, Pardon is all the suit I have in hand. Boling. I pardon him, as heaven shall pardon me. Duch. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee! Yet am I sick for fear: speak it again; Twice saying pardon doth not pardon twain, But makes one pardon strong. Boling. I pardon him. With all my heart Duch. A god on earth thou art. Boling. But for our trusty brother-in-law, and the Exton. And, speaking it, he wistly look'd on me; As who should say,-I would thou wert the man That would divorce this terror from my heart; Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let's go; I am the king's friend, and will rid his foe. [Exeunt. SCENE V.-Pomfret. The Dungeon of the Castle. K. Rich. I have been studying how to compare I cannot do it ;-yet I'll hammer it out. a Chopping French. Chopping is here used in the sense of changing, which is derived from cheaping, trafficking. We still say a chopping wind. And these same thoughts people this little world; As thus-Come, little ones; and then again,- [Music. Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears." Groom. Hail, royal prince! Thanks, noble peer; The analogies used by the unhappy prisoner may appear forced, and somewhat obscure; but it must be observed that, throughout the character of Richard. the poet has made him indulge in those freaks of the imagination which belong to weakness of character. Jeck o' the clock. An automaton, such as formerly constituted one of the wonders of London before St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street. Sed dog.-Sad is here used in the sense of grave, gloomy. Groom. I was a poor groom of thy stable, king, When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York, With much ado, at length have gotten leave To look upon my sometimes royal master's face. O, how it yearn'd my heart, when I beheld, In London streets that coronation day, When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary! That horse that thou so often hast bestrid; That horse that I so carefully have dress'd! K. Rich. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend, How went he under him? Groom. So proudly as if he had disdain'd the ground. K. Rich. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back! That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand; This hand hath made him proud with clapping him. Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down, (Since pride must have a fall,) and break the neck Of that proud man that did usurp his back? Forgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee, Since thou, created to be aw'd by man, Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse; And yet I bear a burthen like an ass, Spur-gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing a Bolingbroke. A Enter Keeper, with a dish. Keep. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay. [To the Groom. K. Rich. If thou love me, 't is time thou wert away. Groom. What my tongue dares not that my heart shall say. [Exit. Keep. My lord, will 't please you to fall to? K. Rich. Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do. Keep. My lord, I dare not; Sir Pierce of Exton, who Lately came from the king, commands the contrary. K. Rich. The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee! Enter EXTON, and Servants, armed. K. Rich. How now? what means death in this rude assault? Villain, thine own hand yields thy death's instrument. [Snatching a weapon, and killing one. Go thou, and fill another room in hell. He kills another, then ExTON strikes him down. Exton. As full of valour as of royal blood: [Dies. [Ex. SCENE VI.-Windsor. A Room in the Castle. Flourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE and YORK, with Lords and Attendants. Boling. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear Is, that the rebels have consum'd with fire Our town of Cicester in Glostershire; But whether they be ta'en, or slain, we hear not. a Jauncing.-Richard compares himself to a spur-galled beast that Bolingbroke rides.-Jauncing-jaunting-hurriedly moving Bolingbroke. It is possible, however, that it may be a cʊu. traction of joyauncing. Enter NORTHUMBERLAND. Welcome, my lord: what is the news? North. First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness. The next news is,-I have to London sent The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent: The manner of their taking may appear At large discoursed in this paper here. [Presenting a paper. Boling. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains; And to thy worth will add right worthy gains. Enter FITZWATER. Fitz. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London The heads of Brocas, and sir Bennet Seely; Two of the dangerous consorted traitors That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow. Boling. Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot; Right noble is thy merit, well I wot. Enter PERCY with the BISHOP OF CARLISLE. Percy. The grand conspirator, abbot of Westminster, With clog of conscience and sour melancholy, Hath yielded up his body to the grave; But here is Carlisle living, to abide Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride. Boling. Carlisle, this is your doom :Choose cut some secret place, some reverend room, More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life; So, as tho liv'st in peace, die free from strife: : For though mine enemy thou hast ever been, High sparks of honour in thee have I seen. Enter EXTON, with Attendants bearing a coffin. Boling. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought A deed of slander, with thy fatal hand, Exton. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed. Boling. They love not poison that do poison need, Nor do I thee; though I did wish him dead, I hate the murtherer, love him murthered. The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour, But neither my good word, nor princely favour: With Cain go wander through the shade of night, And never show thy head by day nor light. Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow : Come, mourn with me for that I do lament, And put on sullen black, incontinent; I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land, To wash this blood off from my guilty hand :March sadly after; grace my mourning here, In weeping after this untimely bier. [Exeunt. PARTS I. AND II. 6 THE first edition of Henry IV., Part I.,' appeared in the time when he gave us his own idea of Henry of 1598. Five other editions were printed before the folio Monmouth,—and when we know that nearly all the of 1623. The first edition of Henry IV., Part II.,' historians up to the time of Shakspere took pretty much appeared in 1600. Another edition was issued the the same view of Henry's character,--we may, perhaps, same year. No subsequent edition appeared till the be astonished to be told that Shakspere's fascinating refolio of 1623. The text of the folio, from which we presentation of Henry of Monmouth, "as an historical print, does not materially differ from the original portrait, is not ouly unlike the original, but misleading quartos, in the First Part. In the Second Part there and unjust in essential points of character."* Shakare large additions, and those some very important pas- spere was, in truth, the only man of his age who rejected sages, in the folio. the imperfect evidence of all the historians as to the character of Henry of Monmouth, and nobly vindicated him even from his on biographers, and, what was of more importance, from the coarser traditions embodied in a popular drama of Shakspere's own day. Shakspere found the stage in possession of a rude drama, The Famous Victories of Henry V.,' upon the foundation of which he constructed not only his two Parts of Henry IV.,' but his 'Henry V.' That old play was acted prior to 1588; Tarleton, a celebrated comic actor, who played the clown in it, having died in that year. It is, in many respects, satisfactory that this very extraordinary performance has been preserved. None of the old dramas exhibit in a more striking light the marvellous reformation which Shakspere, more than all his contemporaries, produced in the dramatic amusements of the age of Elizabeth. Of The Famous Victories of Henry V.,' the comic parts are low buffoonery, without the slightest wit, and the tragic monotonous stupidity, without a particle of poetry. And yet Shakspere built upon this thing, and for a very satisfactory reason-the people were familiar with it. nions are In the play of The Famous Victories of Henry V.' we have, as already mentioned, the character of "Sir John Oldcastle." This personage, like all the other companions of the prince in that play, is a low, worthless fellow, without a single spark of wit or humour to relieve his grovelling profligacy. But he is also a very insignificant character, with less stage business than even "Ned" and "Tom." Dericke, the clown, is, indeed, the leading character throughout this play. Altogether, Oldcastle has only thirty lines put in his mouth in the whole piece. We have no allusion to his being fat; we hear nothing of his gluttony. Malone, however, calls this Sir John Oldcastle "a pampered glutton." It is a question whether this Oldcastle, or Jockey, suggested to Shakspere his Falstaff. We cannot discover the very slightest similarity; although Malone decidedly says, "Shakspere appears evidently to have caught the idea of the character of Falstaff from a wretched play entitled 'The Famous Victories of King Henry V.'" But Malone is arguing for the support of a favourite theory. Rowe has noticed a tradition that Falstaff was written originally under the nane of Oldcastle. This opinion would receive some confirmation from the fact that Shakspere has transferred other names from the old play, Ned, Gadshill,—and why not, then, Oldcastle? The prince in one place calls Falstaff "my old lad of the castle;" but this may In 'The Famous Victories' we are introduced. to the 'young Prince" in the opening scene. His compa"Ned," "Tom," and "Sir John Oldcastle," who bears the familiar name of "Jockey." They have been committing a robbery upon the king's receivers; and Jockey informs the prince that his (the prince's) man hath robbed a poor carrier. The plunder of the receivers amounts to a thousand pounds; and the prince worthily says, "As I am a true gentleman, I will have the half of this spent to-night." He shows his gentility by calling the receivers villains and rascals. The prince is sent to the "counter" by the Lord Mayor. "Gadshill," the prince's man, who robbed the carrier, is taken before the Lord Chief Justice; and the young prince, who seems to have got out of the counter as sud-be otherwise explained. The Sir John Oldcastle of denly as he got in, rescues the thief. The scene ends with the Chief Justice committing Henry to the Fleet. He is, of course, released. “But whither are ye going now?" quoth Ned. "To the court," answers the true gentleman of a prince, “for I hear say my father lies very sick. The breath shall be no sooner out of his mouth but I will clap the crown on my head." To the court he goes, and there 'ne bully becomes a hypocrite. The great scene in The Second Part of Henry IV.,' "I never thought to hear you speak again," is founded, probably, upon a passage in Holinshed; but there is a similar scene in The Famous Victories.' It is, perhaps, the highest attempt in the whole play. And now that we have seen what the popular notion of the conqueror of Agincourt was at the period when Shakspere began to write, and, perhaps, indeed, up to history, Lord Cobham, was, as is well known, one of the most strenuous supporters of the Reformation of Wickliffe; and hence it has been argued that the original name of Shakspere's fat knight was offensive to zealous Protestants in the time of Elizabeth, and was accordingly changed to that of Falstaff. Whether or not Shakspere's Falstaff was originally called Oldcastle, he was, after the character was fairly established as Falstaff, anxious to vindicate himself from the charge that he had attempted to represent the Oldcastle of history. In the epilogue to 'The Second Part of Henry IV. we find this passage :-"For anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man." Henry of Monmouth,' by J. Endell Tyler, B.D., vol. i. page 356. |