for a bard to bestow upon the creatures of his fancy, when truth of description is sacrificed to brilliant impossibilities.

The reader who is too refined to laugh at the wit of Sir John, must yet enjoy Hotspur's picture of a coxcomb; and receive high delight from those sentences of self-reproach, and purpose of amendment, which occasionally drop from the lips of the youthful and royal profligate.

If the licentious faults of old-fashioned dialogue should here too frequently offend the strictly nice, they must, at least, confer the tribute of their praises upon every soliloquy. It is impossible for puritanism not to be merry, when Falstaff is ever found talking to himself, or holding discourse over the honoured dead. It is nearly as impossible for stupidity to be insensible of the merit of those sentiments delivered by the prince over the same extended corse; or to be unmoved by various other beauties with which this work abounds.

In order to form a proper judgment of the manners and conversations of the characters in this play, and to partake of their genuine spirit, the reader must keep in mind that the era, in which all those remarkable personages lived, thought, spoke, and acted, has now been passed more than four hundred years. The play begins with the news of Hotspur having defeated the Scots, under the Earl of Douglas, which battle was fought on the 14th of September, 1402; and it closes with the defeat and death of Hotspur, which happened on the 21st of

July, 1403—thus comprising every event here introduced within the time of ten months.

It will be vain to endeavour to prevent many tender-hearted readers, who sigh over the horrors of a battle, from wishing that the prince's challenge to Hotspur had produced the single combat he desired, and that the victory of the day had been so decided.

Such tender and compassionate persons should not suffer their estimation of honour thus to sink into an equality with the cowardly Falstaff's; but they should call to mind-that, though it was, in ancient times, considered as a token of valour, for a prince at the head of an army, to challenge to single contest the chief warrior on the opposite side, yet, in modern days, when a powerful monarch threw his gauntlet down to save the effusion of blood, this act of selfsacrifice was considered as a token of mere mad

ness.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

KING HENRY IV.

THE FIRST PART.

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I.

The Palace in London.

Flourish of Trumpets and Drums.

KING HENRY, PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, EARL OF WESTMORELAND, SIR RICHARD VERNON, SIR WALTER BLUNT, and other GENTLEMEN, discovered.

K. Hen. So shaken as we are, so wan with care, Find we a time for frighted peace to pant. No more the thirsty entrants of this soil Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood; No more shall trenching war channel her fields, Nor bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs Of hostile paces :

Therefore, friends,

As far as to the sepulchre of Christ

Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,
To chase these pagans, in those holy fields,
Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet,
Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nail'd,
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.

But this our purpose now is twelvemonth old,
And bootless 'tis to tell you-we will go:
Therefore we meet not now.-Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree,
In forwarding this dear expedience.

West. My liege, this haste was hot in question,
And many limits of the charge set down
But yesternight: when, all athwart, there came
A post from Wales, laden with heavy news;
Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welchman taken,
And a thousand of his people butchered.

K. Hen. It seems, then, that the tidings of this broil

Brake off our business for the Holy Land.

West. This, match'd with other, did, my gracious lord;

For more uneven, and unwelcome news,

Came from the north, and thus it did import:
On Holy-rood day, the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,
That ever-valiant and approved Scot,

At Holmedon met,

Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour;
As by discharge of their artillery,

And shape of likelihood, the news was told;
For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention, did take horse,
Uncertain of the issue any way.

K. Hen. Here is a dear, a true-industrious friend,