would appear to have been derived from the following very curious passage in Holinshed, though it really refers to Henry's entry into London. "The king, like a grave and sober personage, and as one remembering from whom all victories are sent, seemed little to regard such vaine pompe and shewes as were in triumphant sort devised for his welcoming home from so prosperous a journie; insomuch that he would not suffer his helmet to be carried before him, whereby might have appeared to the people the blowes and dints that were to be seene in the same: neither would he suffer any ditties to be made and sung by minstrels of his glorious victorie, for that he would have the praise and thanks altogether given to God." In our Illustrative Comments on Act V. of "Richard II." we referred to this play our notice of the removal of the deposed king's body from Abbot's Langley to Westminster, in A.D. 1414. That ceremony appears to have been one of the earliest acts of Henry V. and he refers to it as an act of penitential restitution, in his speech immediately before the battle of Agincourt, Act IV. Sc. 1 :— Not to-day, O Lord, O! not to-day, think not upon the fault Shakespeare derived the materials of this speech partly from Holinshed, and partly from the contemporaneous chronicler Fabyan. The former historian says that "when the king had settled things much to his purpose, he caused the bodie of King Richard to be removed, with all funerall dignities convenient to his estate, from Langley to Westminster, where he was honourablie interred, with Queen Anne, his first wife, in a solemne toome, made and set up at the charges of this king. Polychronicon saith that after the bodie of the dead king was taken up out of the earth, this new king, happily tendering the magnificence of a prince, and abhorring obscure buriall, caused the same to be conveied to Westminster in a roiall seat or chaire of estate, covered all over with black velvet, and adorned with banners of divers armes round about." Fabyan adds that "after a solemne terrement there holden, he provided that fower tapers should bren day and night about his grave while the world endureth; and one day in the weeke solempne Dirige, and upon the morowe a masse of Requiemsong by note: after which masse ended to be geven wekely unto the poore people an xis. and viii. pense, in pense. And upon the daye of his anniversary, after the saide masse of Requiem-song, to be yerely distributed for his soule, xx pounde in pense." But notwithstanding Holinshed's praise of the princely disposition which Henry V. exhibited towards the remains of Richard II. it seems to be almost certain that, so far as related to the translation of his body to Westminster, it was only restoring to him the occupation of his own sepulchre. His will proves that the tomb had been actually erected during his own life; and there are in Rymer's Fodera two indentures made for its erection, between Richard and Henry Yevell and Stephen Lote, Citizens and Masons of London, and Nicholas Broker and Godfrey Prest, Citizens and Coppersmiths. There is but one other point requiring illustration, which refers to the meaning of Henry in saying, “More will I do," in the way of satisfaction for the death of Richard II.: and a passage in the Chronicles of Monstrelet shews that, like his father, he designed another crusade. When Henry was informed that he could not live more than two hours, he "sent for his confessor, some of his household, and his chaplains, whom he ordered to chaunt the Seven Penitential Psalms. When they came to Benedic fac Domine,' where mention is made of the Muri Hierusalem,' (Psalm li. 18,) he stopped them, and said aloud that he had fully intended, after he had wholly subdued the realm of France to his obedience and restored it to peace, to have gone to conquer the kingdom of Jerusalem, if it had pleased his Creator to have granted him longer life." In the play also, in his courtship of the Princess Katharine, Act V. Sc. 2, Henry makes the following humorous reference to the same intention:-"Shall not thou and I, between St. Denis and St. George, compound a boy, half French, half English, that shall go to Constantinople and take the Turk by the beard? Shall we not? What sayest thou, my fair flowerde-luce?" CHORUS. ACT V. (1) A mighty whiffler.] The term is supposed by some to be derived from whiffle, a name for a fife or flute; and whifflers, Douce surmises, were originally those who preceded armies or processions as fifers or pipers. Other authorities derive it from while, to disperse as by a puff of wind, and affirm that a whiffler, in its original signification, meant a staff-bearer. In the old play of "Clyomen, Knight of the Golden Shield," &c. 1599, a whiffler presents himself at the tourney, clearing a passage for the king; and in Day's "Ile of Gulls," 1606, Miso says:-" And Manasses shall goe afore like a whiffler, and make way with his horns." (1) SCENE II.-Come, your answer in broken music.] "Broken music," says Mr. Chappell, who was the first to explain the term, "means the music of stringed instruments, in contradistinction to those played by wind. The term originated probably from harps, lutes, and such other stringed instruments as were played without a bow, not having the capability to sustain a long note to its full duration of sound." See also Popular Music of the Olden Time, vol. i. p. 246. Shakespeare quibbles on the expression in "Troilus and Cressida," Act ÎII. Sc. 1:— "Fair prince, here is good broken music;" proving, as Mr. Chappell remarks, that the musicians on the stage were then performing on stringed instruments. And again in " As You Like It," Act I. Sc. 2:— "But is there any else longs to see this broken music in his sides?" CRITICAL OPINIONS ON KING HENRY THE FIFTH. "KING HENRY THE FIFTH is manifestly Shakspeare's favourite hero in English history: he paints him as endowed with every chivalrous and kingly virtue; open, sincere, affable, yet, as a sort of reminiscence of his youth, still disposed to innocent raillery, in the intervals between his perilous but glorious achievements. However, to represent on the stage his whole history subsequent to his accession to the throne, was attended with great difficulty. The conquests in France were the only distinguished event of his reign; and war is an epic rather than a dramatic object. For wherever men act in masses against each other, the appearance of chance can never wholly be avoided; whereas it is the business of the drama to exhibit to us those determinations which, with a certain necessity, issue from the reciprocal relations of different individuals, their characters and passions. In several of the Greek tragedies, it is true, combats and battles are exhibited, that is, the preparations for them and their results; and in historical plays war, as the ultima ratio regum, cannot altogether be excluded. Still, if we would have dramatic interest, war must only be the means by which something else is accomplished, and not the last aim and substance of the whole. For instance, in Macbeth, the battles which are announced at the very beginning merely serve to heighten the glory of Macbeth and to fire his ambition: and the combats which take place towards the conclusion, before the eyes of the spectator, bring on the destruction of the tyrant. It is the very same in the Roman pieces, in the most of those taken from English history, and, in short, wherever Shakspeare has introduced war in a dramatic combination. With great insight into the essence of his art, he never paints the fortune of war as a blind deity who sometimes favours one and sometimes another; without going into the details of the art of war, (though sometimes he even ventures on this,) he allows us to anticipate the result from the qualities of the general, and their influence on the minds of the soldiers; sometimes, without claiming our belief for miracles, he yet exhibits the issue in the light of a higher volition: the consciousness of a just cause and reliance on the protection of Heaven give courage to the one party, while the presage of a curse hanging over their undertaking weighs down the other. In Henry the Fifth no opportunity was afforded Shakspeare of adopting the last-mentioned course, namely, rendering the issue of the war dramatic; but he has skilfully availed himself of the first.-Before the battle of Agincourt he paints in the most lively colours the light-minded impatience of the French leaders for the moment of battle, which to them seemed infallibly the moment of victory; on the other hand, he paints the uneasiness of the English King and his army in their desperate situation, coupled with their firm determination, if they must fall, at least to fall with honour. He applies this as a general contrast between the French and English national characters; a contrast which betrays a partiality for his own nation, certainly excusable in a poet, especially when he is backed with such a glorious document as that of the memorable battle in question. He has surrounded the general events of the war with a fulness of individual, characteristic, and even sometimes comic features. A heavy Scotchman, a hot Irishman, a well-meaning, honourable, but pedantic Welshman, all speaking in their peculiar dialects, are intended to show us that the warlike genius of Henry did not merely carry the English with him, but also the other natives of the two islands, who were either not yet fully united or in no degree subject to him. Several good-for-nothing associates of Falstaff among the dregs of the army either afford an opportunity for proving Henry's strictness of discipline, or are sent home in disgrace. But all this variety still seemned to the poet insufficient to animate a play of which the subject was a conquest, and nothing but a conquest. He has, therefore, tacked a prologue (in the technical language of that day a chorus) to the beginning of each act. These prologues, which unite epic pomp and solemnity with lyrical sublimity, and among which the description of the two camps before the battle of Agincourt forms a most almirable night-piece, are intended to keep the spectators constantly in mind, that the peculiar grandeur of the actions described cannot be developed on a narrow stage, and that they must, therefore, supply, from their own imaginations, the deficiencies of the representation. As the matter was not properly dramatic, Shakspeare chose to wander in the form also beyond the bounds of the species, and to sing, as a poetical herald, what he could not represent to the eye, rather than to cripple the progress of the action by putting long descriptions in the mouths of the dramatic personages. The confession of the poet that "four or five most vile and ragged foils, right ill-disposed, can only disgrace the name of Agincourt," (a scruple which he has overlooked in the occasion of many other great battles, and among others of that of Philippi,) brings us here naturally to the question how far, generally speaking, it may be suitable and advisable to represent wars and battles on the stage. The Greeks have uniformly renounced them: as in the whole of their theatrical system they proceeded on ideas of grandeur and dignity, a feeble and petty imitation of the unattainable would have appeared insupportable in their eyes. With them, consequently, all fighting was merely recounted. The principle of the romantic dramatists was altogether different: their wonderful pictures were infinitely larger than their theatrical means of visible execution; they were everywhere obliged to count on the willing imagination of the spectators, and consequently they also relied on them in this point. It is certainly laughable enough that a handful of awkward warriors in mock armour, by means of two or three swords, with which we clearly see they take especial care not to do the slightest injury to one another, should decide the fate of mighty kingdoms. But the opposite extreme is still much worse. If we in reality succeed in exhibiting the tumult of a great battle, the storming of a fort, and the like, in a manner any way calculated to deceive the eye, the power of these sensible impressions is so great that they render the spectator incapable of bestowing that attention which a poetical work of art demands; and thus the essential is sacrificed to the accessory. We have learned from experience, that whenever cavalry combats are introduced, the men soon become secondary personages beside the four-footed players. Fortunately, in Shakspeare's time, the art of converting the yielding boards of the theatre into a riding course had not yet been invented. He tells the spectators in the first prologue in Henry the Fifth: Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them When Richard the Third utters the famous exclamation, A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse! it is no doubt inconsistent to see him both before and afterwards constantly fighting on foot. It is however better, perhaps, that the poet and player should by overpowering impressions dispose us to forget this, than by literal exactness to expose themselves to external interruptions. With all the disadvantages which I have mentioned, Shakspeare and several Spanish poets have contrived to derive such great beauties from the immediate representation of war, that I cannot bring myself to wish they had abstained from it. A theatrical manager of the present day will have a middle course to follow: his art must, in an especial manner, be directed to make what he shows us appear only as separate groups of an immense picture, which cannot be taken in at once by the eye; he must convince the spectators that the main action takes place behind the stage; and for this purpose he has easy means at his command in the nearer or more remote sound of warlike music and the din of arms. "However much Shakspeare celebrates the French conquest of Henry, still he has not omitted to hint after his way, the secret springs of this undertaking. Henry was in want of foreign war to secure himself on the throne; the clergy also wished to keep him employed abroad, and made an offer of rich contributions to prevent the passing of a law which would have deprived them of the half of their revenues. His learned bishops consequently are as ready to prove to him his indisputable right to the crown of France, as he is to allow his conscience to be tranquillized by them. They prove that the Salic law is not, and never was, applicable to France; and the matter is treated in a more succinct and convincing manner than such subjects usually are in manifestoes. After his renowned battles, Henry wished to secure his conquests by marriage with a French princess; all that has reference to this is intended for irony in the play. The fruit of this union, from which two nations promised to themselves such happiness in future, was the weak and feeble Henry VI., under whom every thing was so miserably lost. It must not, therefore, be imagined that it was without the knowledge and will of the poet that a heroic drama turns out a comedy in his hands, and ends in the manner of Comedy with a marriage of convenience."-SCHLEGEL. |