This play of Henry the Fifth, is the moral to the play of Henry the Fourth—for here, the jocund Prince of Wales, having become King of England, not only forsakes all his companions in vice; but hangs two or three of them.

The death of Falstaff also, told in a humourous, but most natural manner, will be as impressive, on some minds, as any of those scenes where the poet has frequently made state, pomp, or bitterest calamity, attendant on the dying man.—That pining obscurity in which the supercilious Sir John was compelled to live, when his royal comrade became ashamed of him, is a subject well worth the reflection of many a luckless parasite—and now, this stealing to his bed; stealing to his grave, without one tragic bustle, except that which his conscience makes, so well describes the usual decree of a neglected profligate, that every man, who thinks, will own the resemblance, and take the warning conveyed.

The disorderly conduct, and ensuing fate of Sir John Falstaff, is not a more excellent lesson for the dissipated and dishonourable, than the confidence of the French king and his court, in their prowess, b 2[Page 4]is instructive to ministers of state, and every puny politician. A dramatist, who had feigned occurrences, or who had not closely adhered to facts, as Shakspeare in this play has done, might have been charged with burlesquing the human character in the vainglory which is here given to France, and her consequent humiliation.

Fiction, from the pen of genius, will often appear more like nature, than nature will appear like herself. The admired speech invented by the author for King Henry, in a beautiful soliloquy just before battle, seems the exact effect of the place and circumstances with which he was then surrounded, and to be, as his very mind stamped on the dramatic page—and yet perhaps his majesty, in his meditations, had no such thoughts as are here provided for him;—but that his opponents had thoughts and expectations equally extravagant with those allotted to them, their every action evinced.

The incident of the soldier's glove has a degree of interest not only from itself, but that it shows some slight remainder of Falstaff's merry Hal, in the then great King of England.

The famed battle of Agincourt, which this play exhibits, was fought on the 25th of October,² the day of St. Crispin; to which one of the king's sentences alludes. Here fifteen thousand of the English only, it is said, defeated fifty-two thousand of the French.³ The consequences of this glorious victory were yet most horrible to the humane Britons; for the number of their prisoners amounting to more than their [Page 5]own triumphant army, they were commanded, even when the heat of contest had subsided, to put every Frenchman to death.⁴

Although the particular number of the forces which were engaged on either side, in this memorable combat, may be differently recorded by different historians; and the motive which induced the conqueror to slay his captives, may also be variously stated; yet it is certain that the French army were more than twice the number of the English, and that the English slew their prisoners.

Shakspeare was determined, in this drama, to expose every vanity of the Gallic⁵ foe to British ridicule—and thus—instantly after the slaughter of their numerous hosts—he displays the frivolous anxiety of the surviving nobility, by the herald Montjoy,⁶ in this address to Henry:— ——Great king,I come to thee for charitable license,That we may wander o'er this bloody field,To sort our nobles from our common men;For many of our princes (woe the while!)Lie drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood:So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbsIn blood of princes.⁷ space between stanzas

There is a judicious remark by a commentator on Shakspeare—"that he knows not why the Princess Katharine, in this play, should not be allowed to speak English, as well as all the other French."⁸

But had her royal highness been as fluent in speech as the rest of the characters, the poet had possibly failed of materials to have lengthened his last act to the expected number of pages. Dr. Johnson, in speaking of the evident deficiency of this act, most justly and forcibly says— The truth is, that the poet's matter failed him in the fifth act, and he was glad to fill it up with what he could get; and not even Shakspeare can write well without a proper subject. It is a vain endeavour for the most skilful hand to cultivate barrenness, or to paint upon vacuity.⁹

Notwithstanding some brilliant exploits of Henry the Fifth—the catastrophe of his life, and the final event of all his actions, may convey, to many a youthful debauchee, as good a moral as his total abandonment of his early associates.

The hero of Agincourt was in declining health, the effect of former intemperance, even on the spot where he gathered his laurels.¹⁰ He lived no more than three years after this renowned victory, and left no more than one child, who was dethroned and murdered.¹¹