are contradictory notions, and therefore alters the end of the line to ‘a cause on foot,' thereby making it a matter of real difficulty, as former conjectures show, to recover the original text, which we may now with some probability suppose to have run thus in sense and metre

'Yes, in this present quality of war.

Indeed the infant action, scarce on foot,
Lives so in hope, as in an early spring

We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant as despair,

That frosts will bite them.'

In like manner we may suppose that in Richard II., v. 51, Shakspere really wrote as follows:

"My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar

Their march on to mine eyes, the outward watch."

The original misprint was putting 'watches' for 'march.' When this was done,' their watches on to mine eyes' was seen by the corrector to be unmetrical; accordingly he made a sort of Alexandrine, by writing 'their watches on unto mine eyes.'

It seems possible to settle on this principle the reading of at least two disputed passages in Henry V. The first of these is Act ii. Prol. 34, in which Shakspere's words probably were

"Linger your patience on, and we'll defeat

The abuse of distance. For so foul a play
The sum is paid, the traitors are agreed."

Here the error arose simply enough. The first proof had 'force a foul a play,' and the corrector supposed 'foul a' to be a false repetition of 'force a,' and restored what appeared to be sense by omitting it. So again in ii. 2, 114, HENRY'S fine speech to the traitor SCROOP has probably been much damaged by similar treatment. (See the reasons given in the notes to the passage for supposing that it was corrupted by the change of 'deceiving' to 'being,' and the compensative insertion for the metre's

sake of 'and with ;' while by a second growth of blunders in line 118,' that tempter fiend' being misprinted to 'that tempered thee,' led to the further change of 'that stirred thee up' to 'bade thee stand up.') The passage, if corrected on this principle (which, be it remarked, is one of those prominently laid down by Madvig as justifying his mode of dealing with the text of Latin writers), would run as follows:

'All other devils that suggest by reasons

Do botch and bungle up damnation

With patches, colours, forms deceiving, fetched
From glistering semblances of piety;

But he, that tempter fiend that stirred thee up,
Gave thee no instance why thou should'st do treason,
Except to dub thee with the name of traitor.'

In no other play does Shakspere make so much use of the chorus-prologues as in Henry V. These are, as Gervinus remarks, written in a style half epic, half dramatic; something like what in Macbeth, i. 2, 43, is described as 'smacking of honour,' from its power of expressing, with a passionate fervour, the hold which the subject had on the hearts both of the poet and his hearers. So much did Garrick value these compositions that, instead of entrusting them to any inferior actor, he made a point of reciting them himself. The same kind of care is said to have been taken by Shakspere to hinder the chance of any buffoonery in the part of Fluellen, by assigning it to Hippisley, one of the very best actors of his company; who was sure to do justice to the character of the brave, simple-hearted, honourable Welshman.

It only remains to add that a few details as to the various great persons mentioned in the play are given in the next pages of this volume.

COLN ROGERS, August, 1880.

CHARACTERS IN HENRY V.

I. HENRY V., born at Monmouth, August 9, 1388; during his father's reign Lieutenant of Wales, Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Captain of the castles of Dover and Calais. Ascends the throne in 1413; the Agincourt campaign, 1415; second invasion and conquest of Normandy, 1417; Treaty of Troyes, and marriage, 1420.

2. CHARLES VI., king of France from 1380; mad, with short lucid intervals, from 1392 to his death in 1422; married, in 1383, to Isabella of Bavaria. Of his daughters, Isabella was married to Richard II., and Catharine to Henry V. He was surnamed Le Bien Aimé from the compassionate affection with which the people regarded

him.

3. LOUIS, the DAUPHIN, born 1395; ruled Paris during his father's madness; was not allowed to be at Agincourt; died, from the effect of irregular habits and debauchery, in 1416; succeeded as Dauphin by his brothers, first John, then Charles.

4. PHILIP, DUKE of BURGUNDY, became Duke, when his father, Jean Sans Peur, was murdered, in 1419, at the Bridge of Montereau, in the presence of the Dauphin Charles II.; after this he joined the English for the sake of vengeance, and by his means Catherine of France was married to Henry in 1420.

5. CHARLES, DUKE of ORLEANS, son of the Louis of Orleans who was killed in 1407 by Jean Sans Peur, and therefore nephew of Charles VI. After Agincourt, he was detained a prisoner in England for twenty-five years, that he might not push his claims to the French throne, and wrote many French poems in captivity.

6. CHARLES, DUC DE BOURBON, head of a family descended from Robert, the youngest son of S. Louis, many members of which had fought bravely against the English. From another branch of the same family sprang, in the sixteenth century, Antoine Duc de Vendôme, the father of Henry IV. of France, and the ancestor of the Bourbon dynasty.

7. CHARLES D'ALBRET, head of a great Gascon family which strongly supported the French crown in the South of France. As Constable he had the official command of the French army at Agincourt, and fell there. Jeanne d'Albret, Henry IV.'s mother, was of this family.

8. EDWARD, DUKE of YORK, cousin to Henry V.; called, first, Duke of Aumerle, and then Duke of Rutland, in Shakspere's Richard II., where he is vehemently accused of treason to Bolingbroke by his old father, Edmund of Langley, fifth son of Edward III.

9. HUMPHREY, DUKE of GLOUCESTER, third brother to Henry V. After Henry's death he contends, as we see in I Henry VI., with Cardinal Beaufort for the guardianship of the young king. Died, or was murdered, at Bury S. Edmund's, in 1447. (2 Henry VI., iii. 2.)

10. JOHN, DUKE of BEDFORD, second brother to Henry V., and Regent of France after his death. As guardian of England, he put Lord Cobham to death in 1417; and, as Regent of France, Joan of Arc in 1431.

II. THOMAS BEAUFORT, DUKE of EXETER, halfbrother to Henry IV., being a son of John of Gaunt by Catharine Swinford, and brother to Cardinal Beaufort. His real title at Agincourt was Earl of Dorset, as he was raised to his dukedom only in 1416.

12. THOMAS CHICHELE, ARCHBISHOP of CANTERBURY from 1414; consulted on the war because he had been employed, as Bishop of St. David's, in arranging the former armistice with France. Founder, in 1437, of All Saints' College, Oxford.

13. THOMAS MONTACUTE, EARL of SALISBURY, killed by a shot at Orleans (1 Henry VI., i. 4). His daughter had married a younger son of the Earl of Westmoreland, who appears, in 2 and 3 Henry VI., as Earl of Salisbury in her right.

14. RICHARD BEAUCHAMP, EARL of WARWICK (called “Nevile" by mistake in 2 Henry IV., iii. 1). Afterwards preceptor to Henry VI., and Regent of France, on the death of the Duke of Bedford, in 1435.

15. RALPH NEVILLE, EARL of WESTMORELAND, had married Joanna Beaufort, daughter of John of Gaunt, and was related to Chief Justice Gascoigne (2 Henry IV., iv. 2); distinguished at the Battle of Shrewsbury (1403), also for the stratagem by which he captured Scrope and Mowbray in 1405.

16. JOHN FORDHAM, successor as Bishop of Ely to Archbishop Arundel; died in 1426.