For well you know, we of the offending fide
Muft keep aloof from ftrict arbitrament,

And ftop all fight-holes, every loop, from whence
The eye of reafon may pry in upon us.

This abfence of your father draws a curtain,
That fhews the ignorant a kind of fear,
Before not dreamt upon.

The gallant fpirit of Hotfpur is well fhewn in his reply:

You ftrain too far ;

I rather of his abfence make this ufe-
It lends a luftre and more great opinion,

A larger dare to our great enterprize,

Than if the earl were here; for men muft think,
If we, without his help, can make a head

To push against the kingdom; with his aid,
We fhall o'erturn it topfy-turvy down.

Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.

Upon this occafion Dowglas makes a boast, which though intended by him as an exclufive compliment to his own nation, may be challenged as the general characteristic of Great Britain at large. Dowglas, in continuation of Hotspur's speech:

As heart can think-there is not such a word
Spoke of in Scotland, as this term of fear.

ACT V. SCENE I.

Upon a parley or convention, held between the chiefs of the two parties, Worcester enumerates the feveral grievances of the nation that had induced the Percy family to rife in arms for redrefs. In reply to these charges, the King gives a very juft account of the nature, pretences, and artifices of rebellion.

King. These things, indeed, you have articulated,
Proclaimed at market-croffes, read in churches,
To face the garment of rebellion,

With fome fine colour that may please the eye
Of fickle changelings, and poor difcontents,
Which gape and rub the elbow at the news
Of hurly-burly innovation.

And never yet did infurrection want
Such water-colours to impaint its cause,

Nor

Nor moody beggars, ftarving for a time
Of pell-mell hayock and confufion.

The liberal mind and brave heart of the Prince of Wales are beautifully marked in the following fpeech, where he makes a generous encomium on Hotspur, and fends him a fpirited defiance to fingle combat, at the fame time.

Prince to Worcester.

In both our armies there is many a foul
Shall pay full dearly for this bold encounter,
If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew,
The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world
In praife of Henry Percy. By my hopes,
This prefent enterprize fet off his head,
I do not think a braver gentleman,
More active-valiant, or more valiant-young,
More daring, or more bold, is now alive,
To grace this latter age with noble deed.
For my part, I may speak it to my shame,
I have a truant been to chivalry;
And fo, I hear, he doth account me too.
Yet this, before my father's majetty-
I am content that he fhall take the odds
Of his great name and estimation,
And will, to fave the blood on either fide,
Try fortune with him in a fingle fight.

The arguments of cowardice are whimsically dif cuffed and expofed, in the following paffage. The Prince, juft as he goes out, fays to Falstaff,

Why, thou oweft Heaven a death.

Upon which the fat Knight takes occafion to hold this humorous foliloquy with himself :

Falfaff. 'Tis not due, yet-I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be fo forward with him, that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter; honour pricks me on; but how if honour pricks me off again, when I come on? Can honour fet to a leg? No-Or an arm? No-Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no fkill in furgery, then? No - What is honour? A word-What is that word Honour? Air-A trim reckoning

reckoning-Who hath it? He that died on Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No-Doth he hear it? No-Is it infenfible then? Yea, to the dead-But will it not live with the living? No-Why? Detraction will not fuffer it. Therefore, I'll none of it-Honour is but a meer fcutcheon, and fo ends my catechifm.

SCENE III.

When the King has made the proffer of a general amnesty to the confpirators, the natural diftruit and diffidence which rebels muft ever labour under, is well defcanted upon in this Scene.

Wercefer. It is not poffible, it cannot be,
The king fhould keep his word in loving us;
He will fufpect us ftill, and find a time
To punish this offence in other faults.
Sufpicion, all our lives, fhall be fuck full of eyes;
For treafon is but trufled like a fox,.

Who ne'er fo tame, fo cherished, and locked up,
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.
Look how we can, or fad, or merrily,
Interpretation will inifquote our looks;
And we hall feed like oxen at a fall,

The better cherished, ftill the nearer death.

If the Reader will take the trouble to revert to the laft obfervation on the fourth Scene in the First Act of this Play, he will meet with a like reflection there, made by the fame perfon. This repetition is a ftroke of Nature given us by the Poet, to shew the perturbation of fpirits, and diftruft of mind, which perfons in his fituation are ever fenfible of. But, indeed, this reflection may more generally be applied to every fpecies of vice; for in guilt there can be no peace within, nor confidence without.

SCENE IX.

The magnanimity of the Prince of Wales is preferved throughout his character. After he has flain Hotspur, he makes his elegy in these words: Prince. Brave Percy-Fare thee well, great heart! Ill-weaved ambition †, how much art thou fhrunk!

The batchment, placed over the door of a perfon deceased.'

A metaphor taken from cloth, which ferinks when it is woven with too loofe a contexture, Johnfon.

Q

When

When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too fmall a bound;
But now two paces of the vileft earth,

Is room enough. This earth, that bears thee dead,
Bears not alive fo ftout a gentleman—

If thou wert fenfible of courtesy,

I should not make fo great a fhew of zeal-
But let my favour hide thy mangled form,
And, even in thy behalf, I thank myself,
For doing these fair rites of tendernefs.

[Throwing his fearf over him,
Adieu, and take thy praife with thee to heaven;
Thy ignominy fleep with thee in the grave,
But not remembered in thy epitaph.

POST SCRIPT.

I thought that my tafk was done with this Play, when I had got to the end of it; but there is fomething fo very great, fingular, and attractive, in the two principal characters of this hiftoric piece, that I find a pleasure in keeping them still in view, and contemplating them both in my mind.

Whenever Hotspur or the Prince filled the Scene, which they are either of them, fingly, fufficient to do, I confess that my heart was fenfible of such an emotion, as Sir Philip Sidney faid he used to be affected with, on a perufal of the old Ballad of Chevy-Chafe; as if he had heard the found of a trumpet. Perhaps the following obfervation may better account for my impulfe:

Women are apt to esteem the antient virtue of courage at an higher rate than men in general are; and this, for these two efpecial two especial reasons. The firft, that it is peculiarly neceffary to their perfonal defence; and the next, that their weaknefs induces them to form a fublimer notion of this quality, than the ftronger, and therefore braver, fex may naturally be fuppofed to compliment it with. Men, feeling the principles of it in their own breasts, conceive no very fupernatural idea of it; while

women,

women, having no fuch premiffes to reafon from, look on it as fomething more than human.

These reflections, with the frequent occafions I have had, thoughout this Play, of comparing the two heroes of it with each other, have tempted me to undertake a Parallel between them, after the manner of Plutarch; which, however, I did not mean to have given the Reader, as hinted above, 'till I fhould come to the end of the second Play after this, where our Author has concluded all he had to say about Henry the Fifth.

But as Shakespeare has opened enough of this Prince's character, here, to fupply fufficient materials for the comparison, and that his unfortunate rival is juft flain, I thought the Parallel might have a better effect on the mind of my Readers, in this place, than it would be likely to produce after the delay had fuffered the impreffion of Hotfpur's qualities to wear out of their remembrance.

A PARALLEL

BETWEEN

HOTSPUR, AND HENRY PRINCE OF WALES.

THEY are both equally brave; but the courage of Hotfpur has a greater portion of fiercenefs in itThe Prince's magnanimity is more heroic. The first resembles Achilles; the latter is more like Hector. The different principles, too, of their actions help to form and justify this diftinction; as the one invades, and the other defends, a right. Hotspur speaks nobly of his rival Dowglas, to his face, but after he is become his friend; the Prince does the fame of Hotfpur, behind his back, and while he is ftill his

enemy.

They both of them poffefs a sportive vein of humour in their fcenes of common life; but Hotfpur ftill preferves the furly and refractory haughtinefs of his character, throughout, even in the relaxa