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perhaps induced to that practice by the example of Shakespeare, who had condescended sometimes to copy more ignoble writers. But Shakespeare had more of his own than Fonfon, and if he fometimes was willing to fpare his labour, fhewed by what he performed at other times, that his extracts were made by choice or idleness rather than neceffity.

This play is one of those which Shakespeare has ap parently revifed; but as fuccefs in works of invention is not always proportionate to labour, it is not finifhed at laft with the happy force of fome other of his tragedies, nor can be faid much to affect the paffions, or enlarge the understanding.

KING HENRY IV. PART II.

I fancy every reader, when he ends this play, cries out with Desdemona, "O moft lame and impotent "conclufion!" As this play was not, to our knowledge, divided into acts by the author, I could be content to conclude it with the death of Henry the Fourth.

In that Jerufalem fhall Harry die.

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Thefe fcenes, which now make the fifth act of Henry the Fourth, might then be the firft of Henry the Fifth; but the truth is, that they do unite very commodioufly to either play. When these plays were reprefented, I believe they ended as they are now ended in the books; but Shakespeare feems to have defigned that the whole series of action from the beginning of Richard the Second, to the end of Henry the Fifth, fhould be confidered by the reader as one work,

upon

upon one plan, only broken into parts by the neceffity of exhibition.

None of Shakespeare's plays are more read than the Firft and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth. Perhaps no author has ever in two plays afforded fo much delight. The great events are interefting, for the fate of kingdoms depends upon them; the flighter occurrences are diverting, and, except one or two, fufficiently probable; the incidents are multiplied with wonderful fertility of invention, and the characters diverfified with the utmost nicety of difcernment, and the profoundest skill in the nature of man.

The prince, who is the hero both of the comick and tragick part, is a young man of great abilities and violent paffions, whofe fentiments are right, though his actions are wrong; whofe virtues are obfcured by negligence, and whofe understanding is diffipated by levity. In his idle hours he is rather loose than wicked; and when the occafion forces out his latent qualities, he is great without effort, and brave without tumult. The trifler is roufed into a hero, and the hero again reposes in the trifler. This character is great, original, and just.

Percy is a rugged foldier, cholerick, and quarrelfome, and has only the foldier's virtues, generofity and courage.

But Falstaff, unimitated, unimitable Falstaff, how fhall I defcribe thee? Thou compound of fenfe and vice; of fenfe which may be admired, but not esteemed; of vice which may be defpifed, but hardly detefted. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and with thofe faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief and a glutton, a coward L4

and

and a boafter, always ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous, and infult the defenceless. At once obfequious and malig nant, he fatirizes in their abfence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the prince only as an agent of vice, but of this familiarity he is fo proud, as not only to be fupercilious and haug ty with common men, but to think his intereft of importance to the duke of Lancaster. Yet the man thus corrupt, thus defpicable, makes himself neceffary to the prince that defpifes him, by the moft pleafing of all qualities, perpetual gaiety, by an unfailing power of exciting laughter, which is the more freely indulged, as his wit is not of the fplendid or ambitious kind, but confifts in eafy fcapes and fallies of levity, which make fport, but raife no envy. It must be observed, that he is ftained with no enormous or fanguinary crimes, fo that his licentioufnefs is not fo offenfive but that it may be borne for his mirth.

The moral to be drawn from this reprefentation is, that no man is more dangerous than he that, with a will to corrupt, hath the power to please; and that neither wit nor honefty ought to think themfelves fafe with fuch a companion, when they see Henry feduced by Falstaf

KING HENRY V.

This play has many fcenes of high dignity, and many of eafy merriment. The character of the king is well fupported, except in his courtship, where he has neither the vivacity of Hal, nor the grandeur of Henry. The humour of Pifol is very happily conti

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nued his character has perhaps been the model of all the bullies that have yet appeared on the English ftage.

The lines given to the Chorus have many admirers; but the truth is, that in them a little may be praifed, and much must be forgiven: nor can it be eafily difcovered why the intelligence given by the Chorus is more neceffary in this play than in many others where it is omitted. The great defect of this play is the emptinefs and narrowness of the last act, which a very little diligence might have easily avoided.

KING HENRY VI. PART I.

Of this play there is no copy earlier than that of the folio in 1623, though the two fucceeding parts are extant in two editions in quarto. That the fecond and third parts were publifhed without the firft, may be admitted as no weak proof that the copies were furreptitiously obtained, and that the printers of that time gave the publick thofe plays, not fuch as the author defigned, but fuch as they could get them. That this play was written before the two others is indubitably collected from the series of events; that it was written and played before Henry the Fifth is apparent, because in the epilogue there is mention made of this play, and not of the other parts:

Henry the fixth in fwaddling bands crown'd king,
Whose state so many had the managing

That they loft France, and made his England bleed,
Which oft our stage hath fhewn.

France

France is loft in this play. The two following contain, as the old title imports, the contention of the houfes of York and Lancaster.

The fecond and third parts of Henry VI. were printed in 1600 When Henry V. was written, we know not, but it was printed likewife in 1600, and therefore before the publication of the firft part: the first part of Henry VI. had been often fhewn on the ftage, and would certainly have appeared in its place had the author been the publisher.

KING HENRY VI. PART III.

The three parts of Henry VI. are fufpected, by Mr. Theobald, of being fuppofititious, and are declared, by Dr. Warburton, to be certainly not ShakeSpeare's. Mr. Theobald's fufpicion arifes from fome obfolete words; but the phraseology is like the rest of our author's ftyle, and fingle words, of which however I do not obferve more than two, can conclude little.

Dr. Warburton gives no reason, but I suppose him to judge upon deeper principles and more comprehensive views, and to draw his opinion from the general effect and spirit of the compofition, which he thinks inferior to the other hiftorical plays.

From mere inferiority nothing can be inferred; in the productions of wit there will be inequality. Sometimes judgment will err, and fometimes the matter itself will defeat the artist. Of every author's works one will be the beft, and one will be the worft. The colours are not equally pleafing, nor the attitudes equally graceful, in all the pictures of Titian or Reynolds.

Diffimilitude

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