Enter PEMBROKE. Pem. His highness yet doth speak; and holds belief, That, being brought into the open air, It would allay the burning quality Of that fell poison which assaileth him. P. Hen. Let him be brought into the orchard here.Doth he still rage? Pem. He is more patient P. Hen. O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes, Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, [Exit BIGOT. Confound themselves. 'Tis strange, that death should sing. I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death; And, from the organ-pipe of frailty, sings His soul and body to their lasting rest. Sal. Be of good comfort, prince; for you are born To set a form upon that indigest, Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude. Re-enter BIGOT and Attendants, who bring in KING JOHN, in a chair. K. John. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room; It would not out at windows, nor at doors. P. Hen. How fares your majesty ? K. John. Poison'd,-ill fare;-dead, forsook, cast off'; And none of you will bid the winter come, To thrust his icy fingers in my maw; Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course Through my burn'd bosom; nor entreat the north And comfort me with cold:-I do not ask you much, P. Hen. O, that there were some virtue in my tears, K. John. Is, as a fiend, confin'd to tyrannize On unreprievable condemned blood. Enter FAULCONBRIDGE. Faul. O, I am scalded with my violent motion, K. John. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye: Faul. The dauphin is preparing hitherward; Where, heaven he knows, how we shall answer him: [The KING dies. Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear. My liege! my lord !-But now a king,-now thus. P. Hen. Even so must I run on, and even so stop. What surety of the world, what hope, what stay, When this was now a king, and now is clay! Faul. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind, And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven, Now, now, you stars, that move in your right spheres, And instantly return with me again, To push destruction, and perpetual shame, Out of the weak door of our fainting land: Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought; The dauphin rages at our very heels. Sal. It seems, you know not then so much as we: The cardinal Pandulph is within at rest, Who half an hour since came from the dauphin; Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already; With whom yourself, myself, and other lords, If you think meet, this afternoon will post Faul. Let it be so:-And you, my noble prince, P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interr'd; Faul. Thither shall it then. And happily may your sweet self put on To whom, with all submission, on my knee, And true subjection everlastingly. Sal. And the like tender of our love we make, To rest without a spot for evermore. P. Hen. I have a kind soul, that would give you thanks, And knows not how to do it, but with tears. Faul. O, let us pay the time but needful woe, Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.- But when it first did help to wound itself. Now these her princes are come home again, And we shall shock them: Nought shall make us rue, [Exeunt. KING HENRY IV. The chronicles of Hollingshed and Stowe, appear to have been the sources from which Shakspeare drew the materials for constructing his series of English Historical Plays, adding, however, characters and incidents from his own teeming imagination, and heightening the real personages he introduces, with all the vivid touches of his excelling skill. In the first and second parts of Henry IV, appears that marvel of his creative genins, Falstaff,-who is aptly made the leader of the dissolute set of profligates which surrounded the young Prince, afterwards Henry V. An isolated extract could not do justice to this inimitable creation; we have, therefore, preferred to confine our selections to the historical incidents of the Play. "The transactions contained in it are comprised within the period of about ten months. The action commences with the news brought of Hotspur having defeated the Scots under Archibald earl of Douglas, at Holmedon (or Halidown-hill), which battle was fought on Holyrood day (the 14th of September), 1402; and it closes with the defeat and death of Hotspur at Shrewsbury; which engagement happened on Saturday the 21st of July (the eve of Saint Mary Magdalen), in the year 1403," Lady PERCY, wife to Hotspur, and sister to Mortimer. Lady MORTIMER, daughter to Glendower, and wife to Mortimer. Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, Two Carriers, SCENE, ENGLAND. ACT I. King Henry sends for Hotspur, to give an account of his conduct at the Battle of Holmedon. SCENE.-London, a Room in the Palace. Enter KING HENRY, NORTHUMBERLAND, WORCESTER, HOTSPUR, Sir WALTER BLUNT, and others. K. Hen. My blood hath been too cold and temperate, And you have found me; for, accordingly, Which the proud soul ne'er pays, but to the proud. Wor. Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves The scourge of greatness to be used on it; And that same greatness too which our own hands North. My lord, K. Hen. Worcester, get thee gone, for I see danger And disobedience in thine eye: Ö, sir, Your presence is too bold and peremptory, And majesty might never yet endure The moody frontier of a servant brow. You have good leave to leave us; when we need You were about to speak. [Exit WORCESTER. [TO NORTH. Yea, my good lord. North. Either envy, therefore, or misprision |