1 SCENE I.-" Busky hill."

THE hill which rises over the battle-field near Shrewsbury, is called Haughmond hill. Mr. Blakeway says that Shakspere has described the ground as accurately as if he had surveyed it. "It still merits the appellation of a bosky hill."

2 SCENE I.-"As that ungentle gull the cuckoo's bird Useth the sparrow," &c.

Shakspere was a naturalist in the very best sense of the word. He watched the great phenomena of nature, the economy of the animal creation, and the peculiarities of inanimate existence; and he set these down with almost undeviating exactness, in the language of the highest poetry. Before White, and Jenner, and Montagu had described the remarkable proceedings of the cuckoo, Shakspere here described them, as we believe from what he himself saw. But let us analyze this description: -"being fed by us, you used us so

As that ungentle gull the cuckoo's bird
Useth the sparrow."

Pliny was the only scientific writer upon natural history that was open to Shakspere. We are no believers, as our readers may have collected, in the common opinion of Shakspere's want of learning; and we hold, therefore, that he might have read Pliny in Latin, as we think he read other books. The first English translation of Pliny, that of Philemon Holland, was not published till 1601; this play was printed in 1598. Now, the description of the cuckoo in Pliny is, in many respects, very different from the description before us in Shakspere. "They always," says the Roman naturalist, "lay in other birds' nests, and most of all in the stock dove's." In a subsequent part of the same passage, Pliny mentions the titling's nest, but not a word of the sparrow's. It was reserved for very modern naturalists to find that the hedgesparrow's nest was a favourite choice of the old cuckoo. Dr. Jenner, in 1787, says, "I examined the nest of a hedge-sparrow, which then contained a cuckoo and three hedge-sparrow's eggs." Colonel Montagu also found a cuckoo, "when a few days old, in a hedge-sparrow's nest, in a garden close to a cottage." Had Shakspere not observed for himself, or, at any rate, not noted the original observations of others, and had taken his description from Pliny, he would, in all probability have mentioned the stock dove or the titling. In Lear we have the "hedge-sparrow." But let us see further— -"did oppress our nest."

The word oppress is singularly descriptive of the operations of the "ungentle gull." The great bulk of the cuckoo, in the small nest of the hedgesparrow, first crushes the proper nestlings; and the instinct of the intruder renders it necessary that they should be got rid of. The common belief, derived from the extreme voracity of the cuckoo, (to which we think Shakspere alludes when he calls it a gull--gulo) has led to an opinion, that it eats the young nestlings Pliny says, expressly, that it devours them. How remarkable is it, then, that Shakspere does not allude to this belief! He

makes Worcester simply accuse Henry, that he "did oppress our nest." Had Shakspere's natural history not been more accurate than the popular belief, he would have made Worcester reproach the king with actually destroying the proper tenants of the nest. The Percies were then ready to accuse him of the murder of Richard. We, of course, do not attempt to assert that Shakspere knew the precise mode in which the cuckoo gets rid of its cohabitants. This was first made known by Dr. Jenner. But, although Shakspere might not have known this most curious fact, the words, "did oppress our nest are not inconsistent with the knowledge. The very generality of the words is some proof that he did not receive the vulgar story of the cuckoo eating his fellow-nestlings. The term, "oppress our nest," is also singularly borne out by the observations of modern naturalists; for nests in which a cuckoo has been hatched have been found so crushed and flattened, that it has been almost impossible to determine the species to which they belonged.

"Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk,

That even our love durst not come near your sight,
For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing,
We were enforc'd, for safety sake, to fly
Out of your sight."

We have here an approach to the inaccuracy of the old naturalists. Pliny, having made the cuckoo devour the other nestlings, says, that the mother at last shares the same fate, for "the young cuckoo being once fledged and ready to fly abroad, is so bold as to seize on the old titling, and to eat her up that hatched her." Even Linnæus has the same story. But Shakspere, in so beautifully carrying on the parallel between the cuckoo and the king, does not imply that the grown cuckoo swallowed the sparrow, but that the sparrow, timorous of "so great a bulk," kept aloof from her nest, "durst not come near for fear of swallowing." The extreme avidity of the bird for food is here only indicated; and Shakspere might himself have seen the large fledged "gull" eagerly thrusting forward its open mouth, while the sparrow fluttered about the nest, where even its "love durst not come near." This extraordinary voracity of the young cuckoo has been ascertained beyond a doubt; but that it should be carnivorous is perfectly impossible for its bill is only adapted for feeding on caterpillars and other soft substances. But that its insatiable appetite makes it apparently violent, and, of course, an object of terror to a small bird, we have the evidence of that accurate observer, Mr. White of Selborne. He saw "a young cuckoo hatched in the nest of a titlark; it was become vastly too big for its nest, appearing

:

To have stretched its wings beyond the little nest,' and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger, as I teased it, for many feet from the nest, sparring and buffeting with its wings like a game cock. The dupe of a dam appeared at a distance, hovering about with meat in her mouth, and expressing the greatest solicitude." In the passage before us Shakspere, it appears to us, speaks from

"KING HENKY," says Holinshed, "advertised of the proceedings of the Percies, forthwith gathered about him such power as he might make, and passed forward with such speed that he was in sight of his enemies lying in camp near to Shrewsbury before they were in doubt of any such thing." The Percies, according to the Chronicler, sent to the king the celebrated manifesto which is contained in Hardyng's Chronicle. The substance of the charges contained in this manifesto are repeated in Hotspur's speech to Sir Walter Blunt in the fourth Act. The interview of Worcester with the king, and its result, are thus described by Holinshed: "It was reported for a truth that now when the king had condescended unto all that was reasonable at his hands to be required, and seemed to humble himself more than was meet for his estate, the Earl of Worcester, upon his return to his nephew, made relation clean contrary to that the king had said:"

"O, no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard,-
The liberal kind offer of the king."

In the Chroniclers, Hotspur exhorts the troops;

Shakspere clothes the exhortation with his own poetical spirit.

"Now,-Esperancé!-Percy!--and set on."

is found in the Chroniclers:-"The adversaries cried Esperance, Percy." The danger of the king, and the circumstance of others being caparisoned like him, are also mentioned by Holinshed.

The prowess of Prince Henry in this his first great battle is thus described by Holinshed: "The Prince that day holp his father like a lusty young gentleman, for although he was hurt in the face with an arrow, so that divers noble men that were about him would have conveyed him forth of the field, yet he would in no wise suffer them so to do, lest his departure from his men might haply have stricken some fear into their hearts; and so, without regard of his hurt, he continued with his men, and never ceased, either to fight where the battle was most hottest, or to encourage his men where it seemed most need."

The personal triumph of Henry over Hotspur is a dramatic creation, perfectly warranted by the obscurity in which the Chroniclers leave the matter.