Enter CHORUS. Thus far, with rough, and all unable pen, Mangling by starts the full course of their glory 22. Small time, but, in that small, most greatly liv'd This star of England: fortune made his sword; By which the world's best garden 23 he achiev'd, And of it left his son imperial lord. Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd king Of France and England, did this king succeed; Whose state so many had the managing, That they lost France, and made his England bleed: Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake, In your fair minds let this acceptance take. [Exit. 21 Our bending author.' That is, unequal to the weight of his subject, and bending beneath it. Thus Milton, in his Apology for Smectymnus, speaking of Bishop Hall: In a strain as pitiful-manifested a presumptuous undertaking with weak and unexamined shoulders.' 22 Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.' That is, by touching only on select parts. 23 i. e. France. A similar distinction is bestowed on Lombardy in The Taming of the Shrew: 'The pleasant garden of great Italy,' THIS play has many scenes of high dignity, and many of easy merriment. The character of the king is well supported, except in his courtship, where he has neither the vivacity of Hal, nor the grandeur of Henry. The humour of Pistol is very happily continued his character has perhaps been the model of all the bullies that have yet appeared on the English stage. The lines given to the Chorus have many admirers; but the truth is, that in them a little may be praised, and much must be forgiven; nor can it be easily discovered why the intelligence given by the Chorus is more necessary in this play than in many others where it is omitted. The great defect of this play is the emptiness and narrowness of the last act, which a very little diligence might have easily avoided. JOHNSON. END OF VOL. V. C. and C. Whittingham, College House, Chiswick. |