always attends the rupture of that peace, in the cultivation of which nationality is best displayed.

In the inferior persons of the play-the comic charactersthe poet has displayed that power which he, above all men, possesses, of combining the highest poetical conceptions with the most truthful delineations of real life. In the amusing pedantry of Fluellen, and the vapourings of Pistol, there is nothing in the slightest degree incongruous with the main action of the scene. The homely bluntness of the common soldiers of the army brings us still closer to a knowledge of the great mass of which a camp is composed. Perhaps one of the most delicate but yet most appreciable instances of Shakspere's nationality, in all its power and justice, is the mode in which he has exhibited the characters of these common soldiers. They are rough, somewhat quarrelsome, brave as lions, but without the slightest particle of anything low or grovelling in their composition. They are fit representatives of the "good yeomen, whose limbs were made in England." On the other hand, the discriminating truth of the poet is equally shown in exhibiting to us three arrant cowards in Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph. His impartiality could afford to paint the bullies and blackguards that even our nationality must be content to reckon as component parts of every

army.

We proceed to notice some of the incidents of this great lyrical drama which are built upon historical circumstances.

The conspiracy of Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, against Henry V., is minutely detailed in Holinshed. Shakspere has followed the statement of the Chronicler, that the prisoners confessed that they had received a great sum of money from the French king, to deliver Henry into the hands of his enemies, or to murder him. It appears, however, by the verdict of the jury (for the prisoners were not summarily executed, as described in the play and the Chronicle), that it was their intention to proclaim Edward, earl of March rightful heir to the crown in case Richard II. was actually dead.

The embarkation of Henry for the invasion of France, is magnificently described in the Chorus to Act III. Holinshed simply says, "When the wind came about prosperous to his purpose, he caused the mariners to weigh up anchors and hoyse up sails." In the records of the town of Southampton there is a minute account of the encampment before the embarkation. The whole fleet was under weigh on the 4th Aug. 1415; and the landing was effected about three miles from Harfleur on the 14th. The siege of Harfleur is somewhat briefly described by Holinshed. The loss sustained by the besieging army was

very great; and in a few days the English forces were visited by a frightful dysentery. Many of the most eminent leaders fell before its ravages. This was, probably, to be attributed to the position of the invading army; for, according to Holi shed, those who "valiantly defended the siege, damming upt.: river that hath his course through the town, the water rose s high betwixt the king's camp, and the Duke of Clarence camp, divided by the same river, that the Englishmen wer constrained to withdraw their artillery from one side." T mines and the countermines of Fluellen are to be found b Holinshed. Harfleur surrendered on the 22nd of Septemb after a siege of thirty-six days. The previous negotiations tween Henry and the governor of the town were conducted commissioners. Shakspere, of course, dramatically brought principal personage upon the scene, in the convention by wh the town was surrendered. Holinshed, who in general has eye for the picturesque, has no description of the gorge ceremony which accompanied the surrender; but such a scription is found in the older narratives, which represent king upon his royal throne, placed under a pavilion at ✨top of the hill before the town, where his nobles and oft principal persons, an illustrious body of men, were assemb in numbers, in their best equipments; his crowned trium helmet being held on his right hand upon a halbert-staff. Sir Gilbert Umfreville." (Cotton MS.) The account of loss which the English army sustained, during the thirtydays subsequent to its landing, would be almost incredibia its accuracy were not supported by every conflicting testime It appears, that if Henry landed with thirty thousand E more than two-thirds must, during the short period of siege, have been slain, have died of disease, or have been back to England as incapable of proceeding. The Eng army, when it quitted Harfleur, did not amount to much than eight thousand fighting men.

The magnificent Chorus of this Act presents such a vivid ture of the circumstances that marked the eve of the battle Agincourt, that even if they were not, for the most part, s ported by authentic history, it would be impossible to dis sess ourselves of the belief that they were true. "The Frenc according to Holinshed, "were very merry, pleasant, and of game "-"the English made peace with God in confess their sins."-Holinshed also mentions the French playin dice for the English prisoners. But the narratives of Mors let and of St. Remy are much more minute than Holins and in one or two small particulars they differ from that of poet.

It is unnecessary for us to follow the Chroniclers, or the more minute contemporary historians, through their details of the fearful carnage and victory of Agincourt. We may, however, put the facts shortly before our readers, as they may be collected from Sir H. Nicolas's elaborate and careful history of the battle

The fighting men of France wore "long coats of steel, reaching to their knees, which were very heavy; below these was armour for their legs; and above, white harness, and bacinets, with camails." They were drawn up between two woods, in a space wholly inadequate for the movements of such an immense body; and the ground was soft from heavy rains. It was with the utmost difficulty they could stand or lift their weapons. The horses at every step sunk into the mud. Henry formed his little band in one line, the archers being posted between the wings, in the form of a wedge, with sharp stakes fixed before them. The king, habited in his "cote d'armes," mounted a small gray horse; but he subsequently fought on foot. He addressed his troops with his usual spirit. Each army remained inactive for some hours. A truce was at length proposed by the French. The reply of Henry, before an army ten times as great as his own, differed little from the terms he had offered In his own capital. Towards the middle of the day the order was given to the English to advance, by Henry crying aloud, Advance banners.' Sir Thomas de Erpyngham, the comnander of the archers, threw his truncheon into the air, exlaiming, "Now strike!" The English immediately prostrated hemselves to the ground, beseeching the protection of Heaven, nd proceeded in three lines on the French army. The archers f Henry soon put the French cavalry in disorder: and the vhole army rushing on, with the national huzza, the archers hrew aside their bows, and slew all before them with their billooks and hatchets. The immense number of the French ›roved their ruin. The battle soon became a slaughter; and he harnessed knights, almost incapable of moving, were hacked o pieces by the English archers, "who were habited in jackets, nd had their hosen loose, with hatchets or swords hanging rom their girdles, whilst many were barefooted and without ats." The battle lasted about three hours. The English "stood n the heaps of corpses, which exceeded a man's height;" the 'rench, indeed, fell almost passive in their lines. Henry, at ne period of the battle, issued an order for the slaughter of is prisoners. Even the French writers justify this horrible ircumstance, as an act of self-preservation. The total loss f the French was about ten thousand slain on the field; at of the English appears to have been about twelve hun

dred. Most of the dead were afterwards buried in enormous trenches.

The English king conducted himself with his accustomed dignity to his many illustrious prisoners. The victorious army marched to Calais in fine order, and embarked for England. without any attempt to follow up their almost miraculous triumph. Henry reached Calais on the 29th of October, and ez the 17th of November landed at Dover. He entered Londe amidst the most expensive pageantry of the citizens, contrast ing with the studied simplicity of his own retinue and de meanor, on Saturday the 24th of November.

KING HENRY VI.

PARTS I. II. III.

In the humble house of Shakspere's boyhood there was, in s probability, to be found a thick squat folio volume, then sec thirty years printed, in which might be read, "what miser what murder, and what execrable plagues this famous regi hath suffered by the division and dissension of the renow houses of Lancaster and York." This book was 'Ha Chronicle.' With the local and family associations that m have belonged to his early years, the subject of the f dramas that relate to the dissension of the houses of Lancas and York, or rather the subject of this one great drama in f parts, must have irresistibly presented itself to the mind Shakspere, as one which he was especially qualified to thr into the form of a chronicle history. It was a task peculiar fitted for the young poet during the first five years of his a nection with the theatre. Historical dramas, in the rude form, presented unequalled attractions to the audiences. flocked to the rising stage. He had not here to invent a pl or to aim at the unity of action, of time, and of place, wh the more refined critics of his day held to be essential to t gedy. The form of a chronicle history might appear to requ little beyond a poetical exposition of the most attractive in of the real Chronicles. It is in this spirit, we think, t Shakspere approached the execution of the First Part 'Henry VI.' It appears to us, also, that in that very es performance he in some degree held his genius in subord tion to the necessity of executing his task rather with r ence to the character of his audience and the general nat of his subject than for the fulfilment of his own aspirations

a poet. There was before him one of two courses. He might have chosen, as the greater number of his contemporaries chose, to consider the dominions of poetry and of common sense to be far sundered; and, unconscious or doubtful of the force of simplicity, he might have resolved, with them, to substitute what would more unquestionably gratify a rude popular taste,—the force of extravagance. On the other hand, it was open to him to transfer to the dramatic shape the spiritstirring recitals of the old chronicle writers; in whose narratives, and especially in that portion of them in which they make their characters speak, there is a manly and straighforward earnestness which in itself not seldom becomes poetical. Shakspere chose this latter course. When we begin to study che 'Henry VI.,' we find in the First Part that the action does not appear to progress to a catastrophe; that the author lingers about the details, as one who was called upon to exhibit an entire series of events rather than the most dramatic portions of them; there are the alternations of success and loss, and loss and success, till we somewhat doubt to which side to assign the victory. The characters are firmly drawn, but without any very subtle distinctions, and their sentiments and actions appear occasionally inconsistent, or at any rate not guided by a determined purpose in the writer. But although the effect may be, to a certain extent, undramatic, there is impressed upon the whole performance a wonderful air of truth. Much of this must have resulted from the extraordinary quality of the poet's mind, which could tear off all the flimsy conventional disguises of individual character, and penetrate the real moving principle of events with a rare acuteness, and a rarer impartiality. In our view, that whole portion of the First Part of 'Henry VI.' which deals with the character and actions of Joan of Arc is a remarkable example of this power In Shakspere. He knew that, with all the influence of her supernatural pretension, this extraordinary woman could not have swayed the destinies of kingdoms, and moulded princes and warriors to her will, unless she had been a person of very rare natural endowments. She was represented by the Chroniclers as a mere virago, a bold and shameless trull, a monster, a witch;—because they adopted the vulgar view of her character, —the view, in truth, of those to whom she was opposed. They were rough soldiers, with all the virtues and all the vices of heir age; the creatures of brute force; the champions, inHeed, of chivalry, but with the brand upon them of all the elfish passions with which the highest deeds of chivalry were oo invariably associated. The English Chroniclers, in all that egards the delineation of characters and manners, give us