ever could authorize his attainment of it. Let tragedy-writers who make princes prate with pages and waiting-women of their murders and treasons, learn for once, from rude and illiterate Shakespear, how averse pride is coolly to confess, and prudence to betray, what the fever and deliriums of ambition have prompted us to do.

Falstaffe appears

with his former dispositions, but in new situations; and entertains us in a variety of scenes.

Hotspur is as it were revived to the spectator, in the following charactergiven of him by his lady, when she diffuades Northumberland from joining the forces of the archbishop.

Lady Percy.
Oh, yet for heav'n's fake, go not to these wars,
The time was, father, that you broke your word,
When you were more endear'd to it than now;
When your own Percy, when my heart-dear Harry,
Threw many a northward look, to see his father
Bring up his pow'rs ; but he did long in vain !

Who

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Who then persuaded you to stay at home?.
There were two honours loft ; yours and your son's,
For yours, may heav'nly glory brighten it !
For his, it struck upon him as the fun
In the grey vault of heav'n ; and by his light
Did all the chivalry of England move
To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass,
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
He had no legs, that practis'd not his gait;
And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
Became the accents of the valiant ;
For those, that could speak low and tardily,
Would turn their own perfection to abufe,
To seem like him: So that in speech, in gait,
In diet, in affections of delight,
In military rules, humours of blood,
He was the mark and glass, copy and book,
That fashion'd others. And him, wond'rous him!
O miracle of men! him did you leave
To look upon the hideous god of war
In disadvantage; to abide a field
Where nothing but the found of Hotspur's name
Did seem defensible. So you left him.
Never, O, never do his ghost the wrong,
To hold your honour more precise and nice

With ..

With others, than with Him, Let them alone:

The marshal and the archbishop are strong, i
Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
To-day might I (hanging on Hotspur's neck)
Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave

..

Justice Shallow is an admirably well drawn comic character, but he never appears better, than by reflection in the mirror of Falstaffe's wit, in whose descriptions he is most strongly exhibited. It is said by fome, that the Justice was meant for a particular gentleman, who had prosecuted the author for deer-stealing. I know not whether that story be well grounded. The Shallows are to be found every where, in every age: but they who have least character of their own, are most formed and modified by the fashion of the times, and by their peculiar profession or calling. So though we often meet with a resemblance to this Justice, we shall never find an exact parallel to him, now manners. are so much changed. -- History or Philosophy cannot better set forth the superior dan

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ger

ger

of a rebellion sanctified by the Church, than by the following words of Morton :

4

MORTON.
The gentle Archbishop of York is up
With well appointed powers. He is a man,
Who with a double furety binds his followers.
My lord, your fon had only but the corps,
But shadows, and the shews of men to fight;
For that same word, rebellion, did divide
The action of their bodies from their souls,
And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,
As men drink potions, that their weapons only
Seem'd on our side, but for their spirits and souls,
This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,

But now, the bishop
Turns insurrection to religion:
Suppos’d sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He's follow'd both with body and with mind,
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
Of fair King Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret stones;
Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;
Țells them he doth bestride a bleeding land
Gafping for life under great Bolingbroke :
And more, and less, do flock to follow him.

Nor

Nor can the indecency of a prelate's appearing in arms, and the abuse of an authority derived from the sacred function, be more strongly arraigned, than in the speeches of Westmorland, and John of Lancaster.

WESTMORLAND.

Then, my lord, Unto your grace do I in chief address The substance of my speech. If that rebellion Came like itself, in base and abject routs, Led on by, bloody youth, goaded with rage, And countenanc'd by boys and beggary ; I say, if damn'd commotion so appear’d In his true, native, and most proper shape, You, reverend father, and these noble lords, Had not been here to dress the ugly form Of base and bloody insurrection, With your fair honours. You, my lord archbishop, Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd, Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd, Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor’d, Whose white investments figure innocence, The dove and very blessed spirit of peace ;

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Wherefore