We speak
only as dramatic critics. Whatever terror the French in those days
might have of Henry V, yet to the readers of poetry at present,
Falstaff is the better man of the two. We think of him and quote him
oftener.
HENRY V
Henry V is a very favourite monarch with the English nation, and he
appears to have been also a favourite with Shakespeare, who labours
hard to apologize for the actions of the king, by showing us the
character of the man, as 'the king of good fellows'. He scarcely
deserves this honour. He was fond of war and low company:--we know
little else of him. He was careless, dissolute, and ambitious--idle,
or doing mischief. In private, he seemed to have no idea of the
common decencies of life, which he subjected to a kind of regal
license; in public affairs, he seemed to have no idea of any rule of
right or wrong, but brute force, glossed over with a little
religious hypocrisy and archiepiscopal advice. His principles did
not change with his situation and professions. His adventure on
Gadshill was a prelude to the affair of Agincourt, only a bloodless
one; Falstaff was a puny prompter of violence and outrage, compared
with the pious and politic Archbishop of Canterbury, who gave the
king carte blanche, in a genealogical tree of his family, to rob and
murder in circles of latitude and longitude abroad--to save the
possessions of the Church at home.
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