KING HENRY THE FOURTH. This play in its first and second parts may be con sidered, as one play, though as in all sequels, the second is 'lacking in the freshness and per-, fection of the first. The two plays were writ ten at the time when Shakespeare was corn. pleting his series of historical dramas and comedies. By combining these two types in one play he achieves one of his greatest triumphs. At first sight the two types of, drama might be thought incompatible, but by the connection of Prince Hal with Falstaff and his companions on the one hand and with the great historical characters and incidents on the other, the suc cess is complete.
In the two plays Shakespeare's ability to re produce for his age the outstanding figures English history reaches its climax. They are not only a link in the chain of his other histor= ical plays, but they throw a light over them. We have here all the pomp and circumstance of war — chivalry reaching its climax in the fig ures of Hotspur and Prince Hal. We have revolutions, wars, conspiracies and rebellions; in fact every incident is connected with some great and memorable movement. If Henry the Fourth is cold and restrained and his court conventional, he yet represents the unity of England, against which the Hotspur and his comrades fight in vain. But the real hero of the plays — and one of the heroes of English, people ever since they were written — is Prince Hal, who °passes from the gay and giddy youth of idle pleasure into wise counsel, mag nanimous sentiment and heroic action? In these plays, as in 'Henry the Fifth,' he Shakespeare's ideal man of action, with a hold upon the life of the nation and a personal mag netism that have endeared him to English hearts. Popular as were the, historical por tions of these plays, from the very beginning Falstaff was perhaps the chief point of inter est. In the title pages to both plays the °hu morous conceits of John Falstaff° were fea tured. The traditional story of Prince Hal in relation to the boisterous companions of his youth and the complete change in his life when he came into manhood was challenge to Shakespeare's creative imagination. It is clear that the genius of Falstaff, his inexhaustible humor and imagination, is a sufficient reason for the fascination that he had for Prince Hal. The companions of Falstaff real figures con veying the manners of their class, not only in the Middle Ages but in the Elizabethan Age— are necessary instruments in the plot, but they furnish no adequate explanation of the Prince's wild escapades. Falstaff is as supreme a comic
character as Hamlet and King Lear in their roles. He openly assumes the character of braggart, coward and glutton that he may en joy the play of his imagination; he is an actor in himself. His physical properties are in per fect harmony with his intellect; his resource-. fulness is inexhaustible. Whether disputing with the hostess about his bills or'his promises of marriage, or explaining his running away from the robbers, or justifying his words against the .Prince, or answering the condem nation of the Chief Justice, or characterizing his ragged regiment of soldiers, he has a range of ideas, a happiness of fancy and a genius of expression that are beyond all praise. °He is a comic Hamlet, stronger in practical resource and hardly • less rich in thought, and without any of his melancholy? He is the exuberance of good humor and good nature; he nourishes his mind with jest as he does his body with sack and sugar. He is not only witty, but the cause of wittiness that is in others. His 'say ings have become proverbs, while his acts are almost beyond the power of any actor to re produce.
The difficult problem in the relation of Prince Hal and Falstaff is the almost cruel speech that the former makes when he be comes king and banishes his old comrade. This is clearly anticipated, however, in the opening act of the first part when the Prince compares himself to the sun, and his companions • to the abase, contagious clouds that smother up his beauty from the world? Without the words in which his father and Hotspur are so pro lific, the Prince has inherent in him a substan tial seriousness that must eventually cause him to escape from the irresponsibility of his youth. He is a judge of Falstaff's humor, even as the dramatist was himself. Falstaff endeavors (to coruscate away the realities of life; he be lieves that the facts and laws of the world may be bated or set at defiance, if only the re sources of inexhaustible wit be called upon to supply by brilliant ingenuity whatever de ficiencies may be found in character and con duct? Therefore Shakespeare condemned Falstaff inexorably, and so did Prince Hal when he faced the responsibilities of leading a great nation.