INTRODUCTION BY F. J. FURNIVALL, M.A., Ph.D., D.Litt. ASSISTED BY JOHN MUNRO KING HENRY THE FOURTH, Part II.,1 is not up to the spirit and freshness of the First Part; all continuations do fall off, and this is no exception to the rule. How are Hotspur and the first impression of Falstaff to be equalld? Even Shallow cannot make up for them. There's a quieter tone, too, in this Part II., though the rhetorical speeches are still kept up by Northumberland and Mowbray. The king leads, not at the head of his army, but in his quiet progress to the grave. The most striking speech in the play is Henry the Fourth's on sleep-to be set against Hotspur's fiery words in Part I. And as illustrating the change in Shakspere's manner of work as he grew, let us set this sleep-speech (III. i., p. 89) of the Second Period against the sleep-speech of the Third Period 2 : Probably written 1597-8. Enterd in the Stationers' Registers August 23, 1600: publisht in Quarto in 1600. The Folio text is from a different original, having many lines that are not in the Quarto, while the Quarto contains passages not in the Folio. The play ranges from Hotspur's death, July 23, 1403, to Henry V.'s accession, March 21, 1413 (1412-13). Its dramatic time is nine days, represented on the stage, with three extra Falstaffian days, and with intervals; for the whole, "a couple of months would be a liberal estimate."-P. A. Daniel, New Shaks. Soc. Trans., 1877-9, pp. 288-9. Ten Brink adopted this contrast from me. "How many thousand of my poorest subjects Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody? And in the visitation of the winds Who take the ruffian billows by the top, To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude; Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down ! "Macb. Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no Macbeth does murder sleep! the innocent sleep; Contrast in the Second Period the single idea and its elaboration, though justified by Henry's meditative |