corrupted. The unities of action and place are sufficiently preserved.




HENRY IV

None of Shakespeare's plays are more read than the first and second
parts of Henry the fourth. Perhaps no authour has ever in two
plays afforded so much delight. The great events are interesting,
for the fate of kingdoms depends upon them; the slighter occurrences
are diverting, and, except one or two, sufficiently probable; the
incidents are multiplied with wonderful fertility of invention, and
the characters diversified with the utmost nicety of discernment,
and the profoundest skill in the nature of man.

The prince, who is the hero both of the comick and tragick part,
is a young man of great abilities and violent passions, whose
sentiments are right, though his actions are wrong; whose virtues
are obscured by negligence, and whose understanding is dissipated
by levity. In his idle hours he is rather loose than wicked, and
when the occasion forces out his latent qualities, he is great
without effort, and brave without tumult. The trifler is roused into
a hero, and the hero again reposes in the trifler. This character
is great, original, and just. Piercy is a rugged soldier, cholerick,
and quarrelsome, and has only the soldier's virtues, generosity
and courage.

But Falstaff unimitated, unimitable Falstaff, how shall I describe
thee? Thou compound of sense and vice; of sense which may be