O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention !
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and, at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and
fire,

Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits, that have + dar'd,
On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth
So great an object. Can this cock-pit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram,
Within this wooden O, the very casques,"
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest, in little place, a million;

And let us, cyphers to this great accompt,

On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose, within the girdle of these walls
Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,
Whose high-upreared and abutting frouts
The perilous, narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance:

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth:
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our
kings;

Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times;
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass; for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;

Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

a The very casques,-] The mere helmets.

ELY. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
CANT. It must be thought on.
If it pass

against us,

We lose the better half of our possession:
For all the temporal lands, which men devout
By testament have given to the church,
Would they strip from us; being valued thus,-
As much as would maintain, to the king's honour,
Full fifteen earls, and fifteen hundred knights;
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
And, to relief of lazars and weak age,
Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,
A hundred alms-houses, right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the king beside,

A thousand pounds by the year. Thus runs the bill.

ELY. This would drink deep.
CANT.

'T would drink the cup and all.

ELY. But what prevention?
CANT. The king is full of grace and fair regard.
ELY. And a true lover of the holy church.
CANT. The courses of his youth promis'd it not.
The breath no sooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem'd to die too: yea, at that very moment,
Consideration, like an angel, came,

And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him;
Leaving his body as a paradise,

To envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made;
Never came reformation in a flood,

With such a heady currance, scouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,a
As in this king.

ELY. We are blessed in the change.
CANT. Hear him but reason in divinity,
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
You would desire, the king were made a prelate:
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say,-it hath been all-in-all his study :
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music:
Turn him to any cause of policy,

The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;

So that the art and practic part of life Must be the mistress to this theoric:

Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it, Since his addiction was to courses vain;

b

His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow;
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.

ELY. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,

And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best,
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:
And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.

CANT. It must be so: for miracles are ceas'd; And therefore we must needs admit the means, How things are perfected.

CANT.

He seems indifferent;
Or, rather, swaying more upon our part,
Than cherishing the exhibiters against us :
For I have made an offer to his majesty,—
Upon our spiritual convocation,

And in regard of causes now in hand,
Which I have open'd to his grace at large,
As touching France,-to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.

ELY. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?
CANT. With good acceptance of his majesty;
Save, that there was not time enough to hear
(As I perceiv'd his grace would fain have done,)
The severals, and unhidden passages,

Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms,
And, generally, to the crown and seat of France,
Deriv'd from Edward, his great-grandfather.

ELY. What was the impediment that broke this

It is frequently met with in the old writers. Thus, in "The Fisherman's Tale," 1594, by F. Sabie :

"She wept, she cride, she sob'd, and all at once." And in Middleton's "Changeling," Act IV. Sc. 3:

"Does love turn fool, run mad, and all at once?"

b Companies-] That is, Companions.

e The severals, and unhidden passages,-] "This line I suspect of corruption, though it may be fairly enough explained.-The passages of his titles are the lines of succession by which his claims descend. Unhidden is open, clear."-JOHNSON,

F

SCENE II.-The same. A Room of State in the same.

Enter KING HENRY, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants.

K. HEN. Where is my gracious lord of Canterbury?

EXE. Not here in presence.

K. HEN. Send for him, good uncle.

WEST. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege ? a

a In the quartos the play begins with this speech.

K. HEN. Not yet, my cousin; we would be resolv'd,

Before we hear him, of some things of weight, That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and the BISHOP of ELY.

CANT. God and his angels guard your sacred throne, And make you long become it! K. HEN.

Sure, we thank you.
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed,
And justly and religiously unfold,
Why the law Salique, that they have in France,
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim.
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your
reading,

Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth