needful than solemn-viz. that we are too apt to make our repentance an easy thing, if not a matter of renewed self-indulgence. The passage to be quoted is in the dialogue with the Chief Justice, King Henry IV. 2nd Part, Act i. Sc. 2: For the box o' the ear the prince gave you-he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it; and the young lion repents: marry, not in sackcloth and ashes; but in new silk and old sack. It is also a sensualist, but a sensualist of a very different class, who thus moralizes upon the consequences of a vicious and impenitent course. The words are in every way worthy of Mark Antony :— When we in our viciousness grow hard, * (O! misery on't!) the wise gods seel our eyes; In our own filth drop our clear judgments; make us Sentiments as awful as they are just; and which will not appear either too irreverent for a Christian man to write, when we remember how often in the Psalms, and in the Book of Proverbs, God is said 'to laugh,' and' to mock' at the calamities of those who have despised His laws; or too profound for a Heathen man to utter, when we compare the deep sayings of Persius respecting the confirmed and reprobate votaries of vicious self-indulgence, in his 3rd Satire : * i. e. Close: a term of falconry, not to be confounded with seal. Sed stupet hic vitio, et fibris increvit* opimum Nothing can exceed the irony which represents a man as faultless, only because he has rendered himself senseless, and incapable of judging between right and wrong. SECT. 6. Of Faith and Thankfulness towards God. 'Put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of man,' is a Scriptural precept which Shakspeare has not been slow to echo, nor has he failed to do full justice to the contrast with which the Scriptures so often accompany that precept, viz. the duty and the satisfaction of placing our trust in God. The devoted, but not over-honest nurse in Romeo and Juliet can tell her mistress There's no trust, No faith, no honesty in men ; all perjured, Act iii. Sc. 2. And the Duke of Bedford can ask, in King Henry VI. 1st Part: What is the trust or strength of foolish men? Act iii. Sc. I. And yet we are senseless enough, as the Lord Hastings tells us, in King Richard III., to make * Comp, Habakkuk ii. 6. L more account of man's favour, which is so worthless, than of the favour of God, which is above all price: O! momentary grace of mortal men, Which we more hunt for than the grace of God! Who builds his hope in air, of your fair looks, Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast, Ready with every nod to tumble down Into the fatal bowels of the deep. Act iii. Sc. 4. As Cardinal Wolsey tumbled down' from the eminence to which he had been raised, and thereby was led, all too late, to exclaim : O! Cromwell, Cromwell, Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies. Act iii. Sc. 2. And so the good King Henry V. felt the blessedness of being able to place his confidence where alone it ought to be placed, when he said to the Duke of Gloster : We are in God's hands, brother, not in theirs. King Henry V. Act iii. Sc. 5. And he felt it sinful to boast of anything he could do by his own power :— Forgive me, God, That I do brag thus! this your air of France Go, therefore, tell thy master he is speaking to Montjoy, the French herald Here I am; My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk; My army but a weak and sickly guard : Act iii. Sc. 6. And how different was the result! Nor was the grateful piety of the father less conspicuous in the son, whose prayer it is : O! Lord, that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness! King Henry VI. 2nd Pt. Act i. Sc. 1. There are two occasions—one extraordinary, the other of ordinary occurrence-in regard to which our poet desired, it would seem, more especially to recommend this great duty of thankfulness towards God. The extraordinary occasion is when a victory has been gained. It is delightful to observe in what an amiable light the character of King Henry V. has been placed in this respect. Not even David himself has exhibited more fervent gratitude to the Divine Author of his victories than our pious sovereign, after the defeat of the French in the battle of Agincourt. Thus, when Montjoy, the French herald, first announced to the king—' The day is yours'—his first exclamation is a Non nobis, Domine, in these words: Praised be God, and not our strength for it! . King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 7. i. e. God being our guide. The phrase is used again by the king in the same play, Act i. Sc. 2. And soon after, when the English herald came and delivered more fully the particulars of the victory, more fully rose also from the royal lips the ascription of praise and thanksgiving .— O! God; Thy arm was here, And not to us, but to Thy arm alone But in plain shock and even play of battle, On one part and on the other? Take it, God, Come, go we in procession to the village : And be it death proclaimed through our Host, Ibid. Sc. 8. And how he himself behaved in strict accordance with his own command, is reported by the chorus at the opening of the next and concluding Act; the description refers to his return and entry into London: Where that his lords desire him to have borne Before him through the city, he forbids it, Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent, Quite from himself to God. In like manner, his son and successor, out of the fulness of the thankful heart for which he had prayed, thus signifies the acknowledgments which he desires to make upon hearing of the suppression of the insurrection headed by Jack Cade : |