Excerpt
PREFACE.
In the selection of my last Shakespearean revival at the Princess’s Theatre, I have been actuated by a desire to present some of the finest poetry of our great dramatic master, interwoven with a subject illustrating a most memorable era in English history. No play appears to be better adapted for this two-fold purpose than that which treats of Shakespeare’s favorite hero, and England’s favorite king—Henry the Fifth.
The period thus recalled is flattering to our national pride; and however much the general feeling of the present day may be opposed to the evils of war, there are few amongst us who can be reminded of the military renown achieved by our ancestors on the fields of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, without a glow of patriotic enthusiasm.
The political motives which induced the invasion of France in the year 1415 must be sought for in the warlike spirit of the times, and in the martial character of the English sovereign. It is sufficient for dramatic purposes that a few thousands of our countrymen, in their march through a foreign land, enfeebled by sickness and encompassed by foes, were able to subdue and scatter to the winds the multitudinous hosts of France, on whose blood-stained soil ten thousand of her bravest sons lay slain, mingled with scarcely one hundred Englishmen! Such a marvellous disparity might well draw forth the pious acknowledgment of King Henry,—
“O God, thy arm was here;—
And not to us, but to thy arm alone,
Ascribe we all.—When, without stratagem,
But in plain shock and even play of battle,
Was ever known so great and little loss
On one part and on the other?—Take it, God,
For it is only thine!”
Shakespeare in this, as in other of his dramatic histories, has closely followed Holinshed; but the light of his genius irradiates the dry pages of the chronicler. The play of Henry the Fifth is not only a poetical record of the past, but it is, as it were, “a song of triumph,” a lay of the minstrel pouring forth a pæan of victory. The gallant feats of our forefathers are brought vividly before our eyes, inspiring sentiments not to be excited by the mere perusal of books, reminding us of the prowess of Englishmen in earlier days, and conveying an assurance of what they will ever be in the hour of peril.
The descriptive poetry assigned to the “Chorus” between the acts is retained as a peculiar feature, connecting and explaining the action as it proceeds. This singular personage, so different from the Chorus of antiquity, I have endeavoured to render instrumental to the general effect of the play; the whole being planned with a view to realise, as far as the appliances of a theatre can be exercised, the events of the extraordinary campaign so decisively closed by the great conflict of Agincourt, which ultimately placed two crowns on the brow of the conqueror, and resulted in his marriage with Katharine, the daughter of Charles the Sixth, King of France. Shakespeare does not in this instance, as in Pericles and the Winter’s Tale, assign a distinct individuality to the Chorus....