nstinctive power. In the other scenes Shakespeare wrote with
intense mental effort after brooding intensely on human destiny--

"how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors,"

and on the truth that--

"There is a history in all men's lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As not yet come to life."

There are two scenes of deep tragedy in the play, both awful.
Shakespeare never wrote anything more terrible. They are the scene in
the fourth act, where John of Lancaster tricks and betrays the rebels,
and the scene at the end where the young King cuts his old friends, with
a word to the Lord Justice to have them into banishment. The words of
Scripture, "Put not your trust in princes," must have rung in
Shakespeare's head as he wrote these scenes.

Richard II flung down his warder at Coventry rather than let his friend
venture in battle for him. From that act of mercy came his loss of the
crown, his death, Mowbray's death, Hotspur's death, the murder of the
leaders at Gaultree and the countless killings up and down England. At
the end of this play the slaughter stops for a while so that a callous
young animal may bring his country into a foreign war to divert men's
minds from injustice at home.

At the end of the play there is an epilogue in prose, touching for this
reason, that it is one of the few personal addresses that Shakespeare
has left to us. In the plays the characters speak with a detachment
never relaxed. They belong to the kingdom of vision, not to the mind
through which they came. In this epilogue Shakespeare speaks for all
time directly to his hearers, whoever they may be.

Who are his hearers? Not the English.

Our prophet is not honoured here. This series of historical plays is one
of the most marvellous things ever done by man. The plays of which it is
composed have not been played in London, in their great processional
pageant of tragedy, within the memory of man.

_King Henry V._

_Written._ 1598 (?)

_Published_, imperfectly, 1600; as we now have it, 1623.

_Source of the Plot._ The play of _The Famous Victories of Henry
V_. Holinshed's _Chronicles_. (Possibly) an earlier play, now lost.

_The Fable._ The play describes the determination of Henry V to
fight with France, his progress in