There is a pretty poetic perfume in this--a merry musical jingle; but it gives no echo even of the tendernesses which wrapped all round and round the story of the Sad Griselda. _Henry V. and War Times._ This fifteenth century--in no chink of which, as would seem, could any brave or sweet English poem find root-hold, was not a bald one in British annals. There were great men of war in it: Henry V. and Bedford[61] and Warwick and Talbot and Richard III. all wrote bloody legends with their swords across French plains, or across English meadows. Normandy, which had slipped out of British hands--as you remember--under King John, was won again by the masterly blows Henry V. struck at Agincourt and otherwheres. Shakespeare has given an historic picture of this campaign, which will be apt to outlive any contemporary chronicle. Falstaff disappears from sight, and his old crony the dissolute Prince Hal comes upon the scene as the conquering and steady-going King. Through all the drama--from the “proud hoofs” of the war-horses, prancing in the prologue, to the last chorus, the lurid blaze of battle is threatening or shining. Never were the pomp and circumstance of war so contained within the pages of a play. For ever so little space--in gaps of the reading--between the vulgar wit of Nym, and the Welsh jargon of Fluellen, you hear the crack of artillery, and see shivered spears and tossing plumes. In the mid scenes, vast ranks of men sweep under your vision, and crash against opposing ranks, and break, and dissolve away in the hot swirl of battle. And by way of artistic contrast to all this, comes at last, in the closing pages, that piquant, homely, strange coquettish love-scene, which--historically true in its main details--joined the fortunes of England and of France in the persons of King Henry and Katharine of Valois. You will not be sorry to have a glimpse of this Shakespearean and historic love-making: The decisive battle has been fought: the French King is prisoner: Henry has the game in his own hands. It is a condition of peace that he and the fair Katharine--daughter of France--shall join hands in marriage; and Henry in his blunt war way sets about his wooing:-- “O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?” _Kate._ _Pardonnez moi_; I cannot tell vat is--_like me_.