that range of years to which these Memoirs chiefly refer, the Author's mind has been especially drawn in the course of his researches: one of a political character,--in itself far more obvious, and chiefly affecting men; the other arising from habits of domestic life with regard to one of our institutions of all the most universally comprehensive,--a cause chiefly, but far from exclusively, affecting the life of females. The first cause, awful and appalling, is seen in the precarious tenure of human life, during the violence of those political struggles which deluged the whole land with blood. Those families seem to have been rare exceptions, of which no member forfeited his life on the scaffold or in the field; those houses were few which the scourge of civil or foreign wars passed over without leaving one dead. The second cause is traced to the very early age at which marriages were then solemnized. The day of Nature's trial came before the constitution had gained strength for the struggle, and an awful proportion of females was thus prematurely hurried to the grave; whilst the offspring also shared in the weakness of the parent. Comparatively a small minority sunk by gradual and calm decay; in the case of very few could the comparison of Job's reprover be applied with truth, "Thou shalt come to the grave in full age, as a shock of corn cometh in his season."] Though these facts prove that Shakspeare has spread through the (p. 350) world a most erroneous opinion of the relative ages and circumstances of Bolinbroke, Hotspur, and Henry of Monmouth,--a circumstance, (p. 351) indeed, in itself of no great importance,--the question on which we are engaged will be more immediately and strongly affected if it can be shown precisely, that at the very time when (according to the poet's representation) Henry IV. uttered this lamentation, expressive of deep present sorrow at the reckless misdoings of his son, and of anticipations of worse, that very son was doing his duty valiantly and mercifully in Wales. On the lowest calculation, a full month before Mortimer's capture, the young royal warrior had scoured the whole country of Glyndwrdy in person, and had burnt two of Owyn's mansions; whilst the strong probability is, that he had headed his troops on that expedition more than a year before.