Of course it is easy to take Shakespeare too seriously. Supreme in genius as he was, he was also a playwright, had to do a playwright’s work, and descend, if we must say so, to a playwright’s arts. His audience had to be amused; and certainly no audience was ever better amused than were the pit and the galleries of the Globe by Prince Hal and Falstaff. The slender, graceful youth, with gay dress and plumed and jewelled cap, was the happiest foil to the huge “man mountain,” with his untrussed hose and wine-stained doublet. The fancy, too, of the people was caught by the notion of this young heir to the crown drinking sherry-sack, as might any one of themselves, in an Eastcheap tavern. It was an excellent jest, with just a spice of romance in it, less familiar also than the manners of some of our heir-apparents since that time have made it. Shakespeare never could have dreamt that he was raising a grave question for historians to quarrel over. The fact is that the great dramatist, whose genius was never more signally shown than in transmuting other men’s lead into gold, found a play, dull enough in itself, which he fashioned into that masterpiece of humour, the comedy of _Henry the Fourth_. _The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth_ was possibly written by William Tarleton, a comedian who flourished in Elizabeth’s reign. It is known that he acted in it, taking the part of Sir John Oldcastle. Of the real Oldcastle it is sufficient here to say that he was a man of lofty morality, who witnessed to his convictions by his death. In Tarleton’s play--if it be his--he is a vicious buffoon and thief. He goes by the name of “Jockey,” and he has two companions of similar character, who are known as “Ned” and “Tom.” These are represented as the Prince’s associates. And to mark more distinctly the true object of the play, which certainly was to bring the Puritans into ridicule, the other and principal character is one Dericks, a name borne by one of the Marian martyrs. This play was first acted before 1588, Tarleton dying in that year, and it was the play which Shakespeare adapted. But an English audience would be far less disposed to relish jests upon Protestant martyrs after the Armada and the Papist conspiracies of Elizabeth’s latter days, and Shakespeare made a change to suit the altered taste of the day. Oldcastle and Dericks disappear: they are replaced, we may say, by Falstaff and Bardolf. Both were historical personages, and Shakespeare does them as much injustice as his predecessor had done to the Lollard martyr. Bardolf went more than once as ambassador to France in Henry the Fourth’s reign, and in the time of his successor he was Lieutenant of Calais. Sir John Falstaff was a Knight of the Garter, a general of distinction, and a man of undoubted honour. There is not a shadow of reason for connecting either Bardolf or Falstaff with any disreputable proceedings. Shakespeare seems to have taken their names absolutely at random.