And here we must leave our gallant young prince. A boy no longer, his story is now that of a wise and vigorous young manhood, which, in prince and king, bore out the promise of his boyish days. Dying at thirty-five--still a young man--he closed a career that stands on record as a notable one in the annals of the world. But when you come to read in Shakespeare's matchless verse the plays of "King Henry IV." and "King Henry V.," do not, in your delight over his splendid word-pictures, permit yourself to place too strong a belief in his portrait of young "Prince Hal," and his scrapes and follies and wild carousals with fat old Falstaff and his boon companions. For the facts of history now prove the great poet mistaken; and "Prince Hal," though full of life and spirit, fond of pleasure and mischief, and, sometimes, of rough and thoughtless fun, stands on record as a valiant, high-minded, clear-hearted, and conscientious lad. "And when we reflect," says one of his biographers, "to what a high station he had been called whilst yet a boy; with what important commissions he had been intrusted; how much fortune seems to have done to spoil him by pride and vain-glory from his earliest youth, this page of our national records seems to set him high among the princes of the world; not so much as an undaunted warrior and triumphant hero, as the conqueror of himself, the example of a chastened, modest spirit, of filial reverence, and of a single mind bent on his duty." The conqueror of himself! It was this that gave him grace to say, when crowned King of England in Westminster: "The first act of my reign shall be to pardon all who have offended me; and I pray God that if He foresees I am like to be any other than a just and good king, He may be pleased to take me from the world rather than seat me on a throne to live a public calamity to my country." It was this that gave him his magnificent courage at Agincourt, where, with barely six thousand Englishmen, he faced and utterly routed a French host of nearly sixty thousand men; it was this that, in the midst of the gorgeous pageant which welcomed him at London as the hero of Agincourt, made him refuse to allow his battle-bruised helmet and his dinted armor to be displayed as trophies of his valor. It was this that kept him brave, modest, and high-minded through all the glories and successes of his short but eventful life, that made him the idol of the people and one of the most brilliant figures in the crowded pages of English history. It is not given to us, boys and girls, to be royal in name, but we may be royal in nature, even as was Harry of Monmouth, the brilliant young English prince, and, knowing now something of his character, we can understand the loving loyalty of a devoted people that marks this entry of his death as it stands in the "Acts of Privy Council," the official record of the public doings of his realm: