The course of the river, he says, must be changed to give a juster line. After a short and heated bandying of words both Hotspur and Glendower suddenly think better of it. Glendower offers to yield:— ‘Come, you shall have Trent turn’d’ and Hotspur magnificently waives the whole quarrel:— ‘I do not care; I’ll give thrice so much land to any well-deserving[2] friend; But in the way of bargain, mark you me, I’ll cavil to the ninth part of a hair.’ This is not a sample of diplomacy—nor would diplomatic art have been in place—but it is great play-writing which the mysterious dispensations of modern theatrical management compel us to enjoy only with the mind’s ear ‘in the closet,’ as our ancestors said. I have seen Phelps in Falstaff, but ‘Henry IV.’ does not keep the stage. Outside the region of public affairs the intricate combinations of device and accident which formed the staple of the Italian novel were familiar enough to Shakespeare. They were plastic in his hands, assuming a farcical aspect in ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor,’ a purely comic one in the higher sense of comedy in Portia’s caskets and her secret expedition to Venice, and a serio-comic one in ‘Twelfth Night,’ though in spirit, as Mr. Masefield has finely observed, that is the most English of the great comedies; while in Iago the same instrument sounds the deepest of tragic notes. I do not count the catastrophe of Shylock in ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ where all reason, justice, and probability are violated with a superb audacity that never fails to carry the spectator on a magic flood of illusion in even a passable performance. Therefore I see no need to set down Shakespeare’s eschewing of diplomacy to personal ignorance or indifference. It is true that he did not consort much with ambassadors or secretaries of state, neither were state papers accessible in print as they now are. But the very simplest explanation seems like to be the right one, that such material would not serve his turn. The game of diplomacy, being mostly played with pens and ink, and a leisurely game in those days, was not presentable to an audience. Exchange of dispatches and notes may make good reading for posterity, but is not good stuff for actors; and Shakespeare’s business was to produce acting stage-plays, which is an elementary truth forgotten by too many commentators.