the latter capacity, Henry V. patronized the sacred minstrels rather than the laughing fools. He loved minstrelsy, psalms, and decent songs; and he made this love, as Mr. Tyler tells us, “contribute to the gratification of himself and the partner of his joys and cares.... Whether in their home at Windsor, or during their happy progress through England, in the halls of York and Chester, or in the tented ground on the banks of the Seine, before Melun, our imagination has solid foundation to build upon, when we picture to ourselves Henry and his beloved Princess passing innocently and happily, in minstrelsy and song, some of the hours spared from the appeals of justice, the exigencies of the State, or the marshalling of the battle-field.” For Henry’s other good qualities, and for his defects also, I must refer my readers to Mr. Tyler’s volumes, resting content with showing here, that Henry was not a patron of court fools. It may indeed be said that the jester and the minstrel were often to be found in the same person, in England, from the time that the Saxons hovered in the land, or since Canute, his _thingmen_, and his bards, all sang joyously together, when they celebrated a conquest, than which that of the Norman was not more wonderful. But it is clear that Henry’s minstrels were of a better character than those alluded to above, and that buffoonery was not encouraged at his court. Warton, in his ‘History of English Poetry,’ supports this assertion by saying, that the number of harpers in Westminster Hall at Henry’s coronation was innumerable. “They undoubtedly accompanied their instruments with heroic rhymes. The King, however,” adds Warton, “was no great encourager of the popular minstrelsy, which seems at this time to have flourished in the highest degree of perfection.” For all secular vanities his disgust was great; and he even forbade his triumph at Agincourt to be chanted by the harpers or others. Lingard indeed says, that “success gave a tinge of arrogance to his character;” and I may add, that although Henry V. loved books more than court fools, he set an example for the now common and detestable practice, of borrowing books and not returning them to their owners; he had better learned wisdom from fools, than committed this miserable sort of petty larceny.