* It is as curious as suggestive to find that the prologue and choruses of the "Henry V." and "Henry VIII." are apologies for the imperfections of the plots, and the folly of the multitude they catered to. As to the internal testimony of the authorship of these compositions, any reader can judge for himself. We have expressed our own opinion as being that William Shakespeare might be credited with the characters of Nym and Bar-dolph; especially of the Corporal, whose part consists of the phrase, "There's the humor of it," intruded at each convenient interval; and it is possible that Shakespeare, in fitting up the matter in hand, interpolated this as the reigning by-word of the moment. There seems to be reason for believing that this expression did happen to be a favorite at about that time; and that Shakespeare was not the only one who rang the changes on it as a season to stage material. Witness the following: Cob. Nay, I have my rheum, and I can be angry as well as another, sir! Cash. Thy rheum, Cob? Thy humor, thy humor! Thou mistak'st. Cob. Humor? Mack, I think it be so indeed! What is that humor? Some rare thing, I warrant. Cash. Marry, I tell thee, Cob, it is a gentlemanlike monster, bred in the special gallantry of our time by affectation, and fed by folly. Cob. How must it be fed? Cash. Oh, aye; humor is nothing if it be not fed. Didst thou never hear that? It's a common phrase, "Feed thy humor." Every Man in his Humor, iii. 4. Couldst thou not but arrive most acceptable Chiefly to such as had the happiness Daily to see how the poor innocent word Was racked and tortured. Every Man Out of his Humor. "Humor" was, it would seem by this, the over-used and abused word of these times; just as for example "awful" might be said to be an over-used and abused word during our own times. But he was searching, not for a butcher's son, but for a poet--for a courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword,= ````The expectancy and rose of the fair state, ````The glass of fashion and the mold of form, ````The observed of all observers"--=