With such solicitude, with such minute attention to tricks, flaws, whims, humours, and habits, all deduced from his temperament, from the rapid flow of his blood, from his build of body, and from his life on horseback and in the field, has Shakespeare executed this heroic character. Restless gait, stammering speech, forgetfulness, absence of mind, he overlooks nothing as being too trivial. Hotspur portrays himself in every phrase he utters, without ever saying a word directly about himself; and behind his outward, superficial peculiarities, we see into the deeper and more significant characteristics from which they spring. These, too, are closely interwoven; these, too, reveal themselves in his lightest words. We hear this same hero whom pride, sense of honour, spirit of independence, and intrepidity inspire with the sublimest utterances, at other times chatting, jesting, and even talking nonsense. The jests and nonsense are an integral part of the real human being; in them, too, one side of his nature reveals itself (iii. I):-- "_Hotspur_. Come, Kate, I'll have your song too. _Lady Percy_. Not mine, in good sooth. _Hot_. Not yours, in good sooth! 'Heart! you swear like a comfit-maker's wife. 'Not you, in good sooth;' and, 'As true as I live;' and, 'As God shall mend me;' and, 'As sure as day:' . . . . . . . . . . Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art, A good mouth-filling oath; and leave 'in sooth,' And such protest of pepper-gingerbread, To velvet-guards, and Sunday-citizens." In a classical tragedy, French, German, or Danish, the hero is too solemn to talk nonsense and too lifeless to jest. In spite of his soaring energy and ambition, Hotspur is sober, rationalistic, sceptical. He scoffs at Glendower's belief in spirits and pretended power of conjuring them up (iii. I). His is to the inmost fibre a truth-loving nature:-- "_Glend_. I can call spirits from the vasty deep. _Hot_. Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come, when you do call for them? _Glend_. Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil. _Hot_. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil, By telling truth: tell truth, and shame the devil." There is a militant rationalism in these words which was rare, very rare, in Shakespeare's time, to say nothing of Hotspur's own.