End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat.’
Henry V. is but one of Shakespear’s second-rate plays. Yet by quoting passages, like this, from his second-rate plays alone, we might make a volume ‘rich with his praise,’
‘As is the oozy bottom of the sea
With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries.’
Of this sort are the king’s remonstrance to Scroop, Grey, and Cambridge, on the detection of their treason, his address to the soldiers at the siege of Harfleur, and the still finer one before the battle of Agincourt, the description of the night before the battle, and the reflections on ceremony put into the mouth of the king.
‘O hard condition; twin-born with greatness,
Subjected to the breath of every fool,
Whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing!
What infinite heart’s ease must kings neglect,