lief to his
son, wishing the prince to win his spurs unaided, and earn the
first-fruits of his fame single-handed against the heaviest odds; but the
forcible feebleness of a minor poet's fancy shows itself amusingly in the
mock stoicism and braggart philosophy of the King's reassuring
reflection, "We have more sons than one."

In the first and third scenes of the fourth act we may concede some
slight merit to the picture of a chivalrous emulation in magnanimity
between the Duke of Burgundy and his former fellow-student, whose refusal
to break his parole as a prisoner extorts from his friend the concession
refused to his importunity as an envoy: but the execution is by no means
worthy of the subject.

The limp loquacity of long-winded rhetoric, so natural to men and
soldiers in an hour of emergency, which distinguishes the dialogue
between the Black Prince and Audley on the verge of battle, is relieved
by this one last touch of quasi-Shakespearean thought or style
discoverable in the play of which I must presently take a short--and a
long--farewell.

Death's name is much more mighty than his deeds:
Thy parcelling this power hath made it more.
As many sands as these my hands can hold
Are but my handful of so many sands;
Then all the world--and call it but a power--
Easily ta'en up, and {269} quickly thrown away;
But if I stand to count them sand by sand
The number would confound my memory
And make a thousand millions of a task
Which briefly is no more indeed than one.
These quartered squadrons and these regiments
Before, behind us, and on either hand,
Are but a power: When we name a man,
His hand, his foot, his head, have several strengths;
And being all but one self instant strength,
Why, all this many, Audley, is but one,
And we can call it all but one man's strength.
He that hath far to go tells it by miles;
If he should tell the steps, it kills his heart:
The drops are infinite that make a flood,
And yet, thou know'st, we call it but a rain.
There is but one France, one king of France, {270}
That France hath no more kings; and that same king
Hath but the puissant legion of one king;
And we have one: Then apprehend no odds;
For one to one is fair equality.

_Bien coupe, mal cousu_; such is the most favourable verdict I can pass
on this voluminous effusion of a spirit smacking rather of the schools
than of the field. The first si