two. _Henry V_ is really a dramatized epic, an
almost lyric rhapsody cast in the form of dialogue. Falstaff has
disappeared from view, and is recalled only by the affecting story of
his death. This episode, however, brief as it is, reveals the love
which the old knight evoked from his companions, while the narrative of
his last hours is the more pathetic for being put in the mouth of the
comic figure of Dame Quickly. Falstaff's place was one which could not
be filled, and the comic scenes become comparatively insignificant,
although the quarrels of Pistol and the Welshman Fluellen have a
distinctive humor. A figure which replaces the classic chorus connects
the scattered historical scenes by means of superb narrative verse.
Each episode glorifies a new aspect of Henry's character. We see him
as the valiant soldier; as the leader rising superior to tremendous
odds; as the democratic king who, concealing his rank, talks and jests
with a common soldier; and {159} as the bluff, hearty suitor of a
foreign bride. In thus seeing him, moreover, we see not only the
individual man; we see him as an ideal Englishman, as the embodiment of
the type which the men of Shakespeare's day--and of ours, too, for that
matter--loved and admired and honored. In celebrating Henry's
victories, Shakespeare was also celebrating England's more recent
victories over her enemies abroad, so that the play is a great national
paean, the song of heroic, triumphant England.

+Date and Source+.--Like its predecessors, _Henry V_ is founded on
Holinshed, with some additions taken from the Famous Victories. The
allusion in the chorus which precedes Act V to the Irish expedition of
the Earl of Essex fixes the date of composition between April 14 and
September 28, 1599. A quarto, almost certainly pirated, was printed in
1600 and reprinted in 1602, 1608, and 1619 (in the latter with the
false date of 1608). The text of these quartos is, therefore, much
inferior to that of the Folio.

+The Merchant of Venice+.--As usually presented on the modern stage,
_The Merchant of Venice_ appears to be a comedy, which is overshadowed
by one tragic figure, that of the Jew Shylock, the representative of a
down-trodden people, deprived of his money by a tricky lawyer and
deprived of his daughter by a tricky Christian. Students, on the other
hand, have maintained that to the Elizabethans Shylock was merely a
comic figure, the defeat of whose vile plot to get t