rue to herself, to her traditions, to her
responsibilities, to the great virtues; that she will be at once
courageous and magnanimous:--

Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.

Faulconbridge's patriotism is a vivacious spur to good endeavour in
every relation of life.

Henry V. is drawn by Shakespeare at fuller length than Faulconbridge.
His character is cast in a larger mould. But his patriotism is of the
same spirited, wholesome type. Though Henry is a born soldier, he
discourages insolent aggression or reckless displays of prowess in
fight. With greater emphasis than his archbishops and bishops he
insists that his country's sword should not be unsheathed except at
the bidding of right and conscience. At the same time, he is terrible
in resolution when the time comes for striking blows. War, when it is
once invoked, must be pursued with all possible force and fury:--

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility.
But when the blast of war blows in his ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger.[35]

[Footnote 35: On this point the Shakespearean oracle always speaks
with a decisive and practical note:--

Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.

(_Hamlet_, I., iii., 65-7.)]

But although Henry's patriotic instinct can drive him into battle, it
keeps him faithful there to the paths of humanity. Always alive to the
horrors of war, he sternly forbids looting or even the use of
insulting language to the enemy. It is only when a defeated enemy
declines to acknowledge the obvious ruin of his fortunes that a sane
and practical patriotism defends resort on the part of the conqueror
to the grimmest measure of severity. The healthy instinct stiffens the
grip on the justly won fruits of victory. As soon as Henry V. sees
that the French wilfully deny the plain fact of their overthrow, he is
moved, quite consistently, to exclaim:--

What is it then to me if impious war,
Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do with his smirched complexion all fell feats,
Enlinked to waste and desolation?

The context makes it clear that there is no confusion here between the
patriotic instinct and mere bellicose ecstasy.

The confusion of patriotism with milit