of 'Henry IV' had figured as a spirited
young man in 'Richard II;' he was now represented as weighed down by care
and age. With him are contrasted (in part i.) his impetuous and
ambitious subject Hotspur and (in both parts) his son and heir Prince
Hal, whose boisterous disposition drives him from Court to seek
adventures among the haunters of taverns. Hotspur is a vivid and
fascinating portrait of a hot-headed soldier, courageous to the point of
rashness, and sacrificing his life to his impetuous sense of honour.
Prince Hal, despite his vagaries, is endowed by the dramatist with far
more self-control and common sense.

Falstaff.

On the first, as on every subsequent, production of 'Henry IV' the main
public interest was concentrated neither on the King nor on his son, nor
on Hotspur, but on the chief of Prince Hal's riotous companions. At the
outset the propriety of that great creation was questioned on a political
or historical ground of doubtful relevance. Shakespeare in both parts of
'Henry IV' originally named the chief of the prince's associates after
Sir John Oldcastle, a character in the old play. But Henry Brooke,
eighth lord Cobham, who succeeded to the title early in 1597, and claimed
descent from the historical Sir John Oldcastle, the Lollard leader,
raised objection; and when the first part of the play was printed by the
acting-company's authority in 1598 ('newly corrected' in 1599),
Shakespeare bestowed on Prince Hal's tun-bellied follower the new and
deathless name of Falstaff. A trustworthy edition of the second part of
'Henry IV' also appeared with Falstaff's name substituted for that of
Oldcastle in 1600. There the epilogue expressly denied that Falstaff had
any characteristic in common with the martyr Oldcastle. Oldcastle died a
martyr, and this is not the man. But the substitution of the name
'Falstaff' did not pass without protest. It hazily recalled Sir John
Fastolf, an historical warrior who had already figured in 'Henry VI' and
was owner at one time of the Boar's Head Tavern in Southwark; according
to traditional stage directions, {170} the prince and his companions in
'Henry IV' frequent the Boar's Head, Eastcheap. Fuller in his
'Worthies,' first published in 1662, while expressing satisfaction that
Shakespeare had 'put out' of the play Sir John Oldcastle, was eloquent in
his avowal of regret that 'Sir John Fastolf' was 'put in,' on the ground
that it was making overbold with a