.."
All this is plainly Shakespeare and Shakespeare at his very worst; and
there are hundreds of lines like these, jewelled here and there by an
unforgetable phrase, as when the Archbishop calls the bees: "The singing
masons building roofs of gold." The reply made by the King when the
Dauphin sends him the tennis balls has been greatly praised for
manliness and modesty; it begins:
"We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
His present and your pains we thank you for:
When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,
We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard."
The first line is most excellent, but Shakespeare found it in the old
play, and the bragging which follows is hardly bettered by the pious
imprecation.
Nor does the scene with the conspirators seem to me any better. The
soldier-king would not have preached at them for sixty lines before
condemning them. Nor would he have sentenced them with this
extraordinary mixture of priggishness and pious pity:
"
K.
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