It is the less necessary to analyse at any length the three remaining acts of this play, that the work has already been done to my hand, and well done, by Charles Knight; who, though no professed critic or esoteric expert in Shakespearean letters, approved himself by dint of sheer honesty and conscience not unworthy of a considerate hearing.  To his edition of Shakespeare I therefore refer all readers desirous of further excerpts than I care to give.

The first scene of the third act is a storehouse of contemporary commonplace.  Nothing fresher than such stale pot-pourri as the following is to be gathered up in thin sprinklings from off the dry flat soil.  A messenger informs the French king that he has descried off shore

   The proud armado (sic) of King Edward’s ships;
   Which at the first, far off when I did ken,
   Seemed as it were a grove of withered pines;
   But, drawing on, their glorious bright aspect,
   Their streaming ensigns wrought of coloured silk,
   Like to a meadow full of sundry flowers,
   Adorns the naked bosom of the earth;

and so on after the exactest and therefore feeblest fashion of the Pre-Marlowites; with equal regard, as may be seen, for grammar and for sense in the construction of his periods.  The narrative of a sea-fight ensuing on this is pitiable beyond pity and contemptibly beneath contempt.

In the next scene we have a flying view of peasants in flight, with a description of five cities on fire not undeserving of its place in the play, immediately after the preceding sea-piece:  but relieved by such wealth of pleasantry as marks the following jest, in which the most purblind eye will be the quickest to discover a touch of the genuine Shakespearean humour.

   1st Frenchman.  What, is it quarter-day, that you remove,
   And carry bag and baggage too?

   2nd Frenchman.  Quarter-day? ay, and quartering-day, I fear.
   Euge!

The scene of debate before Cressy is equally flat and futile, vulgar and verbose; yet in this Sham Shakespearean scene of our present poeticule’s I have noted one genuine Shakespearean word, “solely singular for its singleness.”

So may thy temples with Bellona’s hand
Be still adorned with laurel victory!

In this notably inelegant expression of goodwill we find the same use of the word “laurel” as an adjective and epithet of victory which thus confronts us in the penultimate speech of the third scene in the first act of Antony and Cleopatra.

            Upon your sword
   Sit laurel victory, and smooth success
   Be strewed before your feet!

There is something more (as less there could not be) of spirit and movement in the battle-scene where Edward refuses to send relief 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.”