I cannot tell; but this I am assur'd,
I feel such sharp dissension in my breast,
Such fierce alarums both of hope and fear,
As I am sick with working of my thoughts.
Take, therefore, shipping; post, my lord, to France;

Agree to any covenants: and procure
That lady Margaret do vouchsafe to come
To cross the seas to England, and be crown'd
King Henry's faithful and anointed queen:
For your expenses and sufficient charge,
Among the people gather up a tenth.
Be gone, I say; for, till you do return,
I rest perplexed with a thousand cares.-
And you, good uncle, banish all offence:
If you do censurel me by what you were,
Not what you are, I know it will excuse
This sudden execution of my will.
And so conduct me, where from company,
I may revolve and ruminate my grief.

[Exit. Glo. Ay, grief, I fear me, both at first and last. [Exeunt Gloster and Exeter. Suff. Thus Suffolk hath prevail'd: and thus he goes,

As did the youthful Paris once to Greece;
With hope to find the like event in love,
But prosper better than the Trojan did.
Margaret shall now be queen, and rule the king;
But I will rule both her, the king, and realm. [Ex.

Of this play there is no copy earlier than that of the folio in 1623, though the two succeeding parts are extant in two editions in quarto. That the second and third parts were published without the first, may be admitted as no weak proof that the copies were surreptitiously obtained, and that the

(1) Judge.

printers of that time gave the public those plays, not such as the author designed, but such as they could get them. That this play was written before the two others is indubitably collected from the series of events; that it was written and played before Henry the Fifth is apparent; because, in the epilogue there is mention made of this play, and not of the other parts:

Henry the Sixth in swaddling bands crown'd king,
Whose state so many had the managing,
That they lost France, and made his England

bleed:

• Which oft our stage hath shown.''

France is lost in this play. The two following contain, as the old title imports, the contention of the houses of York and Lancaster.

The second and third parts of Henry VI. were printed in 1600. When Henry V. was written, we know not, but it was printed likewise in 1600, and therefore before the publication of the first and second parts. The first part of Henry VI. had been often shown on the stage, and would certainly have appeared in its place, had the author been the publisher.

JOHNSON.

KING HENRY VI.

PART II.

***The Contention of the two famous houses of York and Lancaster,' in two parts, was published in quarto, in 1600; and the first part was entered on the Stationers' books, (as Mr. Steevens has observed,) March 12, 1593-4. On these two plays, which I believe to have been written by some preceding author, before the year 1590, Shakspeare formed, as I conceive, this and the following drama; altering, retrenching, or amplifying, as he thought proper. At present it is only necessary to apprize the reader of the method observed in the printing of these plays. All the lines printed in the usual manner are found in the original quarto plays (or at least with such minute variations as are not worth noticing:) and those, I conceive, Shakspeare adopted as he found them. The lines to which inverted commas are prefixed, were, if my hypothesis be well founded, retouched, and greatly improved by him; and those with asterisks were his own original production; the embroidery with which he ornamented the coarse stuff that had been awkwardly made up for the stage by some of his contemporaries. The speeches which he new-modelled, he improved, sometimes by amplification, and sometimes by retrenchment.

MALONE.

Earl of Warwick, of the York faction.

Lord Scales, Governor of the Tower. Lord Say.
Sir Humphrey Stafford, and his brother. Sir John

A Sea-captain, Master, and Master's Mate, and
Walter Whitmore.

Two Gentlemen, prisoners with Suffolk.
A Herald. Vaux.

Hume and Southwell, two priests.

Bolingbroke, a conjurer. A Spirit raised by him.
Thomas Horner, an armourer. Peter, his man.
Clerk of Chatham. Mayor of Saint Alban's.
Simpcox, an impostor. Two Murderers.

George, John, Dick, Smith, the Weaver, Michael, &c. his followers.

Alexander Iden, a Kentish gentleman.

Margaret, queen to king Henry.
Eleanor, duchess of Gloster.

Margery Jourdain, a witch. Wife to Simpcox.
Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Petitioners, Al-
dermen, a Beadle, Sheriff, and Officers; Citi-
zens, Prentices, Falconers, Guards, Soldiers,
Messengers, &c.

Scene, dispersedly in various parts of England.

SECOND PART OF

KING HENRY VI.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-London. A room of state in the palace. Flourish of Trumpets: then Hautboys. Enter, on one side, King Henry, Duke of Gloster, Salisbury, Warwick, and Cardinal Beaufort; on the other, Queen Margaret, led in by Suffolk; York, Somerset, Buckingham, and others, fotlowing.

Suffolk.

AS by your high imperial majesty
I had in charge at my depart for France,
As procurator to your excellence,
To marry princess Margaret for your grace;
So, in the famous ancient city, Tours,-
-In presence of the kings of France and Sicil,
The dukes of Orleans, Calaber, Bretaigne, and

Alençon,

Seven earls, twelve barons, twenty reverend bishops,
I have perform'd my task, and was espous'd:
And humbly now upon my bended knee,
In sight of England and her lordly peers,
Deliver up my title in the queen

To your most gracious hands, that are the substance
Of that great shadow I did represent;
The happiest gift that ever marquis gave,
The fairest queen that ever king receiv'd.