For what is wedlock forced, but a hell,
An age of discord and continual strife?
Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss,
And is a pattern of celestial peace. !
Whom should we match, with Henry, being a king,
But Margaret, that is daughter to a king?
Her peerless feature, joined with her birth,
Approves her fit for none, but for a king:
Her valiant courage and undaunted spirit,
(More than in women commonly is seen,)
Will answer our hope in issue of a king*;
For Henry, son unto a conqueror, il
Is likely to beget more conquerors, boo
If with a lady of so high resolve,

As is fair Margaret, he be link'd in love.

Then yield, my lords; and here conclude with me, That Margaret shall be queen, and none but she. A K. HEN. Whether it be through, force of your

A report,

My noble lord of Suffolk; or for that
My tender youth was never yet attaint
With any passion of inflaming love,
I cannot tell; but this I am assur'd,
I feel such sharp dissention in my breast,

3 Whereas the contrary bringeth FORTH bliss,] The word, forth, which is not in the first folio, was supplied, I think, unne-' cessarily, by the second. Contrary was, I believe, used by the author as a quadrisyllable, as if it were written conterary; according to which pronunciation the metre is not defective:

"Whereas the conterary bringeth bliss."

In the same manner Shakspeare frequently uses Henry as a trisyllable, and hour and fire as dissyllables. See vol. iv. p. 31, and p. 137. MALone.

I have little confidence in this remark. Such a pronunciation of the word contrary is, perhaps, without example. Hour and fire were anciently written as dissyllables, viz. hower-fier.

STEEVENS.

4 Will answer our hope in issue of a king;] The useless word -our, which destroys the harmony of this line, I suppose ought to be omitted. STEEVENS.

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 expences 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 censure me by what you were 6,
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. SUF. 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.

[Exit®.

5 As I am sick with WORKING OF MY THOUGHTS.] So, in Shakspeare's King Henry V.:

"Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege,"

MALONE.

If you do CENSURE me, &c.] To censure is here simply to judge. "If in judging me you consider the past frailties of your own youth." JOHNSON.

7- ruminate my GRIEF.] Grief in the first line is taken generally for pain or uneasiness; in the second specially for sorrow. JOHNSON.

[Exit.] 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 printers of that time gave the publick 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 Lan

caster.

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.

That the second and third parts (as they are now called) were printed without the first, is a proof, in my apprehension, that they were not written by the author of the first: and the title of The Contention of the Houses of York and Lancaster, being affixed to the two pieces which were printed in quarto, is a proof that they were a distinct work, commencing where the other ended, but not written at the same time; and that this play was never known by the name of The First Part of King Henry VI. till Heminge and Condell gave it that title in their volume, to distinguish it from the two subsequent plays; which being altered by Shakspeare, assumed the new titles of The Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. that they might not be confounded with the original pieces on which they were formed. This first part was, I conceive, originally called The Historical Play of King Henry VI. See the Essay at the end of these contested pieces.

MALONE.

KING HENRY VI.

PART II.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

THIS and The Third Part of King Henry VI. contain that troublesome period of this prince's reign which took in the whole contention betwixt the houses of York and Lancaster: and under that title were these two plays first acted and published. The present scene opens with King Henry's marriage, which was in the twentythird year of his reign [A. D. 1445] and closes with the first battle fought at St. Alban's, and won by the York faction, in the thirtythird year of his reign [A. D. 1455]: so that it comprizes the history and transactions of ten years. THEOBALD.

This play was altered by Crowne, and acted in the year 1681. STEEVENS.

In a note prefixed to the preceding play, I have briefly stated my opinion concerning the drama now before us, and that which follows it; to which the original editors of Shakspeare's works in folio have given the titles of The Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI.

The Contention of the Two Famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster in two parts, was published in quarto, the first part in 1594, the second in 1595, and both were reprinted in 1600. 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. The reasons on which this hypothesis is founded, I shall subjoin at large at the end of The Third Part of King Henry VI. 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 aukwardly made up for the stage by some of his contemporaries. The speeches which he new-modelled, he improved, sometimes by amplification, and sometimes by retrench

ment.

Dr. Johnson observes very justly, p. 167, that these two parts were not written without a dependance on the first. Undoubtedly not; the old play of King Henry VI. (or, as it is now called, The First Part,) certainly had been exhibited before these were written in any