King Henry the Sixth. Duke of Glofter, uncle to the king, and Protector. Duke of Bedford, uncle to the king, and Regent of France. Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, great uncle to the king. Henry Beaufort, great uncle to the king, Bishop of Winchefter, and afterwards Cardinal. John Beaufort, Earl of Somerfet; afterwards, Duke. Earl of Warwick. Earl of Salisbury. Earl of Suffolk. Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. Sir John Faftolfe. Sir William Lucy. Sir William Glanfdale. Sir Thomas Gargrave. Mayor of London. Woodville, Lieutenant of the Tower. Vernon, of the White Rofe, or York faction. Baffet, of the Red Rofe, or Lancaster faction. Charles, Dauphin, and afterwards king of France. An old Shepherd, father to Joan la Pucelle. Margaret, daughter to Reignier; afterwards married to King Henry. Countess of Auvergne. Joan la Pucelle, commonly called, Joan of Arc. Fiends appearing to La Pucelle, Lords, Warders of the Tower, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Meffengers, and fe veral Attendants both on the English and French. SCENE, partly in England, and partly in France. KING HENRY ACT I. SCENE I. Westminster-Abbey. VI'. Dead march. The corpfe of King Henry the Fifth dif covered, lying in fate; attended on by the dukes of BEDFORD, GLOSTER, and EXETER; the earl of WARWICK; the Bishop of Winchefter, heralds, &c. Bed. Hung be the heavens with black, yield day tonight! Comets, importing change of times and ftates, Brandish The hiftorical tranfactions contained in this play, take in the compafs of above thirty years. I muft obferve, however, that our author, in the three parts of K. Henry VI. has not been very precife to the date and difpofition of his facts; but fhuffled them, backwards and forwards, out of time. For inftance; the lord Talbot is killed at the end of the fourth act of this play, who in reality did not fall till the 13th of July 1453 and The Second Part of Henry VI. opens with the marriage of the king, which was folemnized eight years before Talbot's death, in the year 1445. Again, in the fecond part, dame Eleanor Cobham is introduced to infult queen Margaret; though her penance and banishment for forcery happened three years before that princess came over to England, I could point out many other tranfgreffions against history, as far as the order of time is concerned. Indeed, though there are feveral master-ftrokes in these three plays, which incontestably betray the workmanship of Shakspeare; yet I am almost doubtful, whether they were entirely of his writing. And unless they were wrote by him very early, I should rather imagine them to have been brought to him as a director of the stage; and to have received fome finishing beauties at his hand. An accurate obferver will easily fee, the diction of them is more obfolete, and the numbers more mean and profaical, than in the generality of his genuine compofitions. THEOBALD. Having given my opinion very fully relative to these plays at the end of the third part of King Henry VI., it is bere only neceffary to apprize the reader what my hypothefis is, that he may be the better enabled, as he proceeds, to judge concerning its probability. Like many others, I was long ftruck with the many evident Shakspearianisms in these plays, which appeared to me to carry fuch decifive weight, that I could scarcely bring myself to examine with attention any of the arguments that have been urged against his being the author of them. I am now furprised, (and my readers perhaps may say the same thing of themselves,) B 2 that 2 Brandifh your cryftal treffes in the sky; that I fhould never have adverted to a very ftriking circumstance which diftinguishes this first part from the other parts of King Henry VI. This circumftance is, that none of these Shakspearian paffages are to be found here, though several are scattered through the two other parts. I am therefore decifively of opinion that this play was not written by Shakspeare. The reafons of which that opinion is founded, are stated at large in the Differtation above referred to. But I would here requeft the reader to attend particularly to the verfification of this piece, (of which almost every line has a paufe at the end,) which is fo different from that of Shakspeare's undoubted plays, and of the greater part of the two fucceeding pieces as altered by him, and fo exactly correfponds with that of the tragedies written by others before and about the time of his first commencing author, that this alone might decide the question, without taking into the account the numerous claffical allufions which are found in this first part. The reader will be enabled to judge how far this argument deferves attention, from the feveral extracts from thofe ancient pieces which he will find in the Effay on this subject. With refpect to the fecond and third parts of K. Henry VI. or, as they were originally called, The Contention of the two famous boufes of Yorke and Lancaster, they stand, in my apprehenfion, on a very different ground from that of this firft part, or, as I believe it was anciently called, The Play of K.Henry VI.-The Contention, &c. printed in two parts, in quarto, 1600, was, I conceive, the production of fome playwright who preceded, or was contemporary with, Shakspeare; and out of that piece he formed the two plays which are now denominated the Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI.; as, out of the old plays of King Jobn and the Taming of a Sbrew, he formed two other plays with the fame titles. For the reasons on which this opinion is formed, I muft again refer to my Effay on this fubject. This old play of King Henry VI. now before us, or as our author's editors have called it, the first part of King Henry VI. I fuppofe, to have been written in 1589, or before. See An Attempt to ascertain the order of Shakfpeare's plays, Vol. I. The difpofition of facts in thefe three plays, not always correfponding with the dates, which Mr. Theobald mentions, and the want of uniformity and confistency in the feries of events exhibited, may perhaps be in fome measure accounted for by the hypothefis now stated. As to our author's having accepted thefe pieces as a Director of the stage, he had, I fear, no pretenfion to fuch a fituation at fo early a period. MALONE. 2 Brandifh your crystal treffes-] Chryftal is an epithet repeatedly bestowed on comets by our ancient writers. So, in a Sonnet by Lord Sterline, 1604: "When as thofe chryftal comets whiles appear." "There is also a white comet with filver haires," fays Pliny, as tranflated by P. Holland, 1601. STEEVENS. That |