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'Three times bestrid him3, thrice I led him off, · Persuaded him from any further act:

'But still, where danger was, still there I met him; * And like rich hangings in a homely house, * So was his will in his old feeble body.

* But, noble as he is, look where he comes.

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Enter SALISBURY.

Sal. Now, by my sword, well hast thou fought to-day;

By the mass, so did we all.-I thank you, Richard: 'God knows, how long it is I have to live;

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And it hath pleas'd him, that three times to-day 'You have defended me from imminent death.* Well, lords, we have not got that which we have1; * "Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,

*

Being opposites of such repairing nature5.

York. I know, our safety is to follow them; For, as I hear, the king is fled to London, To call a present court of parliament. 'Let us pursue him, ere the writs go forth:What says Lord Warwick? shall we after them?

3 That is three times I saw him fallen, and striding over him defended him till he recovered.' This act of friendship Shakspeare has frequently mentioned. See the First Part of King Henry IV. Act v. Sc. 1, ad finem.

4 i. e. we have not secured that which we have acquired. Thus in Shakspeare's Rape of Lucrece :—

oft they have not that which they possess.'

5 i. e. being enemies that are likely so soon to rally and recover themselves from this defeat. To repair, in ancient language, was to renovate, to restore to a former condition. Thus in Cymbeline :

'O, disloyal thing

That should'st repair my youth.'

And in All's Well that Ends Well:

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War. After them! nay, before them, if we can. Now by my faith, lords, 'twas a glorious day: Saint Albans' battle, won by famous York, Shall be eterniz'd in all age to come.—

Sound, drums and trumpets :-and to London all : And more such days as these to us befall!

[Exeunt.

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Clifford. Here burns my candle out, ay, here it dies, Which, while it lasted, gave King Henry light.

ACT ii. Sc. 6.

FROM THE CHISWICK PRESS.

1826.

THIRD PART OF

King Henry the Sixth.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

THE action of this play opens just after the first battle of St. Albans [May 23, 1455], wherein the York faction carried the day; and closes with the murder of King Henry VI. and the birth of Prince Edward, afterwards King Edward V. [November 4, 1471]. So that this history takes in the space of full sixteen years.

The title of the old play, which Shakspeare altered and improved, is The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the Death of good King Henry the Sixth: with the whole Contention between the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke: as it was sundrie times acted by the Right Honourable the Earle of Pembroke his Servants. Printed at London by P. S. for Thomas Millington, and are to be solde at his Shoppe under St. Peter's Church in Cornewal, 1595.' There was another edition in 1600 by the same publisher: and it was reproduced with the name of Shakspeare on the title page, printed by T. P. no date, but ascertained to have been printed in 1619.

The present historical drama was altered by Crown, and brought on the stage in 1680, under the title of The Miseries of Civil War. Surely the works of Shakspeare could have been little read at that period; for Crown, in his prologue, declares the play to be entirely his own composition :—

For by his feeble skill 'tis built alone,

The divine Shakspeare did not lay one stone.'

Whereas the very first scene is that of Jack Cade, copied almost verbatim from the Second Part of King Henry VI. and several others from this Third Part, with as little variation.

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