Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,
And

yet brought forth less than a mother's hope; To wit, an indigest deformed lump,

Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.

Teeth hadst thou in thy head, when thou wast born, To signify, thou cam'st to bite the world:

And, if the rest be true which I have heard, 'Thou cam'st

Glo. I'll hear no more;-Die, prophet, in thy

speech;

[Stabs him.

For this, amongst the rest, was I ordain'd.

K. Hen. Ay, and for much more slaughter after

this.

O God! forgive my sins, and pardon thee! [Dies.'

Glo. What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted. See, how my sword weeps for the poor king's death! 'O, may such purple tears be always shed

From those that wish the downfal of our house!
If any spark of life be yet remaining,

Down, down to hell; and say—I sent thee thither.
[Stabs him again.
I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.-
Indeed, 'tis true, that Henry told me of;
For I have often heard my mother say,
I came into the world with my legs forward:
Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste,
And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?
The midwife wonder'd; and the women cried,

Also on the turrets the skrich howle, &c.
doth ruck,' &c.

And in Golding's translation of Ovid's Metam. book vi.:-
'The furies made the bridegroomes bed, and on the house
did rucke

6

A cursed owle, the messenger of ill successe and lucke.'

rudis indigestaque moles.'

Ovid. Met. i. 7.

O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!
And so I was; which plainly signified-

That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.
‹ Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so,
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it7.
I have no brother, I am like no brother:

And this word-love, which greybeards call divine, Be resident in men like one another,

And not in me; I am myself alone.—
Clarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light;
But I will sort a pitchy day for thee:
For I will buz abroad such prophecies,
That Edward shall be fearful of his life;
And then, to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.
King Henry, and the prince his son, are gone:
'Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest;
Counting myself but bad, till I be best.-
'I'll throw thy body in another room,

And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom. [Exit.

SCENE VII.

The same. A Room in the Palace.

KING EDWARD is discovered sitting on his Throne ; QUEEN ELIZABETH with the infant Prince, CLARENCE, GLOSTER, HASTINGS, and Others, near him.

K. Edw. Once more we sit in England's royal throne,

Repurchas'd with the blood of enemies.

What valiant foemen, like to autumn's corn,

7 Dryden seems to have had this line in his mind when writing his Edipus:

'It was thy crooked mind hunch'd out thy back,

And wander'd in thy limbs.'

• Select, choose out.

Have we mow'd down1, in tops of all their pride? Three dukes of Somerset, threefold renown'd

For hardy and undoubted champions :

Two Cliffords, as the father and the son,
And two Northumberlands; two braver men
Ne'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound:
With them, the two brave bears, Warwick and
Montague,

That in their chains fetter'd the kingly lion,
And made the forest tremble when they roar'd.
Thus have we swept suspicion from our seat,
And made our footstool of security.-

Come hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy:-
Young Ned, for thee, thine uncles, and myself,
Have in our armours watch'd the winter's night;
Went all a foot in summer's scalding heat,
That thou might'st repossess the crown in peace;
And of our labours thou shalt reap the gain.

Glo. I'll blast his harvest, if your head were laid;
For yet I am not look'd on in the world.
This shoulder was ordain'd so thick, to heave;
And heave it shall some weight, or break my back:-
Work thou the way,—and thou shalt execute 2.

[Aside. K. Edw. Clarence, and Gloster, love my lovely

queen;

And kiss your princely nephew, brothers both. Clar. The duty, that I owe unto your majesty, I seal upon the lips of this sweet babe.

K. Edw. Thanks, noble Clarence; worthy brother, thanks 3.

1 A kindred image occurs in King Henry V.:—

mowing like grass

Your fresh-fair virgins, and your flow'ring infants.'

2 Gloucester may be supposed to touch his head and look significantly at his hand.

3 The old quarto play appropriates this line to the queen. The

'Glo. And, that I love the tree from whence thou

sprang'st,

'Witness the loving kiss I give the fruit:

To
say the truth, so Judas kiss'd his master;
'And cried-all hail! when as he meant-

all harm.

Aside.

K. Edw. Now am I seated as my soul delights, Having my country's peace, and brothers' loves. Clar. What will your grace have done with Margaret?

Reignier, her father, to the king of France
Hath pawn'd the Sicils and Jerusalem,
And hither have they sent it for her ransome.
K. Edw. Away with her, and waft her hence to
France.

And now what rests, but that we spend the time
With stately triumphs, mirthful comick shows,
Such as befit the pleasures of the court?—
Sound, drums and trumpets!-farewell, sour annoy!
For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy. [Exeunt.
first and second folio, by mistake, have given it to Clarence. In
Steevens's copy of the second folio, which had belonged to King
Charles the First, his majesty had erased Cla. and written King
in its stead. Shakspeare, therefore, in the catalogue of his re-
storers, may boast a royal name.

THE three parts of King Henry VI. are suspected, by Mr. Theobald, of being supposititious, and are declared, by Dr. Warburton, to be certainly not Shakspeare's. Mr. Theobald's suspicion arises from some obsolete words; but the phraseology is like the rest of our author's style; and single words, of which, however, I do not observe more than two, can conclude little.

Dr. Warburton gives no reason; but I suppose him to judge upon deeper principles and more comprehensive views, and to draw his opinion from the general effect and spirit of the composition, which he thinks inferior to the other historical plays.

:

From mere inferiority nothing can be inferred in the productions of wit there will be inequality. Sometimes judgment will err, and sometimes the matter itself will defeat the artist. Of every author's works, one will be the best, and one will be

the worst. The colours are not equally pleasing, nor the attitudes equally graceful, in all the pictures of Titian or Reynolds. Dissimilitude of style and heterogeneousness of sentiment, may sufficiently show that a work does not really belong to the reputed author. But in these plays no such marks of spuriousness are found. The diction, the versification, and the figures, are Shakspeare's. These plays, considered, without regard to characters and incidents, merely as narratives in verse, are more happily conceived, and more accurately finished than those of King John, King Richard II. or the tragick scenes of King Henry IV. and V. If we take these plays from Shakspeare, to whom shall they be given? What author of that age had the same easiness of expression and fluency of numbers* ?

Of these three plays I think the second the best. The truth is, that they have not sufficient variety of action, for the incidents are too often of the same kind; yet many of the characters are well discriminated. King Henry, and his Queen, King Edward, the Duke of Gloucester, and the Earl of Warwick, are very strongly and distinctly painted.

The old copies of the two latter parts of King Henry VI. and of King Henry V. are so apparently mutilated and imperfect, that there is no reason for supposing them the first draughts of Shakspeare. I am inclined to believe them copies taken by some auditor, who wrote down during the representation what the time would permit; then, perhaps, filled up some of his omissions at a second or third hearing, and, when he had by this method formed something like a play, sent it to the printer.

JOHNSON.

*This note by Dr. Johnson has been preserved notwithstanding the full answer to his argument which is given in the abstract of Malone's dissertation prefixed to these plays, which discriminates between what is and what is not from the hand of our great poet. 'No fraudulent copyist (says Malone) or shorthand writer would have invented circumstances totally different from those which appear in Shakspeare's new modelled draughts, as exhibited in the folio, or insert whole speeches of which scarcely a trace is to be found in that edition.'

END OF VOL. VI.

C. and C. Whittingham, College House, Chiswick.