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 mightst 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 execute2.

[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, thanks3.

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.

* 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 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 rostorers, may boast a royal name.

And now what rests, but that we spend the time
With stately triumphs, mirthful comic 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.

THE three parts of King Henry VI. are suspected, by Mr. Theobald, of being supposititious, and are declared, by Dr. Warbur ton, 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 tragic 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 inci dents 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.

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 Maloue) 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.'

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 who down during representation what the time would permit, then, perhaps, filled up some 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.

END OF VOL. VI.