And then our King with chearful Heart,
This Anfwer foon bid make;
And faid, Before this comes to pass,
Some of their Hearts fhall quake.

And to their proud presumptuous Prince,
Declare this Thing, quoth he,

Mine own Heart's Blood fhall pay the Pric e;
None else he gets of me.

With that bespoke the Duke of York;
O Noble King, quoth he,
The Leading of this Battle brave
Vouchsafe to give to me.

God a Mercy, Coufin York, quoth he,
I grant thee thy Requeft;
Then march thou on courageously,
And I will lead the reft.

Then came the bragging Frenchmen down
With greater Force and Might;

With whom our Noble King began
A hard and cruel Fight.

The Archers they difcharged their Shafts,
As thick as Hail from Sky;

That many a Frenchman in the Field
That happy Day did die.

Ten Thoufand Men that Day were flain
Of Enemies in the Field;

And

And as many Prisoners

That Day were forced to yield.

Thus had our King a happy Day,
And Victory over France;

And brought them quickly under Foot,
That late in Pride did prance.

The Lord preferve our Noble King,
And grant to him likewise
The upper Hand and Victory
Of all his Enemies.

THE

King Henry the Sixth.

HE hiftorical Tranfactions contained in this Play, take in the Compafs of about thirty Years; they are all extracted from Holingfhed's Chronicle: But Shakespear, in this, as well as in the two following Parts of this King's Reign, has not been very exact to the Date and Difpofition of the Facts, fhuffling them backwards and forwards, out of the Order of Time in which, they happened, as it beft fuited his Purpose. The Characters are almost all faithfully copied from the Hiftorian; but the Poet has exagge rated the Affection of Queen Margaret for the Duke of Suffolk, reprefenting that Princess as engaged in a criminal Amour with the Duke, for which there is no Foundation in History.

The

The Loves of the Queen and Duke of Suffolk, which make the Subject of feveral Scenes in the Play, not being mentioned either by Hall or Holingfbed, 'ti probable that ShakeSpear faw fome little Novel of the Lives of these two great Perfons, from whence he copied. fuch Incidents as he thought proper for the Embellishment of his Play; but, by introducing the Queen in the fecond Part, weeping and lamenting over the Head of her murdered Lover, which lyes on her Bofom, in the Prefence of the King her Husband, and feveral Noblemen, he has either very injudicioufly copied, or very coarfly invented. For the abfurdity of fuch a Behaviour muft give dif gust to the meaneft and least intelligent Reader or Spectator.

But if Shakespear has been mifled by Romance, or oral Tradition, to give fuch improper Manners to a Queen, and in a Hiftorical Play, contradict the known Facts on which it is founded, he has, on the other Hand, worked up the fimple Relation of the Deaths of a Father and Son, in the Hiftory, into one of the most beautiful and affecting Episodes imaginable.

Holingfhed after a circumftantial Detail of all the great Actions of the warlike Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, proceeds to give an Account of his Death and that of his Son's as they were endeavouring to raise the Siege of Chastillon in France.

"The