Fr. King. So please you.

K. Hen. I am content; so the maiden cities you talk of

:

may wait on her so the maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show me the way to my will.

Fr. King. We have consented to all terms of reason.
K. Hen. Ist so, my lords of England?
West. The King hath granted every article :
His daughter first; and then, in sequel, all,
According to their first-proposed natures.

Exe. Only, he hath not yet subscribed this: Where your Majesty demands that the King of France, having any occasion to write for matter of grant, shall name your Highness in this form and with this addition, in French, Notre tres-cher fils Henri, roi d'Angleterre, héritier de France; and thus in Latin, Præclarissimus 25 filius noster Henricus, rex Angliæ, et hæres Francia.

Fr. King. Nor this I have not, brother, so denied,

But your request shall make me let it pass.

K. Hen. I pray you, then, in love and dear alliance,

Let that one article rank with the rest;

And thereupon give me your daughter.

Fr. King. Take her, fair son; and from her blood raise

up

Issue to me; that the contending kingdoms

Of France and England, whose very shores look pale
With envy of each other's happiness,

May cease their hatred; and this dear conjunction
Plant neighbourhood and Christian-like accord

25 Præclarissimus for Præcarissimus. Shakespeare followed Holinshed, in whose Chronicle it stands thus. Indeed, all the old historians have the same blunder. In the original treaty of Troyes, printed in Rymer, it is præcarissimus.

In their sweet bosoms, that ne'er war advance

His bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair France.
All. Amen!

K. Hen. Now, welcome, Kate ;-and bear me witness all, That here I kiss her as my sovereign Queen.

Q. Isa. God, the best maker of all marriages,
Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one!
As man and wife, being two, are one in love,
So be there 'twixt your kingdoms such a spousal,
That never may ill office, or fell jealousy,
Which troubles oft the bed of blessèd marriage,
Thrust in between the paction 26 of these kingdoms,
To make divorce of their incorporate league ;
That English may as French, French Englishmen,
Receive each other!— God speak this Amen!
All. Amen!

[Flourish.

K. Hen. Prepare we for our marriage : on which day,

My Lord of Burgundy, we'll take your oath,

And all the peers', for surety of our league.

Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me;

And may our oaths well kept and prosperous be!

[Sennet. Exeunt.

Enter Chorus.

Chor. Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
Our bending 27 author hath pursued the story;
In little room confining mighty men,

Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.2

26 Paction is compact, alliance, or league.

28

27 Bending beneath the weight of the subject, as being unequal to it. 28 Giving only fragments and glimpses of their full career.

Small time, but, in that small, most greatly lived
This star of England: Fortune made his sword;
By which the world's best garden he achieved,
And of it left his son imperial lord.
Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King
Of France and England, did this King succeed;
Whose State so many had the managing,

That they lost France, and made his England bleed:
Which oft our stage hath shown; 29 and, for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take.

[Exit.

29 The three Parts of King Henry VI. were written several years before this play, and often acted.

CRITICAL NOTES.

PROLOGUE.

Page 38. O, pardon! since a crooked figure may

Attest in little place a million. — Lettsom conjectures place to

be an erratum for space. Rightly, I suspect.

ACT I., SCENE 1.

P. 40. We lose the better half of our possessions. So Hanmer and Collier's second folio. The old text has possession.

P. 40. Cant. The King is full of grace and fair regard,

And a true lover of the holy Church.

Ely. The courses of his youth promised it not.

Cant. The breath no sooner left his father's body, &c.—In the old text, the second of these lines is assigned to Ely, and the last two to Canterbury; an arrangement, I think, that badly unhinges the dialogue. The correction is Keightley's.

P. 41. Never came reformation in a flood,

With such a heady current, scouring faults.—So the second folio. The first has currance, which may be from the old French courance, and so may yield a fitting sense. But, as Lettsom remarks, "it is plain from the context that the scouring of a river is meant. Current, therefore, seems much the safer reading."

P. 41. So that the art and practic part of life

The

Must be the mistress to his theoric.-So the third folio. earlier editions read "to this theoric." The context readily shows his to be right,