Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/298

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The regular Firt Part of K. Henry VI. was not publihed till 1623, at which time it was entered at Stationers’ hall by the printers of the earliet folio, under the name of the Third Part of K. Henry VI. In one ene it might be called o for two parts had appeared before. But conidering the hitory of that reign, and the period of time it comprehends, it ought to have been called, what in fact it is, the Part of K. Henry VI. Why this Firt Part was not entered on the Stationers’ books with the other two, it is impoSS undefinedible now to determine. That it was written before the Second and Third Parts, Dr. Johnon thinks, appears indubitably from the eries of events. “ It is apparent,” he ays, “ that the Second Part begins where the former ends, and continues the eries of transactions of which it pre-uppoes the firt part already known. This is a ufficient proof that the Second and Third Parts were not written without dependence on the Firt, though they were printed as containing a complete period of hitory.” I once thought differently from the learned commentator; imagining that the Firt Part of King Henry VI. was not written till after the two other parts. But on an attentive examination of thee three plays, I have found ufficient reaon to ubcribe to Dr. Johnon’s opinion. This piece is uppofed to have been produced in the year 1591, on the authority of Thomas Nahe, who in a tract entitled Pierce Pennyles his Supplication to the Devil, which was publihed in 1592, exprely mentions one of the characters in it, who does not appear in the econd or third Part of K. Henry VI. nor, I believe, in any other play of that time. “ How (ays he) would it have joyed brave Talbot, the terror of the French, to think that after he had lain two hundred years in his tomb, he hould triumph again on the