Lords, Captains, Soldiers, Meffingers, and feveral Attendants both on the English and French. SCENE I. Weftminster Abbey. I. Brandifh your crystal treffes in the sky; And with them fcourge the bad revolting ftars, Dead March. Enter the Funeral of King Henry the That have contented unto Henry's death! Fifth, attended on by the Duke of Bedford, R-Henry the fifth, too famous to live iong gent of France; the Duke of Glofler, Protector; England ne'er loft a king of fo much worth. the Duke of Exeter, and the Earl of Warwick; the Bishop of Winchester, and the Duke of Somerfet, &c. Glo. England ne'er had a king, until bis time. 1 Mr. Theobald obferves, that "the hiftorical tranfactions contained in this play, take in the compass of above thirty years. I muft obferve, however, that our author, in the three parts of Henry VI. has not been very precife to the date and difpofition of his facts; but thuffled then, backwards and forwards, out of time, For inftance; the lord Talbot is kill'd at the end of the forth act of this play, who in reality did not fall till the 13th of July 1453; and The Second Part of Hewy i I. opens with the marriage of the king, which was folemnized eight years before Talbot's death, in ne year 1445. Again, in the fecond part, dame Eleanor Cobham is introduced to infult queen Margaret; though her penance and banishment for forcery happened three years before that princefs came over to England. I could point out many other tranfgreflions against hiftory, as far as the order of time is concerned. Indeed, though there are feveral malter-strokes in thefe three plays, which inconteftably betray the workmanship of Shakspeare; yet I am almost doubtful, whether they were entirely of his writing. And unlefs they were wrote by him very early, I thould rather imagine the m to have been brought to him as a director of the ftage; and fo have received fome finifhing beauties at his hand. An accurate obteryer will eafily fee, the diction of them is more obfolete, and the numpers more mean and profaical, than in the generality of his genuine compofitions." What |