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3. The First Part of King Henry VI. 1591.
The regular Firſt Part of K. Henry VI. was not publiſhed till 1623, at which time it was entered at Stationers’ hall by the printers of the earlieſt folio, under the name of the Third Part of K. Henry VI. In one ſenſe it might be called ſo for two parts had appeared before. But conſidering the hiſtory of that reign, and the period of time it comprehends, it ought to have been called, what in fact it is, the First Part of K. Henry VI. Why this Firſt Part was not entered on the Stationers’ books with the other two, it is impoſſible now to determine. That it was written before the Second and Third Parts, Dr. Johnſon thinks, appears indubitably from the ſeries of events. “ It is apparent,” he ſays, “ that the Second Part begins where the former ends, and continues the ſeries of transactions of which it pre-ſuppoſes the firſt part already known. This is a ſufficient proof that the Second and Third Parts were not written without dependence on the Firſt, though they were printed as containing a complete period of hiſtory.”
I once thought differently from the learned commentator; imagining that the Firſt Part of King Henry VI. was not written till after the two other parts. But on an attentive examination of theſe three plays, I have found ſufficient reaſon to ſubſcribe to Dr. Johnſon’s opinion.
This piece is ſuppofed to have been produced in the year 1591, on the authority of Thomas Naſhe, who in a tract entitled Pierce Pennyleſs his Supplication to the Devil, which was publiſhed in 1592[1], expreſly mentions one of the characters in it, who does not appear in the ſecond or third Part of K. Henry VI. nor, I believe, in any other play of that time. “ How (ſays he) would it have joyed brave Talbot, the terror of the French[2], to think that after he had lain two hundred years in his tomb, he ſhould triumph again on the
- ↑ This was the firſt edition, for it was not entered on the Stationers’ books before that year.
- ↑ Thus Talbot is deſcribed in the firſt part of K. Henry VI. Act I. ſc. iii.
“ Here, ſaid they, is the terror of the French.”
Again in Act V. ſc. i.
Is Talbot ſlain, the Frenchmens’ only ſcourge,
“ Your kingdom’s terror?”—
