we'll take your oath,

My lord of Burgundy, we'll take
And all the peers', for surety of our leagues.-
Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me;
And may our oaths well kept and prosperous be!
[Exeunt.

Enter CHORUS.

Thus far, with rough, and all unable pen,
Our bending author' has pursu'd the story;
In little room confining mighty men,

8

Mangling by starts the full course of their glory. Small time, but, in that small, most greatly liv'd This star of England: fortune made his sword; By which the world's best garden he achiev'd, 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; and, for their sake,

In your fair minds let this acceptance take. [Exit'.

“Our marriage will we present solemnize,
"And end our hatred by a bond of love.

66

* Then will I swear to Kate, and Kate to me,
"And may our vows once made, unbroken be."

STEEVENS. Our BENDING author ] By bending, our author meant unequal to the weight of his subject, and bending beneath it; or he may mean, as in Hamlet: "Here stooping to your clemency." STEEVENS.

* Mangling by starts-] By touching only on select parts. JOHNSON.

9 the world's best GARDEN] i. e. France. A similar distinction is bestowed, in The Taming of the Shrew, on Lombardy : "The pleasant garden of great Italy." STEEVENS.

This play has many scenes of high dignity, and many of easy merriment. The character of the King is well supported, except in his courtship, where he has neither the vivacity of Hal, nor

VOL. XVII.

2 I

the grandeur of Henry. The humour of Pistol is very happily continued his character has perhaps been the model of all the bullies that have yet appeared on the English stage.

The lines given to the Chorus have many admirers; but the truth is, that in them a little may be praised, and much must be forgiven; nor can it be easily discovered why the intelligence given by the Chorus is more necessary in this play than in many others where it is omitted. The great defect of this play is the emptiness and narrowness of the last Act, which a very little diligence might have easily avoided. JOHNSON.

The variations between the quarto and folio copies of this play are numerous and extensive; but, as Johnson has observed, it would be tedious to mention them, and tedious without much use. The earliest editions are evidently corrupted and imperfect, and bear no marks of being the author's first conceptions, which I have supposed may have been the case with the first copy of Romeo and Juliet, where I have for that reason exhibited the alterations in detail. Yet, as a few verbal differences have been pointed out by my predecessors, I have made a small addition to their number, where it might be questionable which reading deserved a preference. BosWELL.