THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY

The First Part of King Henry the Fourth was probably written at about the same time as The Merchant of Venice; or, as the editors almost unanimously decide, in 1596 or 1597. It was entered on the Stationers' Registers on the 25th of February, 1597-98 as a booke intituled The historye of Henry the iiijth with his battaile of Shrewsburye against Henry Hottspurre of the Northe with the conceipted mirthe of Sir John ffalstoff"; and a quarto edition was printed in 1598, with the following title page:

The History of | Henrie the Fovrth; | With the battell at Shrewsburie, | betweene the King and Lord | Henry Percy, surnamed | Henrie Hotspur of the North. With the humorous conceits of Sir | John Falstalffe. AT LONDON, | Printed by P. S. for Andrew Wise, dwelling | in Paules Churchyard, at the signe of the Angell.

1598.

A second quarto was brought out in 1599, followed by others in 1604, 1608, and 1613. Each of these appears to have been printed from its predecessor; and a partially corrected copy of the last in the series seems to have furnished the text of the play for the folio of 1623. Subsequent editions in quarto were printed in 1622 (probably too late for the folio editors), 1632, and 1639.

In the Palladis Tamia, or Wits Treasury, by Francis Meres, published in 1598, 1 Henry IV is one of the twelve plays of Shakespeare enumerated in a famous passage which may be appropriately quoted here:

"As the Greeke tongue is made famous and eloquent by Homer, Hesiod, Euripedes, Aeschilus, Sophocles, Pindarus, Phocylides and Aristophanes; and the Latine tongue by Virgil, Ouid, Horace, Silius Italicus, Lucanus, Lucretius, Ausonius and Claudianus: so the English tongue is mightily enriched, and gorgeouslie inuested in rare ornaments and resplendent abiliments by sir Philip Sidney, Spencer, Daniel, Drayton, Warner, Shakespeare, Marlow and Chapman.

"As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to liue in Pythagorus: so the sweete wittie soule of Ouid liues in