LONDON:
Printed

for, and under the Direction of,
John Bell, British Library, STRAND,
Bookseller to His Royal Highness the PRINCE OF WALES.

MDCC LXXXVIII.

H E N R Y

N R Y VI.
PART III.

BY.

WILL. SHAKSPERE:

Printed Complete from the TEXT of

SAM. 70HNSON and GEO. STEEVENS,

And revised from the last Editions.

When Learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous focs
First rear'd the Stage, immortal SHAKSPERE rose;
Each change of many-colour'd life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new :
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain :
His pow'rful strokes presiding Truth confess'd,
And unresisted Passion storm'd the breast.

DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON

LONDON:

Printed for, and under the dire&tion of, John Bell, British. Library, STRAND, Bookseller to His Royal Highness the PRINCE of WALES:

MDCCLX X X VI.

The action of this play (which was at first printed under this title, The true Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, and the good King Henry the Sixth; of, The Second Part of the Con. tention of York and Lancaster.) opens just after the first battle at Saint Alban's, wherein the York faction carried the day: and closes with the murder of king Henry VI. and the birth of prince Edward, afterwards king Edward V. So that this history takes in the space of fuld sixteen years.

THEOBALD. The present historical drama was altered by Crowne, and brought on the stage in the year 1680, under the title of The Miseries of Civil War. Surely, the works of Shakspere could have been little read at that period; for Crowne in his prom logue, declares the play to be entirely his own composition :

“ For by his feeble skill 'tis built alone,
“ The divine Shakspere did not lay one stone:",