And brother Clarence,—and you, brother Gloster,—
Warwick, and Huntington,-go with the king;
And take with you free power to ratify,
Augment, or alter, as your wisdoms best
Shall see advantageable for our dignity,
Any thing in, or out of, our demands;

And we'll consign thereto.-Will you, fair sister,
Go with the princes, or stay here with us?

Q. Isa. Our gracious brother, I will go with them:
Haply a woman's voice may do some good,

When articles, too nicely urg'd, be stood on.

K. Hen. Yet leave our cousin Katharine here with us: She is our capital demand, compris'd

Within the fore-rank of our articles.

Q. Isa. She hath good leave.

[Exeunt all except K. HENRY, KATHARINE, and ALICE. K. Hen: Fair Katharine, and most fair! Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms Such as will enter at a lady's ear,

And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?

Kath. Your majesty shall mock at me; I cannot speak your England.

K. Hen. O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?

Kath. Pardonnez moy, I cannot tell vat is-like me.

K. Hen. An angel is like you, Kate; and you are like an angel.
Kath. Que dit-il? que je suis semblable à les anges?
Alice. Ouy, vrayment, sauf vostre grace, ainsi dit-il.

K. Hen. I said so, dear Katharine; and I must not blush to affirm it.

Kath. O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines de tromperie.

K. Hen. What says she, fair one? that the tongues of men are full of deceits?

Alice. Ouy, dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits : dat is de princess.

K. Hen. The princess is the better English-woman. I' faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding: I am glad thou canst speak no better English; for, if thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain king, that thou wouldst think I had sold my farm to buy my crown. I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say-I love you: then, if you urge me farther than to say-Do you in faith? I wear out my suit. Give me your answer; i' faith, do; and so clap hands and a bargain: how say you, lady?

Kath. Sauf vostre honneur, me understand well.

K. Hen. Marry, if you would put me to verses, or to dance

for your sake, Kate, why you undid me. If I could win a lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my armor on my back, under the correction of bragging be it spoken, I should quickly leap into a wife. But, before heaven, Kate, I cannot look greenly, nor gasp out my eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation; only downright oaths, which I never use till urged, nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sun-burning, that never looks in his glass for love of any thing he sees there,-let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee plain soldier: if thou canst love me for this, take me; if not, to say to thee that I shall die, is true, but for thy love, by the Lord, no; yet I loye thee too. And while thou livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other places: for these fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies' favors, they do always reason themselves out again. What! a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad. A good limb will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow; but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon,— for it shines bright, and never changes, but keeps his course truly. If thou would have such a one, take me and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king: and what sayest thou, then, to my love? speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee. Kath. Is it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France?

K. Hen. No; it is not possible you should love the enemy of France, Kate: but, in loving me, you should love the friend of France; for I love France so well, that I will not part with a village of it; I will have it all mine: and, Kate, when France is mine and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine. Kath. I cannot tell vat is dat.

K. Hen. No, Kate? I will tell thee in French; which I am sure will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her husband's neck, hardly to be shook off.-Quand j'ay la possession de France, et quand vous avez la possession de moy, (let me see, what then? Saint Dennis be my speed!)-donc vostre est France, et vous estes mienne. It is as easy for me, Kate, to conquer the kingdom, as to speak so much more French: I shall never move thee in French, unless it be to laugh at me.

Kath. Sauf vostre honneur, le François que vous parlez, cst meilleur que l'Anglois lequel je parle.

K. Hen. No, 'faith, is't not, Kate: but thy speaking of my tongue, and I thine, most truly falsely, must needs be granted to be much at one. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much English,-Canst thou love me?

Kath. I cannot tell.

K. Hen. How answer you, la plus belle Katharine du monde, mon très chère et divine déesse?

Kath. Your majesté have fausse French enough to deceive de most sage demoiselle dat is en France.

K. Hen. Now, fie upon my false French! By mine honor, in true English, I love thee, Kate: by which honor I dare not swear, thou lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter me that thou dost, notwithstanding the poor and untempering effect of my visage. But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear my comfort is, that old age, that ill layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face: thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better:-and therefore tell me, most fair Katharine, will you have me? Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress; take me by the hand, and say-Harry of England, I am thine: which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine ear withal, but I will tell thee aloud-England is thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Henry Plantagenet is thine; who, though Í speak it before his face, if he be not fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good fellows. Come, your answer in broken music,-for thy voice is music, and thy English broken; therefore, queen of all, Katharine, break thy mind to me in broken English,-wilt thou have me?

Kath. Dat is, as it shall please de roy mon pere.

K. Hen. Nay, it will please him well, Kate,-it shall please him, Kate.

Kath. Den it shall also content me.

K. Hen. Upon that I kiss your hand, and I call you my queen. Kath. Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez: ma foy, je ne veux point que vous abbaissez vostre grandeur, en baisant la main d'une vostre indigne serviteure: excusez moy, je vous supplie, mon très puissant seigneur.

K. Hen. Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.

Kath. Les dames, et damoiselles, pour estre baisées devant leur noces, il n'est pas la coûtume de France.

K. Hen. Madam my interpreter, what says she?

Alice. Dat it is not be de fashion pour les ladies of France,-I cannot tell what is, baiser, en English.

K. Hen. To kiss.

Alice. Your majesty entendre bettre que moy.

K. Hen. It is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss before they are married, would she say?

Alice. Ouy, vrayment.

K. Hen. O Kate, nice customs court'sy to great kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country's fashion: we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our places stops the mouths of all find

faults, -as I will do yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your country in denying me a kiss: therefore, patiently, and yielding. [Kissing her.] You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them, than in the tongues of the French council; and they should sooner persuade Harry of England, than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father.

Re-enter the French King and Queen, BURGUndy, Bedford, GLOSTER, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and other French and English Lords.

Bur. Heaven save your majesty! My royal cousin, Teach you our princess English?

K. Hen. I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how perfectly I love her; and that is good English.

Bur. Is she not apt?

K. Hen. Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in her, that he will appear in his true likeness.

Bur. I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will teach her to know my meaning: for maids, well summered and warm kept, are like flies at Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their eyes.

K. Hen. This moral ties me over to time, and a hot summer; and so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end, and she must be blind too.

Bur. As love is, my lord, before it loves.

K. Hen. It is so: and you may, some of you, thank love for my blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city, for one fair French maid that stands in my way.

Fr. King. Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities turned into a maid.

K. Hen. Shall Kate be my wife?

Fr. King. Take her, fair son; and from her blood raise up Issue to me; that the contending kingdoms

Of France and England, whose very shores look pale

With envy of each other's happiness,

May cease their hatred; and this dear conjunction

Plant neighborhood and christian-like accord

In their sweet bosoms, that never war advance

His bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair France.

K. Hen. Now, welcome, Kate:—and bear me witness all,

[Flourish.

That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen.
Prepare we for our marriage:-on which day
My lord of Burgundy, we'll take your oath,
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.

THE HISTORY OF

KING HENRY VI.

PART I

THE "Chronicle History" of Henry VI. is divided into three parts, forming, together, authentic annals of this monarch's reign; giving a vivid picture of "the contentions of the Houses of York and Lancaster," or the "Wars of the Roses." The chronicles of Hall and Holinshed afforded the poet materials for his labors, and, bating a few errors in dates, the whole of the series may be taken as a faithful historical transcript of the times they are intended to illustrate. The first part of Henry VI. commences with the childhood of Henry, while the kingdom was under the Protectorate of his uncle, the Duke of Gloster, and ends with preparations for the marriage of Henry with Margaret, his future Queen, which took place in the twenty-third year of his reign, 1445.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

KING HENRY THE SIXTH.

DUKE OF GLOSTER, Uncle to the KING, and Protector.

DUKE OF BEDFORD, Uncle to the KING, and Regent of France.

THOMAS BEAUFORT, Duke of Exeter, Great Uncle to the KING.

HENRY BEAUFORT, Great Uncle to the KING; Bishop of Winchester, and afterwards Cardinal.

JOHN BEAUFORT, Earl of Somerset, afterwards Duke.

RICHARD PLANTAGENET, Eldest Son of Richard, late Earl of Cambridge; afterwards Duke of York.

EARLS OF WARWICK, SALISBURY, and SUFFolk.

LORD TALBOT, afterwards Earl of Shrewsbury.

JOHN TALBOT, his Son.

EDMUND MORTIMER, Earl of March.

MORTIMER'S Keepers, and a Lawyer.

Sir JOHN Fastolfe. Sir WILLIAM LUCY. Sir WILLIAM GLANSDALE. Sir

THOMAS GARGRAVE.

WOODVILLE, Lieutenant of the Tower. Mayor of London.

VERNON, of the White Rose, or York Faction.