propofal, both on account of his youth, and the neceffity of applying his mind to the ftudies becoming his rank and fituation.

King: Marriage? Alas! my years are yet too young;
And fitter is my study and my books,

Than wanton dalliance with a paramour.

Such confiderations, it feems, were regarded in those days, and in the time of our Author likewife, or he would not have commented on the fubject. Are we grown wifer?

This fame topic of matrimony is fully difcuffed, and in a more general and liberal manner, in the prefent Scene, upon Exeter's objecting to the match propofed, on account of the Princefs mentioned not being fufficiently endowed with fortune.

Suffolk. A dower, my lords! Difgrace not so your king,
That he should be fo abject, bafe, and poor,

To chufe for wealth, and not for perfect love.
Henry is able to enrich his queen,

And need not feek a queen to make him rich.
So worthless peasants bargain for their wives,
As market-men for oxen, fheep, or horse.
But marriage is a matter of more worth,
Than to be dealt in by attorney-fhip.

Not whom we will, but whom his grace affects,
Muft be companion of his nuptial bed.

And therefore, lords, fince he affects her most,
It most of all these reasons bindeth us,

In our opinions she should be preferred;
For what is wedlock forced, but a hell,
An age of difcord and continual ftrife?
Whereas the contrary bringeth forth bliss,
And is a pattern of celestial peace.

These arguments are certainly conclufive, in private life; and if reafons of state may be allowed to stand against them, in the fupremeft rank, I fhall only conclude my remarks on this Piece, with a line of an old fong, in favour of our natural and char tered liberties,

"If fo happy's a miller, then who'd be a king !"

HENRY the SIXTH

SECOND PAR T.

Dramatis Perfonæ,

HENRY the Sixth.

ME N.

DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, Uncle to the King. CARDINAL BEAUFORT, Bishop of Winchester, Great Uncle to the King.

HENRY the SIX T H.

TH.

SECOND PAR T.

T

ACT II. SCENE I.

HE King and Gloucester returned from hawking :

King. But what a point, my lord, your faulcon made,

And what a pitch the flew above the rest-
To fee how God in all his creatures works!
Yea man and birds are fain of climbing high.

Here the king has made a philofophic reflection on the afpiring but commendable nature of man; which is improved with a religious fenfe in the reply: Gloucester. My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind, That mounts no higher than a bird can foar *.

When a charge has been exhibited against the duchefs of Gloucester, for treafon and forcery, the Cardinal, a declared enemy to the duke her hufband, takes occafion to infult him upon this miffortune; to which he thus answers :

Gloucefler. Ambitious churchman! leave to afflict my heart!
Sorrow and grief have vanquished all my powers;

And, vanquished as I am, I yield to thee,

Or to the meanest groom.

This paffage feems to be an imitation of a Latin fentence I have somewhere met with, and venture to quote from memory only---Spes aquilas jupervulat; Hope foars beyond an eagle's flight.

I do not mean to adduce this inftance, in order to fupport an opinion of Shakefpeare's learning; but merely to fhew that good wits may fometimes fly, as well as jump together. The fevereft critic may furely pardon a play on words, in a comment upon fo fportive an author. It would be an invidious reflection on our poet's fame, to fuppofe him to have been a scholar. A genius lands thoughts, a scholar but borrows them.

U 4

The