PERSONS REPRESENTED.

King Henry the Fourth.
Henry, Prince of Wales,
Prince John of Lancaster,

}s
sons to the King

Earl of Westmoreland, 1 friends to the Kina

Lowowo, uuers, onerijl, vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers,

two Carriers, Travellers, and Altendants.

Scene, England.

Fal. 'Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead: How if he should counterfeit too, and rise? I am afraid, he would prove the better counterfeit.

OBSERVATIONS

ON

THE FABLE AND COMPOSITION

OF

THE FIRST PART OF

KING HENRY IV.

The transactions contained in this historical drama are comprised within the period of about ten months; for the action commences with the news brought of Hotspur having defeated the Scots under Archibald earl of Douglas at Holmedon, (or Halidown-hill,) which battle was fought on Holy-rood-day, (the 14th of September,) 1402; and it closes with the defeat and death of Hotspur at Shrewsbury; which engagement happened on Saturday the 21st of July, (the eve of Saint Mary Magdalen,) in the year 1403.

THEOBALD. Henry IV. Part I. was entered at Stationers' Hall, Feb, 25, 1597, by A. Wise, and again by M. Woolff, Jan. 9. 1598.

Shakspeare has apparently designed a regular connection of these dramatic histories from Richard the Second to Henry the Fifth, King Henry, at the end of Richard the Second, declares bis purpose to visit the Holy Land, which he resumes in the first speech of this play. The complaint made by King Henry in the last act of Richard the Second, of the wildness of his son, prepares the reader for the frolics which are here to be recounted, and the characters which are now to be exhibited. JOHNSON.

This comedy was written, I believe, in the year 1597. See An Attempt to ascertain the Order of Shakspeare's Plays, vol. ix.

MALONE. VOL. IV.

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