Henry the sixth in swaddling bands crown’d king,
  Whose state so many had i’ the managing
  That they lost France, and made all England rue,
  Which oft our stage hath shown.

France is lost in this play.  The two following contain, as the old title imports, the contention of the houses of York and Lancaster.

The two first parts of Henry VI. were printed in 1600.  When Henry V. was written, we know not, but it was printed likewise in 1600, and, therefore, before the publication of the first and second parts:  the first part of Henry VI. had been often shown on the stage, and would certainly have appeared in its place had the author been the publisher.

KING HENRY VI.  PART III.

The three parts of Henry VI. are suspected, by Mr. Theobald, of being supposititious, and are declared, by Dr. Warburton, to be certainly not Shakespeare’s[9].  Mr. Theobald’s suspicion arises from some obsolete words; but the phraseology is like the rest of our author’s style, and single words, of which, however, I do not observe more than two, can conclude little.

Dr. Warburton gives no reason, but I suppose him to judge upon deeper principles and more comprehensive views, and to draw his opinion from the general effect and spirit of the composition, which he thinks inferiour to the other historical plays.

From mere inferiority nothing can be inferred; in the productions of wit there will be inequality.  Sometimes judgment will err, and sometimes the matter itself will defeat the artist.  Of every author’s works one will be the best, and one will be the worst.  The colours are not equally pleasing, nor the attitudes equally graceful, in all the pictures of Titian or Reynolds.

Dissimilitude of style, and heterogeneousness of sentiment, may sufficiently show that a work does not really belong to the reputed author.  But in these plays no such marks of spuriousness are found.  The diction, the versification, and the figures, are Shakespeare’s.  These plays, considered without regard to characters and incidents, merely as narratives in verse, are more happily conceived, and more accurately finished, than those of King John, Richard II. or the tragick scenes of Henry IV. and V. If we take these plays from Shakespeare, to whom shall they be given?  What author of that age had the same easiness of expression and fluency of numbers?

Having considered the evidence given by the plays themselves, and found it in their favour, let us now inquire what corroboration can be gained from other testimony.  They are ascribed to Shakespeare by the first editors, whose attestation may be received in questions of fact, however unskilfully they superintended their edition.  They seem to be declared genuine by the voice of Shakespeare himself, who refers to the second play in his epilogue to Henry V. and apparently connects the first act of Richard III. with the last