and in very many places greatly commended.  For those Plays which he has taken from the English or Roman History, let any Man compare ’em, and he will find the Character as exact in the Poet as the Historian.  He seems indeed so far from proposing to himself any one Action for a Subject, that the Title very often tells you, ’tis The Life of King John, King Richard, _&c._ What can be more agreeable to the Idea our Historians give of Henry the Sixth, than the Picture Shakespear has drawn of him!  His Manners are every where exactly the same with the Story; one finds him still describ’d with Simplicity, passive Sanctity, want of Courage, weakness of Mind, and easie Submission to the Governance of an imperious Wife, or prevailing Faction:  Tho’ at the same time the Poet do’s Justice to his good Qualities, and moves the Pity of his Audience for him, by showing him Pious, Disinterested, a Contemner of the Things of this World, and wholly resign’d to the severest Dispensations of God’s Providence.  There is a short Scene in the Second Part of Henry VI. Vol.  III. pag. 1504. which I cannot but think admirable in its Kind.  Cardinal Beaufort, who had murder’d the Duke of Gloucester, is shewn in the last Agonies on his Death-Bed, with the good King praying over him.  There is so much Terror in one, so much Tenderness and moving Piety in the other, as must touch any one who is capable either of Fear or Pity.  In his Henry VIII. that Prince is drawn with that Greatness of Mind, and all those good Qualities which are attributed to him in any Account of his Reign.  If his Faults are not shewn in an equal degree, and the Shades in this Picture do not bear a just Proportion to the Lights, it is not that the Artist wanted either Colours or Skill in the Disposition of ’em; but the truth, I believe, might be, that he forbore doing it out of regard to Queen Elizabeth, since it could have been no very great Respect to the Memory of his Mistress, to have expos’d some certain Parts of her Father’s Life upon the Stage.  He has dealt much more freely with the Minister of that Great King, and certainly nothing was ever more justly written, than the Character of Cardinal Wolsey.  He has shewn him Tyrannical, Cruel, and Insolent in his Prosperity; and yet, by a wonderful Address, he makes his Fall and Ruin the Subject of general Compassion.  The whole Man, with his Vices and Virtues, is finely and exactly describ’d in the second Scene of the fourth Act.  The Distresses likewise of Queen Katherine, in this Play, are very movingly touch’d:  and tho’ the Art of the Poet has skreen’d King Henry from any gross Imputation of Injustice, yet one is inclin’d to wish, the Queen had met with a Fortune more worthy of her Birth and Virtue.  Nor are the Manners, proper to the Persons represented, less justly observ’d, in those Characters taken from the Roman History; and of this, the Fierceness