PROLOGUE SPOKEN AT THE REVIVAL OF SHAKESPEARE'S KING HENRY VI.
AT THE THEATRE-ROYAL IN DRURY-LANE.
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PRINTED BEFORE THE PLAY, FROM A SPURIOUS COPY.
To-night a patient ear, ye Britons, lend,
And to your great forefathers' deeds attend.
Here cheaply warn'd, ye blest descendants, view
What ills on England, Civil Discord drew.
To wound the heart, the martial Muse prepares;
While the red scene with raging slaughter glares.
Here, while a monarch's suff'rings we relate,
Let gen'rous grief his ruin'd grandeur wait.
While Second Richard's blood for vengeance calls,
Doom'd for his grandsire's guilt, poor Henry falls.
In civil jars avenging judgment blows,
And royal wrongs entail a people's woes.
Henry, unvers'd in wiles, more good than great,
Drew on by meekness his disastrous fate.
Thus when you see this land by faction tost,
Her nobles slain, her laws, her freedom lost;
Let this reflection from the action flow,
We ne'er from foreign foes could ruin know.
Oh, let us then intestine discord shun,
We ne'er can be, but by ourselves, undone.
