Dramatis Personæ. In Rowe's list, which remained uncorrected by any editor before Capell, the Duke of Clarence is introduced and the Duke of York is called 'Uncle to the king.' The list we have given differs in a few other unimportant points from that of Rowe.
In the first Folio the title of the play is The Life of Henry the Fift. The second Folio has The Life of King Henry the Fift. In the Folios the play is divided into acts, but not into scenes, although they prefix Actus Primus, Scena Prima, to the first act. The division was first made by Pope.
[Note II.]
Act II. Prologue, 31, 32. Mr Knight says, "The passage is evidently corrupt; and we believe that the two lines were intended to be erased from the author's copy; for 'the abuse of distance' is inapplicable as the lines stand." Mr Keightley proposes to read,
'and we'll digest
The abuse of distance as we forge our play.'
We have left the reading of the Folios, as no proposed emendation can be regarded as entirely satisfactory.
[Note III.]
II. 2. 139, 140. Malone misquotes the reading of Pope in this passage, and his error is repeated without correction in subsequent editions. Mr Mitford in the Gentleman's Magazine, Nov. 1844, proposes to read, 'To mark the full-fraught man and least inclined,' &c., quoting 'inclined' as if it were the received text. Perhaps it is a printer's error.