But they, in a short while grudged at as too numerous and disorderly for continual guests, are reduced to thirty. I Not brooking that affront, the old king betakes him to his 1 second daughter; but there also, discord soon arising bee tween the servants of differing masters in one family, it five only are suffered to attend him. Then back he ree turns to the other, hoping that she could not but have more a pity on his gray hairs; but she now refuses to admit him, unless he be content with one only of his followers. At last the remembrance of Cordella comes to his thoughts; n and now, acknowledging how true her words had been, he takes his journey into France.

Now might be seen a difference between the silent affection of some children and the talkative obsequiousness d of others, while the hope of inheritance overacts them, and h on the tongue's end enlarges their duty. Cordella, out of g mere love, at the message only of her father in distress gpours forth true filial tears. And, not enduring that her own or any other eye should see him in such forlorn con"dition as his messenger declared, she appoints one of her t servants first to convey him privately to some good seat town, there to array him, bathe him, cherish him, and f furnish him with such attendance and state as beseemed " his dignity; that then, as from his first landing, he might send word of his arrival to her husband. Which done, Cordella, with her husband and all the barony of his realm, who then first had news of his passing the sea, go out to meet him; and, after all honorable and joyful entertainment, Aganippus surrenders him, during his abode there, the power of his whole kingdom; permitting his wife to go with an army, and set her father upon his throne. Wherein her piety so prospered, that she vanquished her impious sisters and their husbands; and Lear again three years obtained the crown. To whom, dying, Cordella, with all regal solemnities, gave burial; and then, as right heir succeeding, ruled the land five years in ; peace; until her two sisters' sons, not bearing that a kingdom should be governed by a woman, make war against

her, depose her, and imprison her; of which impatient, and now long unexercised to suffer, she there, as is related, killed herself.

In The Mirror for Magistrates, the same incidents are narrated in full, under the title, "How Queen Cordila in despair slew herself, the year before Christ 800," The Queen is here represented as telling the story of her own life, in a poem of forty-nine stanzas, each stanza consisting of seven lines. The poem was written by John Higgins, and originally set forth with a dedication dated December 7, 1586. The workmanship has considerable merit; but there is no sign that Shakespeare made any particular use of it, though he was most likely well acquainted with it. The Mirror for Magistrates is a collection of poems and legends, begun in Mary's reign by Sackville, Earl of Dorset, and continued from time to time by different hands. It was a work of very great popularity, and went through various editions before 1610. There were little need of saying so much about the thing here, but that it shows how widely the story was known when Shakespeare invested it with such tragic glory. We have but to add, that the main circumstances of the tale are briefly told by Spenser, in The Faerie Queene, Book ii, Canto 10, stanzas 27-32, which made its appearance in 1590. It was from Spenser that Shakespeare borrowed the softening of Cordella or Cordila into Cordelia.

The subordinate plot of Gloster and his sons was probably taken from an episodical chapter in Sidney's Arcadia, entitled "The pitiful State and Story of the Paphlagonian unkind King, and his kind Son; first related by the son, then by the blind father." Here Pyrocles, the hero of Arcadia, and his companion, Musidorus, are represented as traveling together in Galatia, when, being overtaken by a furious tempest, they were driven to take shelter in a hollow rock. Staying there till the violence of the storm was passed, they overheard two men holding a strange disputation, which made them step out, yet so as to see, without being seen. There they saw an aged man,

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and a young, both poorly arrayed, extremely weatherbeaten; the old man blind, the young man leading him; yet through those miseries in both appeared a kind of nobleness not suitable to that affliction. But the first words they heard were these of the old man: "Well, Leonatus, since I cannot persuade thee to lead me to that which should end my grief and thy trouble, let me now intreat thee to 18 leave me. Fear not; my misery cannot be greater than it is, and nothing doth become me but misery: fear not the danger of my blind steps; I cannot fall worse than I am. He answered,-"Dear father, do not take away & from me the only remnant of my happiness: while I have power to do you service, I am not wholly miserable.” C These speeches, and some others to like purpose, moved the princes to go out unto them, and ask the younger e what they were. "Sirs," answered he, "I see well you are strangers, that you know not our misery, so well here known. Indeed, our state is such, that, though nothing is so needful to us as pity, yet nothing is more dangerous unto us than to make ourselves so known as may stir pity. This old man whom I lead was lately rightful prince of this country of Paphlagonia; by the hardhearted ungrateefulness of a son of his, deprived not only of his kingdom, but of his sight, the riches which nature grants to the poorest creatures. Whereby, and by other unnatural dealings, he hath been driven to such grief, that even now he would have had me lead him to the top of this rock, thence In to cast himself headlong to death; and so would have made me, who received life from him, to be the worker of his destruction. But, noble gentlemen, if either of you have a ⠀ father, and feel what dutiful affection is engrafted in a * son's heart, let me intreat you to convey this afflicted prince to some place of rest and security."

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Before they could answer him, his father began to speak: "Ah, my son! how evil an historian are you, to leave out the chief knot of all the discourse, my wicked50 ness. And if thou doest it to spare my ears, assure thym self thou dost mistake me. I take witness of that sun

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which you see, that nothing is so welcome to my thoughts as the publishing of my shame. Therefore, know you, but gentlemen, that what my son hath said is true. But this is also true: that, having had in lawful marriage this son, and so enjoyed men's expectations of him, till he was grown to justify their expectations, I was carried by a bastard son of mine, first to mislike, then to hate, lastly to do my best to destroy this son. If I should tell you what ways he used to bring me to it, I should trouble you with c as much hypocrisy, fraud, malice, ambition, and envy, as in any living person could be harbored: but, methinks, thei the accusing his trains might in some manner excuse my fault, which I loathe to do. The conclusion is, that I gave order to some servants of mine, whom I thought as apt for such charities as myself, to lead him out into a forest, and there to kill him.

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"But those thieves spared his life, letting him learn to live poorly; which he did, giving himself to be a private soldier in a country hereby. But, as he was ready to be advanced for some noble service, he heard news of ent me; who, drunk in my affection to that unlawful son, suffered myself so to be governed by him, that, ere I was aware, I had left myself nothing but the name of a king. Soon growing weary of this, he threw me out of my seat, and put out my eyes; and then let me go, full of wretchedness, fuller of disgrace, and fullest of guiltiness. And as he came to the crown by unjust means, as unjustly he keeps it, by force of strange soldiers in citadels, the nests of tyranny; disarming all his countrymen, that no man Ch durst show so much charity as to lend a hand to guide my dark steps; till this son of mine, forgetting my wrongs, not recking danger, and neglecting the way he was in of doing himself good, came hither to do this kind office, to my unspeakable grief: for well I know, he that now reigntak eth will not let slip any advantage to make him away, whose just title may one day shake the seat of a neversecure tyranny. And for this cause I craved of him to lead me to the top of this rock, meaning, I must confess, pea

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to free him from so serpentine a companion as I am; but he, finding what I purposed, only therein, since he was born, showed himself disobedient to me. And now, gentlemen, you have the true story, which, I pray you, publish to the world, that my mischievous proceedings may be the glory of his filial piety, the only reward now left for so great a merit.”

The story then goes on to relate how Plexirtus, the wicked son, presently came with a troop of horse to kill his brother; whereupon Pyrocles and Musidorus, joining with Leonatus, beat back the assailants, killing several of them. Other allies soon coming in on both sides, there follows a war between the two parties, which ends in the overthrow of Plexirtus, and the crowning of Leonatus by his blind father; in which very act the old man expires.

The reader now has before him, we believe, a sufficient view of all the known sources which furnished any hints or materials for this great tragedy; unless we should add, that there is an old ballad on the subject, entitled "A lamentable Song of the Death of King Lear and his three Daughters,” and reprinted in Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry. The ballad, however, was probably of a later date than the play, and partly founded upon it.

There has been a good deal of impertinent criticism spent upon the circumstance, that in the details and costume of this play the Poet did not hold himself to the date of the legend which he adopted as the main plot. That date, as we have seen, was some 800 years before Christ; yet the play abounds in manners, sentiments, and allusions of a much later time. Malone is scandalized, that while the old chroniclers have dated Lear's reign from the year of the world 3105, yet Edgar speaks of Nero, who was not born till 800 or 900 years after. The painstaking Mr. Douce, also, is in dire distress at the Poet's blunders in substituting the manners of England under the Tudors for those of the ancient Britons. Now, to make these points, or such as these, any ground of impeachment, is to mistake totally the nature and design of