which pierce the heart of all who hear them repeated." Cordelia is as the sun above the deeps of hell shown in Goneril and Regan. One can hardly help wishing that Shakspere had followed the old story told by Layamon and other repeaters of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and made Cordelia set her father on the throne again, and reign after him for a while in peace. But the tragedian, the preacher of Shakspere's ThirdPeriod lesson, did wisely for his art and meaning, in letting the daughter and father lie in one grave. Of the noble Kent, of Gloster,--who doubles Lear in error, and almost in suffering,-of Edmund, the Iago of this play, I have no time to speak. And while content that others should claim Lear as Shakspere's greatest work, for its diversity and contrast of character, its mixing the storms of nature with the passions of man1, I must yet claim Othello as the work which most deeply touches my heart. Its third Act is the greatest achievement of Shakspere as a dramatist; the first three Acts of Macbeth (I. v., vii.; II., III.) come next; Lear may follow. The date of Lear

1 Coleridge says of Act III. sc. iv., "O, what a world's convention of agonies is here! All external nature in a storm, all moral nature convulsed-the real madness of Lear, the feigned madness of Edgar, the babbling of the fool, the desperate fidelity of Kent-surely such a scene was never conceived before or since."-Lit. Rem., ii. 201, 1836. In the volume of Macaulay's Notes on Books, lately publisht by Sir George Trevelyan, 1907, Macaulay is recorded to have written before Act III. sc. iv.; "Here begins the finest of all human performances." When Lear breaks forth into the terrible apostrophe beginning

"O, let not woman's weapons, water-drops,

Stain my man's cheeks,"

Macaulay writes, "Where is there anything like this in the world?" As to Othello, he rightly held it "the best play extant in any language," and he knew the whole of it by heart, says Sir George Trevelyan.

may be considered as fixt at 1605-6. It was enterd in the Stationers' Registers on Novr. 26, 1607: "Nathanael Butter, John Busby. Enterd for their copie vnder th[e h]andes of Sir George Buck knight and Th(e) wardens a booke called Master William Shakespeare his historye of Kinge Lear as yt was played before the kinges maiestie at Whitehall vppon Sainct Stephens night [26 Decr.] at Christmas Last by his maiesties servantes playinge vsually at the Globe on the Banksyde vjd" (Arber's Transcript, iii. 366). Two quartos of it were publisht by Butter in 1608, independent texts,1 and neither copied by the Folio, which is the best version of the play, altho' it omits certain portions of the dialog. The title pages of 21, 22, confirm the Stat. Reg. date of the performance of the play. The source of the Lear story is Holinshed's Chronicle; of the Gloster, Edmund, and Edgar story, Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, while suggestions for Edgar's "mad" speeches, the names of devils, were taken from A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures, by Bishop Harsnet, 1603. Mr. Hazlitt has reprinted in his Shakspere's Library: 1. The History of Lear, from Holinshed (Pt. 1., vol. ii., p. 314). 2. The same, from the English Gesta Romanorum (ab. 1440 A.D.), edit. Madden, pp. 450–3 (ib. p. 315), edit. Herrtage, p. 48, Early Eng. Text Soc., 1879. 3. The History of Leir and his Three Daughters, 1605, a play (Part II., vol. ii., p. 305. It was not used by Shakspere.). 4. Queen Cordela, an historical poem, by

1 Facsimiles of Quartos I. and II. were edited with Introductory Notes by Mr. P. A. Daniel in 1885 as Nos. 83 and 84 of the Shakspere Quarto Facsimiles.

John Higins, from the Mirror for Magistrates (Pt. I., ii. 324). 5. The Story of the Paphlagonian Unkind King from Sidney's Arcadia (ib. 337). 6. The Ballad of Lear and his Three Daughters (ib. 348). The Latin original of the Lear story is Geoffrey of Monmouth's Hist. Britonum, bk. ii.; ch. 11-15. And it was first told, and well told, in English, by Layamon in his Brut, ab. 1205.1 That it came originally from Wales there is little doubt. I think Lear must stand by itself as "the first Ingratitude and Cursing Play," tho' it is linkt to the Group before it, and the Lust or False-Love Group which follows it.

66

The old Play of King Leir was edited for the Shakespeare Classics by Sidney Lee in 1907. The season of Lear is Spring (Ellacombe). Daniel in his Time-Analysis" (New Shaks. Soc. Trans, 1877-79, p. 222) computes that the play of King Lear occupies some time less than one month, ten days being represented on the stage, with intervals.

66

A very

useful book to consult on the development of the Lear story is Emil Bode's Die Learsage vor Shakespeare, Halle, 1904. A fuller history is Wilfred Perrett's The Story of King Lear from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Shakespeare, Berlin (Palaestra)," 1904.-M.

1 See also The Brut, pp. 16-20, edited for the Early Eng. Text Soc. 1906, by Dr. Brie. The first part, containing the history of Lear, is an early translation of the French Brut d'Engleterre. From the French the tale passed into the Gesta Romanorum.

SCENE I-A Room of State in King LEAR'S Palace

Enter KENT, GLOSTER, and EDMUND

Kent. I thought, the king had more affected the Duke of Albany, than Cornwall.

Glo. It did always seem so to us: but now, in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values most; for equalities are so

weighed, that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety.

Kent. Is not this your son, my lord?

Glo. His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to it.

Kent. I cannot conceive you.

Glo. Sir, this young fellow's mother could ; whereupon she grew round-wombed, and had, indeed, sir, a son for her cradle, ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?

Kent. I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper.

Glo. But I have a son, sir, by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account, though this knave came somewhat saucily into the world, before he was sent for; yet was his mother fair, there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged. -Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund? Edm. No, my lord.

Glo. My Lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as my honourable friend.

Edm. My services to your lordship.

Kent. I must love you, and sue to know you better.