King Lear.

Lear's distressful ftory has been often told in poems, ballads, and chronicles: but to none of thefe are we indebted for Shakspeare's Lear; but to a filly old play which first made its appearance in 1605, the title of which is as follows:-"The | True Chronicle Hi- ftory of King LEIR, and his three daughters, Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordella. As it hath bene divers and fundry | times lately acted. | LONDON, | Printed by Simon Stafford for John | Wright, and are to bee fold at his shop at | Chriftes Church dore, next Newgate- | Market. 1605. (4° I. 4b.)-As it is a great curiofity, and very scarce, the title is here inferted at large: and for the fame reason, and alfo to fhew the ufe that Shakspeare made of it, fome extracts will now be added.

The author of this Leir has kept him close to the chronicles; for he ends his play with the reinftating King Leir in his throne, by the aid of Cordella and her husband. But take the entire fable in his own words. Towards the end of the play, at fignature H 3, you find Leir in France : upon whose coaft he and his friend Perillus are landed in fo neceffitous a condition, that, having nothing to pay their paffage, the mariners take their cloaks, leaving them their jerkins in exchange: thus attir'd, they go up further into the country; and there, when they are at the point to perifh by famine, infomuch that Perillus offers Leir his arm to feed upon, they light upon Gallia and his queen, whom the author has brought down thitherward, in progrefs, difguis'd. Their difcourfe is overheard by Cordella, who immediately knows them; but,

at her husband's perfuafion, forbears to discover herself a while, relieves them with food, and then asks their story; which Leir gives her in these words:

"Leir. Then know this firft, I am a Brittayne borne, "And had three daughters by one loving wife : "And though I fay it, of beauty they were fped; Especially the youngest of the three,

"For her perfections hardly matcht could be:
"On thefe I doted with a jelous love,

"And thought to try which of them lov'd me beft,

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By asking of them, which would do moft for me? "The firft and fecond flattred me with words, "And vowd they, lov'd me better then their lives: "The youngest fayd, the loved me as a child

Might do her answere I esteem'd most vild,
"And prefently in an outragious mood,
"I turnd her from me to go finke or swym:
"And all I had, even to the very clothes,
"I gave in dowry with the other two:
"And the that best deferv'd the greateft fhare,
" I gave her nothing, but difgrace and care.
"Now mark the fequell: When I had done thus,
"I foiournd in my eldest daughters houfe,
"Where for a time I was intreated well,
"And liv'd in ftate fufficing my content:
"But every day her kindneffe did grow cold,
"Which I with patience put up well ynough
"And feemed not to fee the things I faw:
"But at the last she grew fo far incenft
"With moody fury, and with causelesse hate,
"That in moft vild and contumelious termes,

"She bade me pack, and harbour some where else
"Then was I fayne for refuge to repayre

"Unto my other daughter for reliefe,

"Who gave me pleafing and moft courteous words;
"But in her actions thewed her felfe fo fore,

"As never any daughter did before:

"She prayd me in a morning out betime,

"To go to a thicket two miles from the court,

"Poynting that there fhe would come talke with me: "There the had fet a fhaghayrd murdring wretch,

"To maffacre my honest friend and me.

*

****************

"And now I am constraind to feeke reliefe
"Of her to whom I have bin fo unkind;
"Whofe cenfure, if it do award me death,
"I must confeffe the payes me but my due:
"But if the fhew a loving daughters part,
"It comes of God and her, not my defert.

*

"Cor. No doubt fhe will, I dare be worne she will."

Thereupon enfues her discovery; and, with it, a circumftance of fome beauty, which Shakspeare has borrow'd-(v. Lear, p. 565,) their kneeling to each other, and mutually contending which fhould ask forgiveness. The next page prefents us Gallia, and Mumford who commands under him, marching to embarque their forces, to re-inftate Leir; and the next, a fea-port in Britain, and officers fetting a watch, who are to fire a beacon to give notice if any fhips approach, in which there is fome low humour that is paffable enough. Gallia and his forces arrive, and take the town by furprize: immediately upon which, they are encounter'd by the forces of the two elder fifters, and their husbands: a battle enfues: Leir conquers; he and his friends enter victorious, and the play clofes thus:

"Thanks (worthy Mumford) to thee laft of all,
"Not greeted laft, 'cause thy desert was small;
"No, thou haft lion-like lay'd on to.day,
"Chafing the Cornwall King and Cambria;
"Who with my daughters, daughters did I fay?
"To fave their lives, the fugitives did play.

"Come, fonne and daughter, who did me advance,
Repose with me awhile, and then for Fraunce."
[Exeunt.

Such is the Leir, now before us. Who the author of it should be, I cannot furmife; for neither

in manner nor ftyle has it the leaft refemblance to any of the other tragedies of that time: most of them rife now and then, and are poetical; but this creeps in one 'dull tenour, from beginning to end, after the specimen here inferted: it fhould seem he was a Latinift, by the tranflation following:

"Feare not, my lord, the perfit good indeed,
"Can never be corrupted by the bad :

"A new fresh veffell ftill retaynes the taste

"Of that which firft is powr'd into the fame :" [fign. H.

But whoever he was, Shakspeare has done him the honour to follow him in a ftroke or two: one has been obferv'd upon above; and the reader, who is acquainted with Shakspeare's Lear, will perceive another in the second line of the concluding speech: and here is a third; " Knoweft thou these letters?" fays Leir to Ragan, (fign. I. 3b.) fhewing her hers and her fifter's letters commanding his death; upon which, fhe fnatches at the letters, and tears them (v. Lear, p. 590, 591,) another, and that a most signal one upon one account, occurs at fignature C 3b:

"But he, the myrrour of mild patience,

"Puts up all wrongs, and never gives reply:"

Perillus fays this of Leir; comprizing therein his character, as drawn by this author: how oppofite to that which Shakspeare has given him, all know; and yet he has found means to put nearly the fame words into the very mouth of his Lear,

"No, I will be the pattern of all patience,
I will fay nothing."

Laftly, two of Shakspeare's perfonages, Kent, and the Steward, seem to owe their exiftence to the above-mention'd " fhag-hair'd wretch," and the Perillus of this Leir.

The episode of Glofter and his two fons is taken from the Arcadia: in which romance there is a chapter thus intitl'd;-" The pitifull ftate, and ftorie of the Paphlagonian unkinde King, and his kind fonne, firft related by the fon, then by the blind father." (Arcadia, p. 142, edit. 1590, 4to.) of which epifode there are no traces in either chronicle, poem, or play, wherein this history is handl'd.

Love's Labour's Loft.

The fable of this play does not seem to be a work entirely of invention; and I am apt to believe, that it owes its birth to fome novel or other, which may one day be difcover'd. The character of Armado has fome resemblance to Don Quixote; but the play is older than that work of Cervantes: of Holofernes, another fingular character, there are fome faint traces in a mafque of Sir Philip Sidney's that was prefented before Queen Elizabeth at Wanfted: this mafque, call'd in catalogues-The Lady of May, is at the end of that author's works, edit. 1627. folio.

Meafure for Measure.

In the year 1578, was publifh'd in a black-letter quarto a miferable dramatick performance, in two parts, intitl'd-Promos and Caffandra; written by one George Whetstone, author likewife of the Heptameron, and much other poetry of the fame