reasons have, I think, been suggested in the course of this inquiry) that the first Quarto was printed from a stage-copy of the play. Nothing is more probable than that a considerable number of variations from the author's MS. had crept into this copy. Lastly, I appeal to the carelessness of the printer. The Quarto-text, says Mr Howard Staunton, is "execrably deformed by printing-office blunders." If in the Folio-text, which is printed with comparative accuracy, there are over eighty errors or alterations attributed by Mr Spedding to the printer, we shall be quite safe in putting down a vastly larger number to the account of the printer of the Quarto. Due allowance being made for the operation of all these causes, I do not think that the amount of variation of the Quarto from what I conceive to be the true Shaksperian text will appear at all incredible. Let me now briefly sum up the results of this inquiry. I began with an examination of Mr Spedding's Paper. Of the 80 examples pronounced by Mr Spedding himself to be non-Shaksperian, I showed that about 50 cannot fairly be attributed to any one but the corrector of the play; hence it would follow that the corrector was not Shakspere. Passing on to the "alterations made to improve the metre," [ showed that in one instance at least there is a clear sacrifice of the sense, pure and simple, and that in a large number of instances the metrical improvement is attained "by weakening the vigour, and marring the propriety, of the language." Coming next to the "alterations made to avoid the recurrence of the same word," I cited four of them which Shakspere (in my opinion at least) cannot be supposed to have made: I added that he may have made the others, but that it did not require a Shakspere to make them. With regard to the "alterations made to avoid obsolete phrases," I showed (1) that in some of the cases cited the alteration is not made as regularly as Mr Spedding supposes, and (2) that some of the tabooed words occur in Shakspere's plays written about the date assigned by Mr Spedding to the revision of Richard III. Next, of the 19 examples cited as "alterations made to remove defects not apparent to the Cambridge editors," I gave reasons for believing three to be non-Shaksperian. Lastly, with regard to the "alterations in the stage-directions," I showed that the stage-directions of the Folio are more consistent with the text of the Quarto than are the stage-directions of the Quarto itself; and hence I inferred that the stage-directions of the Folio must have formed part of the play as it was originally written. Having dealt thus fully with Mr Spedding's paper, I responded to the challenge which he offers to "those who agree with the Cambridge editors," by quoting 45 passages in which "something original, striking, or forcible in idea or expression in the Quarto is diluted into common-place in the Folio; or in which a turn of phrase thoroughly Shaksperian is modified precisely as a prosaic reviser might be expected to modify it." Next, I quoted at length all the considerable passages peculiar to the Folio, with a view to show that these passages have not at all the appearance of subsequent additions, and that there is not any marked difference, æsthetical or metrical, between them and the context as it stands in the Quarto. And lastly, I showed that the variations of the Quarto from the Folio where the latter has the true Shaksperian reading may be reasonably accounted for without sacrificing my theory that Shakspere never revised the play. I have nothing to add, except to ask for a candid consideration of the views which I have set forth in this paper, upon their merits. "MR ALDIS WRIGHT said that his remarks were, to a great extent, anticipated by Mr Pickersgill. The question was one into which individual taste very largely entered, and consequently it was scarcely possible to expect unanimity of opinion. Two theories were propounded; one, that the text of the Folios had been altered from that of the Quartos, or Shakspere's original MS., by some one who was not Shakspere: the other, that of Mr Spedding, that the changes might have been made by Shakspere with the assistance of the demons of the printing office. On the whole Mr Wright preferred to believe in the former theory as more consistent with his reverence for the author. He was unwilling to think that Shakspere at the busiest time of his life should have occupied himself with such minute changes as who' for 'which,' 'kill' for 'slay,' 'between' for 'betwixt,' while' for 'whilst,' 'I' (i. e. ay) for 'yea,' and the like, or that when he was engaged upon his greatest works he had so fallen below himself in taste of expression and vigour of versification as to alter both language and metre of the Quartos in most instances for the worse. Many of the changes were doubtless due to the actors, some to the printers; and provided they were not attributed to Shakspere, it was not necessary to be careful about assigning them. Mr Wright then read the passage from the Preface to Vol. v. of the Cambridge Shakespeare,1 and contended that it was "The respective origin and authority of the first Quarto and first Folio texts of Richard III. is perhaps the most difficult question which presents itself to an editor of Shakespeare. In the case of most of the plays a brief survey leads him to form a definite judgment; in this, the most attentive examination scarcely enables him to propose with confidence a hypothetical conclusion. "The Quarto, Q1, contains passages not found in the Folio, FI, which are essential to the understanding of the context: the Folio, on the other hand, contains passages equally essential, which are not found in the Quarto. "Again, passages which in the Quarto are complete and consecutive, are amplified in the Folio, the expanded text being quite in the manner of Shakespeare. The Folio, too, contains passages not in the Quartos, which, though not necessary to the sense, yet harmonize so well, in sense and tone, with the context, that we can have no hesitation in attributing them to the author himself. 44 "On the other hand, we find in the Folio some insertions and many guarded in expression, and would be found to be justified by a comparison of the readings of the Quartos and Folios as given in the notes." [Dr Brinsley Nicholson also joind in this Discussion. His remarks will be printed later in the volume, after his return from Switzerland.-F.] 1 Henry IV., II. iii. 90. "A correspondent, writing from Baltimore, asks: Is it not likely that Shakspere, in giving that trait of Hotspur's Kate, Indeed, I'll break thy little finger, Harry, [I. K. Henry IV., II. iii.] had in mind the following passage of Polydore Vergil, referring to the same lady? 'Saeva in familiares, petulans etiam erga maritum, cujus secreta se exquaesituram minitabat, vel frangendo digitorum ossicula, si veritatem pandere constantius recusaret' (xxvi. 2). The old historian seems to think it a rather serious business. It is odd that this has escaped the notice of all the Shaksperean commentators I have access to."--Nation, 11 March 1875. alterations which we may with equal certainty affirm not to be due to Shakespeare. Sometimes the alterations seem merely arbitrary, but more frequently they appear to have been made in order to avoid the recurrence of the same word, even where the recurrence adds to the force of the passage, or to correct a supposed defect of metre, although the metre cannot be amended except by spoiling the sense. "Occasionally we seem to find indications that certain turns of phrase, uses of words or metrical licences, familiar enough to Shakespeare and his earlier contemporaries, had become obsolete in the time of the corrector, and the passages modified accordingly. In short, Richard III. seems even before the publication of the Folio to have been tampered with by a nameless transcriber who worked in the spirit, though not with the audacity, of Colley Cibber." II. ON THE QUARTO AND FOLIO OF KING LEAR.1 Nicolaus BY PROFESSOR DR N. DELIUS, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BONN. (Taken as) Read at the 15th Meeting of the New Shakspere Society, April 9, 1875. IN the seventh volume of the German Shakspere Society's Yearbook I have attempted to solve the problem of the original text of one of Shakspere's dramas, King Richard III., more exactly than has hitherto been done. This investigation entails another which is no less difficult and complicated. It is to examine, and if possible to come to at least a plausible decision on the question of the original text of King Lear. In fact, if we set aside those dramas of Shakspere's of which we possess two entirely different editions in complete double texts-Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Merry Wives of Windsor, and Henry V.-we find no work of our poet, except Richard III., the Folio text of which differs in so many particulars from the Quarto text as King Lear. We inquired in the case of Richard III. whether and in what manner these numerous discrepancies in all parts of the drama could be referred to any revision on the part of the poet. This same investigation will occupy us now, and we will examine the question closely, because most critics incline to the opinion that Shakspere revised the text of King Lear, as well as that of Richard III., with his own hand. The object of the following considerations is to refute this view. We will begin our investigation with the editio princeps of King Lear, or rather, with two separate editions of this drama which For the translation of this Paper the Society is indebted to Miss Eva G. Gordon, of Pixholme, Dorking. Its original appears contemporaneously with this in the 10th volume of the German Shakspere Society's Yearbook. were published in London in small Quarto by Nathaniel Butter in the year 1608. They were not reprinted until the publication of Shakspere's collected dramas in Folio in 1623. Before the Cambridge editors had completed their collection of different copies of the Quartos, and published the result in the preface to the eighth volume of their edition, a third Quarto was supposed to have appeared in the same year, 1608, and its distinctiveness was supported by Malone's and Boswell's bibliographical criticisms. The Cambridge editors have proved to us that the discrepancies between this third Quarto and the two others which appeared in the same year, are only such as are to be found between different copies of the same edition of King Lear. We shall have to refer again to the most important differences in this same supposed third edition which we find in our collection of Quarto texts. We shall perceive in the evident carelessness of this first printing the reason of the occasional inconsequent attempts of compositors or printers to correct a flagrant misprint on the spot, without reference to the MS. Naturally these weak and improvised attempts at correction, on the part of a thoroughly weak and incompetent hand, could have no essential influence on the text which, for the rest, is nearly identical in the two Quartos. We are, therefore, justified in considering the Quarto text as a whole, and in comparing it, as such, with the Folio text. These two Quartos were published, as mentioned above, by N. Butter in 1608, without any participation or authorisation on the part of the poet or of the players, the King's servants,' who, according to the title page, performed the piece before King James, at Whitehall, at Christmas time. ("As it was plaid before the Kings maiesty at Whitehall upon St Stephens night in Christmas Hollidaies. By his Maiesties Seruants playing usually at the Globe on the Banck-side.") N. Butter entered his edition in the Stationer's Register in November, 1607, with the same notice of the performance at the court. This performance must accordingly have taken place in 1606, and apparently after the representation of the piece at the Globe theatre during the summer of 1606. That King Lear was brought on the boards a year earlier, is probable from the reprint of the drama, by an anonymous editor in 1605, "The True Chronicle History of |