...

punish'd with" (1. 136-140), in which Gloster admits the guilt of Kent, who is disguised as a servant, and gives assurance that Lear will himself punish his follower, although not in such a degrading manner as with the stocks. This, at once, justifies and anticipates Lear's wrath at the sight of his servant sitting in the stocks. It is hardly to be believed that the poet would himself have omitted this delicate and well-considered stroke of art from his drama.

At the beginning of the third Act we have again one of those explanatory passages which our poet loves to insert as a resting-place between two passionate scenes. The actors for this reason may have considered it superfluous. We have already examined the omission which the editor of the Quartos has here permitted himself. But the omissions of the Folio are more significant (1. 7-15), "tears. . . take all ", and (1. 30-42), "But true. . . to you". The first passage is a description of Lear's mad defiance of the unchained elements, in characters which are so essential to the delineation of the whole situation, that it is impossible that Shakspere should have omitted it. Still more indispensable is the second passage, in which Kent informs the nobleman of the arming of France, and the impending landing of a French host, and sends him to Dover, to the friends of Lear who are there. The actors overlooked the fact that the omission of this passage renders that which follows incomprehensible. How could the nobleman find Cordelia, and deliver Kent's message to her, if he did not know that she was with the French army at Dover? Naturally such a palpable error cannot have emanated from Shakspere, who better understood the plan of his drama.

Act III. sc. vi. (l. 17—54). "The foul. . . 'scape?" is omitted, and therewith that essential part of Lear's outbreak of madness, which alone justifies Kent's following speech, in which he reminds Lear of the composure of which he has so often boasted. If the audience saw nothing, or but little, of this outbreak, they would find it hard to comprehend the meaning of Kent's words. At the conclusion of the scene, Kent's speech, "Oppress'd... behind" (1. 96-100), and Edgar's, "When we... lurk" (1. 101-114), are omitted. In the former, Kent expressly asks the fool to help him to carry out his master. This speech being omitted, he still helps to bear him out,

but silently and unasked. Of the latter-Edgar's speech-the Cambridge editors say in a note to their edition, "Every editor from Theobald downwards, except Hanmer, has reprinted this speech from the Quartos. In deference to this consensus of authority we have retained it, though, as it seems to us, internal evidence is conclusive against the supposition that the lines were written by Shakspere." If we oppose this view, it is because we cannot comprehend how a spurious passage appeared in the Quarto; for we can hardly ascribe the authorship of the supposed interpolation to the editor, considering what we know of him and his method of work. Neither can we suppose that he would attempt to amplify and improve the MS. before him of King Lear as it was then performed. But even the internal evidence from which the Cambridge editors might be inclined to condemn Edgar's monologue, fails to convince us of its spuriousness. We readily admit that the style of this passage is not that of the rest of the drama; but this difference may be explained in a twofold manner, partly by the form, partly by the matter. Shakspere is fond of introducing such rhyming lines,1 formed of a number of pointed, epigrammatic, antithetical sentences. They stand out from the surrounding blank verse, and point the moral which the audience should draw from the preceding situation, and the actions of the different characters. The second explanation is, that the poet lays great stress on the parallelism existing between the families of Lear and Gloster, and takes this opportunity of again impressing it upon his audience. A mere interpolator would hardly have known of this peculiar tendency of the poet, or have carried it out so thoroughly, and in so pregnant a manner, as in the few but completely Shaksperian words-"He childed as I father'd". For the same reason, it is more than improbable that Shakspere should have cut out this passage, thereby thwarting his own purposes.

Act IV. sc. ii. Little or nothing remains of Goneril's dispute with her husband, in which the clashing division between them is so

In style and form Edgar's monologue reminds us of the rymed dialogue between the Doge and Brabantio in Othello, Act I. sc. iii.; of Coriolanus' monologue, Act II. sc. iii.; of Cressida's concluding speech in Troilus and Cressida, Act I. sc. ii.; lastly of the play within a play in Hamlet, Act III, sc. ii.

powerfully exhibited. This is especially important for its delineation of Albany's character, so significant of the rôle he was afterwards to perform. Also, there is no connection, either by sense or metre, in the poor remainder of this conversation. Instead of the long rebuke which Albany should administer to his wife, he contents himself with the simple reply-"You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face". But yet Goneril answers, as if he had spoken the whole rebuke which exists in the Quartos, especially referring to particular points of it" Milk-liver'd man! that bear'st", etc., etc. Also we miss in Goneril's speech the so essential reference to the impending danger from France, and to Albany's sluggish inactivity. It is only when provoked by the bitter taunts of his wife, that Albany breaks out-"See thyself. . . woman ", which in the Folio follows almost immediately on the first portion of Goneril's speech (1. 50-53). Only the actors, without the concurrence and knowledge of the poet, could so have treated his text.

Act IV. sc. iii. The actors cheerfully omitted this explanatory scene between Kent and the nobleman, as superfluous, because in it nothing is done, but something only talked of. And yet so essential is it to Shakspere's plot, that we have every reason to be thankful to the editor of the Quartos for having preserved it to us. It must be explained why the King of France, Cordelia's husband, who would only have been an encumbrance to the farther intentions of the poet, disappears, so to speak, from the play. Cordelia disappears still more entirely at the beginning of the drama. It probably appeared right to the poet, to prepare the audience for the re-appearance on the stage of this character who plays so important a part in the last portion of the tragedy. The nobleman, whom Kent, in an earlier part of the play (Act III. sc. i.), had sent to Cordelia, is expected to give an account of the Queen's reception of himself, and of the intelligence he brought of Lear and his elder daughters. This is the direct reference to that earlier scene, which the actors considered superfluous, and therefore omitted. Lastly, the poet has worked a third element into this third scene of the fourth Act; a new condition of Lear's disturbed mind. The madness which begins to wane, is succeeded not by clear consciousness, but a lucid interval, seen in his shame and

avoidance of his formerly misunderstood and ill-treated daughter, Cordelia, a shame which throws him back into his madness, in which we soon after find him wandering around the neighbourhood of Dover, Act IV. sc. vi. The poet meant to express all this in that third scene of the fourth Act, which the actors thought superfluous, and accordingly cut out, without farther consideration. They also cut out, at the conclusion of the fourth Act, an explanatory dialogue between the same persons who, according to Shakspere's custom, prepare us for coming events. In this instance, these persons speak of the impending bloody fight, and of its doubtful issue.

Act V. sc. i. (1. 23-8). "Where I . . . nobly" is cut out by the actors, but they have naïvely retained Regan's reply-"Why is this reason'd?"—which refers solely to Albany's words. The absence of this passage from the Folio is the more to be regretted, that the Quarto is in this place evidently corrupt and apparently defective. The Cambridge editors think that a line is missing before the ambiguous words, "Not bolds the king"; and that Albany really said, "I should be ready to resist any mere invader, but the presence in the invader's camp of the king and other Britons who have just cause of enmity to us, dashes my courage." In any case it is not Shakspere's nature to destroy a feature so essential to the comprehension of Albany's character, and to the development of the plot.

There are but two omissions in the last great scene of the play, in the Folio; one short and one long. The first is the conclusion of a speech of Edmund's, the whole of which is then commented on by Albany, and the force of which would hardly have been weakened by the poet, as is the case in the Folio text. Still less Shaksperian is the omission of the second passage (1. 205-225)--"This . . . slave"-which contains Edgar's touching account of the meeting between Kent and the dying Gloster.

The play opens with a conversation between these friends ; and certainly their chance meeting, after having been separated so long, at the end of the play, lay very near the heart of the author. The plan of his play prevents his allowing the audience to witness their reencounter, but at least he paints it for them in the strongest colours. The actors cut out this passage; but as a proof that they had

done so, they retained Edmund's previous words, which lead up to it -"You look as you had something more to say." Could Shakspere have either omitted or retained so clumsily?

It remains to take a glance at the rare instances in which the reading of the Quarto is preferable to that of the corresponding passage in the Folio text. The reverse is the rule in King Lear, as we have seen from the numerous examples given in the first part of this Paper; but these exceptions are very instructive if we wish clearly to understand the formation of either edition. The great difference between them is in fact obvious enough. The four Folio editions of Shakspere's plays were issued in the course of the seventeenth century. Nicholas Rowe, the first really literary editor of these works, prepared a readable text from the Folio alone without reference to the Quartos, not being even aware of their existence. All the acumen of the later commentators would hardly enable them to obtain a similar result from the Quartos alone, if by some great misfortune the Folio had been lost. None the less, Rowe's followers in the editorship of Shakspere have proved, by adding those passages which are omitted in the Folio, how much can be gained in the amendment of the text, by collating the Quartos. As we have already remarked in the analogous case of Richard III., it would be most marvellous if a play, so many years after its first appearance, had been printed quite correctly in the Folio, from a theatre MS. which had been exposed to so many vicissitudes. Especially if we consider the notorious negligence with which the collected edition of Shakspere's plays was edited. It would have been equally wonderful if the editor of the Quartos, who possessed a copy made, comparatively speaking, soon after the first performance of the play, had not, among all the mistakes and corruptions of his edition, occasionally rendered a word or a passage of the original text more correctly than he who so many years afterwards edited the play from the Folio, perhaps from the copy of a copy.

In King Lear these exceptional instances are by far less numerous than in King Richard III.; far less numerous even if we reckon among them the doubtful cases, in which the Shaksperian critic may decide as best pleases him according to his bias in favour of either edition, or according to his own individual judgment. The following