the city ran to hear him; to whom he said, that he proposed to cut down his fig-tree to build a house upon the place where it stood. 'Wherefore (quoth he) if there be any man among you all in this company that is disposed to hang himself, let him come betimes before it be cut down.' Having thus bestowed his charity among the people, he returned to his lodging, where he lived a certain time after without alteration of nature; and because that nature changed not in his life-time, he would not suffer that death should alter or vary the same: for like as he lived a beastly and churlish life, even so he required to have his funeral done after that manner. By his last will he ordained himself to be interred upon the sea-shore, that the waves and surges might beat and vex his dead carcase. Yea, and that if it were possible, his desire was to be buried in the depth of the sea; causing an epitaph to be made, wherein were described the qualities of his brutish life. Plutarch also reporteth another to be made by Callimachus, much like to that which Timon made himself, whose own soundeth to this effect in English verse: 'My wretched catife days, Expired now and past: My carren corpse interred here, In waltring waves of swel- The argument upon which our Introductory Notice is mainly built,-that the Timon of Athens is not wholly by Shakspere,-has led to such an analysis of the play as we ordinarily give in a Supplementary Notice; and has therefore rendered such a Notice here unnecessary. THE first edition of King Lear was published in 1608; its title was as follows: 'Mr. William Shake-speare his True Chronicle History of the Life and Death of King Lear, and his three Daughters. With the unfortunate Life of Edgar, Sonne and Heire to the Earle of Glocester, and his sullen and assumed Humour of Tom of Bedlam. As it was plaid before the King's Majesty at White-Hall, uppon S. Stephens Night; in Christmas Hollidaies. By his Majesties Servants playing usually at the Globe on the Banck-side. Printed for Nathaniel Butter, and are to be sold at his Shop in Paul's Church-yard at the Signe of the Pied Bull neere St. Austins Gate, 1608.' Two other editions were published by Butter in the same year; and there are found slight variations in each (besides the omission of the place of sale in the title-page), which indicate that they were not printed from the same types used in the first edition, and that they were not identical reprints. They were each collated by Steevens and Malone, and subsequent editors have pointed out minute differences between them; upon the whole, these differences have not been found of importance in determining the text; we therefore, in referring to the original text, speak generally of the quartos. It is remarkable that a play of which three editions were demanded in one year should not have been reprinted till it was collected in the folio of 1623. Other of the plays, which were originally published in a separate form during the poet's life-time, were frequently reprinted before the folio collection. For example; of Richard II. there were three editions published in years succeeding that in which it was |