lowed, but without, it is to be trusted, an absolute surrender to that
'modern Manicheeism, the worship of the Printer's devil.' Where

the Folio is clearly defective the Quartos have been called in aid.

Moreover, since the Quartos, maimed and deformed' though they

be by the frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors,' do never-

theless contain lines, and even a whole scene, which do not appear

in the Folio, but are nevertheless Shakespeare's, it has not been

deemed fitting to omit these; they have been retained in the text

and their presence indicated by asterisks, a modification of the

Italic of the old editors, which is due to Dr SCHMIDT's admirable

edition.

Happily, the day is fast declining when it is thought necessary

to modernise Shakespeare's text.
We do not so treat SPENSER.
A step was made when 'it' was
ising the possessive case to its.
as 'moe,' 'and' (when it is equivalent to if), 'vilde,' 'strook,'
and others, have been retained when found in the Folio. The ab-
breviated 'th' has also been copied from the same edition.
a source of regret that it did not occur to the Editor, until too
late, that the modern substitution of 'than,' for then of the Folio,
is equally uncalled for, a substitution which shall not occur in
future volumes of this edition.

Why should it be modernised?
IS SHAKESPEARE'S text less sacred?
boldly retained instead of modern-
In the present edition such words

It is

My thanks are gladly given to Mr NORRIS for the BIBLIOGRAPHY
of English works; to my father, the Rev. Dr FURNESS, for his
translations of GERMAN CRITICISMS; and to one other, without
whose constant encouragement even this much of my long and
at times most weary task would not have been accomplished; to
her I am indebted for the INDEX.

March, 1880.

H. H. F.

KING LEAR

Knights of Lear's train, Captains, Messengers, Soldiers, and

Attendants.

SCENE: Britain.

* DRAMATIS PERSON] Substantially by Malone. First given by Rowe.

7. GLOUCESTER.] Thus spelled by Staunton; all before him, GLOSTER, or GLO'STER.

14, 18. OSWALD...Cornwall.] Omitted by Rowe +.

18. Capell reads thus: Servants to Cornwall, three. Officers in the Troop of Albany, four. Messengers, two.

2

THE TRAGEDY

OF

KING LEAR

ACT I

SCENE I. King Lear's palace.

Enter KENT, GLOUCESTER, and EDMUND.

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

Glou. It did always seem so to us; but now, in the

The Tragedy, &c.] Of all Shakespeare's plays,' says COLERIDGE, ‘Macbeth is the most rapid, Hamlet the slowest, in movement. Lear combines length with rapidity,-like the hurricane and the whirlpool, absorbing while it advances. It begins as a stormy day in summer, with brightness; but that brightness is lurid, and anticipates the tempest.'

1-6. WALKER (Crit. i, 13) would read these as seven lines of verse, ending th' duke . . . always . . . division . . . o' th' dukes . . . pois'd [sic] . . . choice ... moiety. After moiety,' he adds, 'there is a short pause in the conversation, which is resumed in prose. Yet th' duke, in this place, seems very unlike Sh.; and equalities is perhaps more in place than “qualities."'

2. Albany] WRIGHT: Holinshed (Chron. i, fol. 39 b; ed. 1577) gives the following account of the origin of this name: The third and last part of the Island he allotted vnto Albanacte hys youngest sonne. . . . This later parcel at the first, toke the name of Albanactus, who called it Albania. But now a small portion onely of the Region (beyng vnder the regiment of a Duke) reteyneth the sayd

3

4

division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes

4. kingdom] kingdomes Qq, Coll. i.

denomination, the reast beyng called Scotlande, of certayne Scottes that came ouer from Ireland to inhabite in those quarters. It is deuided from Loegres also by the Humber, so that Albania as Brute left it, conteyned all the north part of the Island that is to be found beyond the aforesayd streame, vnto the point of Cathenesse.'

4. division] JOHNSON: There is something of obscurity or inaccuracy in this preparatory scene. The king has already divided his kingdom, and yet when he enters he examines his daughters, to discover in what proportion he should divide it. Perhaps Kent and Gloster only were privy to his design, which he still kept in his own hands, to be changed or performed as subsequent reasons should determine him. COLERIDGE: It was not without forethought, nor is it without its due significance, that the division of Lear's kingdom is in the first six lines of the play stated as a thing already determined in all its particulars, previously to the trial of professions, as to the relative rewards of which the daughters were to be made to consider their several portions. The strange, yet by no means unnatural, mixture of selfishness, sensibility, and habit of feeling derived from, and fostered by, the particular rank and usages of the individual;-the intense desire of being intensely beloved,selfish, and yet characteristic of the selfishness of a loving and kindly nature alone;— the self-supportless leaning for all pleasure on another's breast;-the craving after sympathy with a prodigal disinterestedness, frustrated by its own ostentation, and the mode and nature of its claims;-the anxiety, the distrust, the jealousy, which more or less accompany all selfish affections, and are amongst the surest contradistinctions of mere fondness from true love, and which originate Lear's eager wish to enjoy his daughters' violent professions, whilst the inveterate habits of sovereignty convert the wish into claim and positive right, and an incompliance with it into crime and treason; these facts, these passions, these moral verities, on which the whole tragedy is founded, are all prepared for, and will to the retrospect be found implied, in these first four or five lines of the play. They let us know that the trial is but a trick, and that the grossness of the old king's rage is in part the natural result of a silly trick suddenly and most unexpectedly baffled and disappointed. It may here be worthy of notice that Lear is the only serious performance of Shakespeare, the interest and situations of which are derived from the assumption of a gross improbability; whereas Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedies are, almost all of them, founded on some out-of-the-way accident or exception to the general experience of mankind. But observe the matchless judgement of our Shakespeare. First, improbable as the conduct of Lear is in the first scene, yet it was an old story rooted in the popular faith, a thing taken for granted already, and consequently without any of the effects of improbability. Secondly, it is merely the canvas for the characters and passions.— a mere occasion for,—and not, in the manner of Beaumont and Fletcher, perpetually recurring as the cause and sine qua non of,-the incidents and emotions. Let the first scene of this play have been lost, and let it only be understood that a fond father had been duped by hypocritical professions of love and duty on the part of two daughters to disinherit the third, previously, and deservedly, more dear to him; -and all the rest of the tragedy would retain its interest undiminished, and be perfectly intelligible. The accidental is nowhere the groundwork of the passions, but that which is catholic, which in all ages has been, and ever will be, close and native