KING LEAR.

INTRODUCTION.

THE

HE story of King Lear is probably of the remotest antiquity. It is told in the Gesta Romanorum of a Roman Emperor Theodosius. But, according to the British Chronicles, King Lear preceded the first of the two Cæsars of that name more than a thousand years.* They might as well have said two thousand; for the elements of the tale which Shakespeare wrought into the grandest and subtlest existing work of imagination are so simple in their essence and so primitive in their form, that we may be sure they underlie the accumulated heaps of lighter and more complicated texture, through which, at remote intervals, they have cropped out. A doting, irascible, unreasonable father; the division of a patrimony, in which the largest shares are won by the loudest professions of loyalty and love; the bitter experience of filial ingratitude from those who pretended and who owed most filial piety, and the manifestation of tenderness, respect, and care from the quarter whence it was least expected: if we would discover the first recital of these incidents we should be able to look with Brahma's eyes among "the vanished gods," and antedate the times of Saturn and of Ops.

Shakespeare could have found Lear's story in Holinshed's Chronicles, in the Mirror of Magistrates, in the Romance of Perceforest, in the tenth Canto of the second Book of the Faerie Queen, in the fifteenth Chapter of the third Book in Albion's England, and in Camden's Britannia; and he probably read it in

* Holinshed says that "Leir, the son of Ealdub, was admitted ruler over the Britains in the year of the world 3105. At what time Joas reigned as yet in Judea." It must have comforted the gentle reader of Holinshed's day to know that Leir did not ascend the British throne in A. M. 3104 or 3106.

all those books, except, perhaps, the last, by reason of small Latin. We may be sure that he was acquainted with the dramatic version of it entitled The True Chronicle History of King Leir, which was entered upon the Stationers' Register as early as May 14th, 1594.* This play is a tolerable one for the time in which it was produced the early Elizabethan period; but it has no resemblance of construction or language to Shakespeare's tragedy, except that which results from the use of the same story as the foundation of both. But in the great dramatist's work there is yet a slight vestige of his insignificant and utterly unknown predecessor's labors upon the same subject. It might have been fortuitous, as it was most natural, that in both Cordelia should kneel to her father when she first sees him upon her return from France, (Act IV. Sc. 7;) but that in both the father should manifest an inclination to kneel to the daughter must be due, it would seem, to a reminiscence by the later dramatist of the work of his predecessor. So, too, when Shakespeare's Lear exclaims,

"'twas this flesh begot

Those pelican daughters,"

we may be quite sure that we hear an echo of these lines by the forgotten dramatist:

"I am as kind as is the pelican

That kills it self to save her young ones lives."

And having found these traces of the old play in Shakespeare's memory, faint though they be, we may also presume that in Perillus, blunt and faithful counsellor and friend of the monarch in the elder play, we see a prototype of the noble character of Kent in the later. But in their scope, spirit, and purpose, aside from all question of comparative merit, the two works are entirely dissimilar; and after the closest examination of the earlier, I can find only these trifling and almost insignificant points of resemblance between them, except in incidents and characters which both playwrights owed to the old legend. These characters are Lear, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia; all the rest are of

"The True Chronicle History of King Leir and his three Daughters Gonorill, Ragan and Cordella. As it hath bene divers and sundry times lately acted." 4to. London, 1605.- Reprinted in Nichols' Six Old Plays, &c., and in Steevens' Twenty Plays, &c.

The

Shakespeare's own creation, save Gloster and his two sons. hints for these Shakespeare took from an episode in Sidney's Arcadia, where it is related that a king of Paphlagonia had two sons, one legitimate, the other illegitimate. The latter poisoned his father's mind against the former, until the parent actually practised against the life of his child, who escaped and became a private soldier. The bastard obtains by insidious means the larger part of his father's power, usurps the rest, and puts out his eyes. The other son finds his father in this piteous state, and attends upon him, and ministers to him to the best of his ability. The father begs to be taken to the top of a rock, that he may cast himself from it; but this the son refuses to do; and it is during the discussion between them upon this point that they are interrupted, and the relation of their adventures is elicited. This story Shakespeare interwove with the fortunes of King Lear with such consummate art that it has become an essential, integral part of the plot of the tragedy, which has no other sources, and no other resemblance to any known narrative or work of imagination.*

We are fortunate in knowing that Shakespeare produced this grandest creation of his genius at that period of his life when we might properly look for the culmination of his powers. It was entered for publication upon the Stationers' Register in November, 1607, in the following words:

"26 Nov. 1607.

Na. Butter and Jo. Busby] Entered for their Copie under t' hands of Sir Geo. Bucke, Kt. and the Wardens, a booke called Mr. Willm Shakespeare, his Historye of Kinge Lear, as yt was played before the King's Majestie at Whitehall, upon St. Stephen's night, at Christmas last, by his Majesties Servants playing usually at the Globe on the Bank-side."

King Lear was therefore written before Christmas, 1606; and we know that it was written after 1603; for in that year appeared Bishop Harsnet's Declaration, from which Shakespeare took the names of the spirits that Edgar mentions during his pretended madness, and to which he makes one or two other unmistakable allusions, all of which are mentioned particularly in the Notes

*A Ballad entitled "King Leir and his Three Daughters," which may be found in Child's British Ballads, Vol. VII. p. 276, is plainly founded upon Shakespeare's tragedy.

to this work.* The period of the production of King Lear is therefore limited with certainty to three years; and this is probably diminished a year or more by the fact that there is reason to believe that the old Chronicle History was published in 1605, to take advantage of the popularity which Shakespeare's play had given to the story. For it has been before remarked that the title page of the 4to., which begins "Mr. William Shakespeare his True Chronicle Historie," the author's name being first given and the possessive pronoun being in the middle of the page in large Italic capitals, shows great anxiety to do away an impression which had been produced that the elder play was Shakespeare's. Perhaps we may therefore safely set down 1605 as the year in which this tragedy was written.

There were three editions of this tragedy published in 4to. in 1608. Mr. Collier, who has compared them with each other, says that the differences between them are "seldom more than verbal." But the variations between the 4to. text and that of the folio are very important. Each contains passages not to be found in the other. The latter shows the effects of remorseless curtailment for stage purposes; but its additions to and corrections of the former indicate the agency of the author's own hand. Both are much deformed by errors of the press, the

* "A Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures to withdraw the harts of her Majesties Subjects from their allegeance, and from the truth of Christian Religion professed in England, under the pretence of casting out devils. Practised by Edmunds, alias Weston a Jesuite, and divers Romish priests, his wicked associates. Whereunto are annexed the Copies of the Confessions, and Examinations of the parties themselves which were pretended to be possessed and dispossessed, taken upon oath before her Majesties Commissioners for causes Ecclesiasticall." 4to. London, 1603.—I have not seen this book. The extracts which I have given from it are to be found in the Variorum of 1821. † Mr. Knight, with whom I cannot entirely agree, thinks that Shakespeare remodelled as well as curtailed the tragedy for stage purposes. He says, "In the first and second acts the omissions are very slight. In the opening of the third act we lose a spirited description of Lear in the storm, tears his white hair,' &c. But mark, it is description; and the judgment of Shakespeare in omitting it is unquestionable, for he subsequently shows Lear in action under precisely the same circumstances. In the sixth scene of the same act is omitted the imaginary trial of Regan and Goneril, 'I will arraign them straight.' Was this a passage that an author would have thrust out carelessly and hastily? It is impossible as it would be presumptuous were it possible unhesitatingly to assign a motive for this omission. The physical exertion that would be necessary for any actor (even for Burbage, who we know played Lear) to carry through the whole of the third act might have been so extreme as to render it expedient to make this abridgment; or, what is more probable, as Kent pre

folio, however, much less than the quarto; but by their mutual aid, and the reasonable use of conjecture, a text is attainable almost absolutely pure.

The supposed period of the action of this play is of course indefinable. Shakespeare had evidently no clear notion of it, and only thought of a remote era in the early history of Britain. As to the costume, it may with propriety be that of any age prior to the revival of learning and the dawn of constitutional government. A later period ought not to be brought to mind during the representation.

vious to this passage had said, 'all the power of his wits have given way to his impatience,' the imaginary arraignment might have been rejected by the poet, as exhibiting too much method in the madness. The rhyming soliloquy of Edgar, with which this scene closes, might have been spared by the poet without much compunction. The second scene of the fourth act, in which Albany so bitterly reproaches Goneril, is greatly abridged. In its amplified state it does not advance the progress of the action, nor contribute to the development of the characters. The whole of the third scene of that act is also omitted. It is one of the most beautifully written of the play; and we should indeed regret had it not been preserved to us in the quartos. But let it be borne in mind that the greater part of the scene is purely descriptive; and, exquisite as the description is, particularly in those parts which make us better understand the surpassing loveliness of Cordelia's character, we cannot avoid believing that the poet sternly resolved to let the effect of this wonderful drama entirely depend upon its action. Tieck puts the rejection of this scene upon another ground that it introduced some complexity into the tragedy, and described events, such as the return of the French King, and the sojourn of Lear in Dover without seeing his daughter, which have no influence upon the future conduct of the poem. The subsequent omissions, to the end of the drama, are few and unimportant."