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sideration of the question will, I think, make it clear that this need not disturb us; for a tragical history, according to the meaning of these words in the language of that day, it clearly is; in that age, and long before it, a composition might quite correctly be so described though it had a prosperous ending. Nahum Tate, in his alteration of King Lear thus quotes from Dryden's Dedication to the Spanish Friar, "Neither is it so trivial an undertaking to make a tragedy end happily; for 'tis more difficult to save than 'tis to kill." (see Essays of John Dryden, W. P. Ker, 1900, vol. i. p. 249).

The old play of

Tragedy originally had the meaning of a composition of a mournful cast. When the old Scottish poet Dunbar in "The Lament for the Makaris" writes of "balat-making and trigide," by the latter word he can only mean poetry written in a melancholy strain. King Leir, up to the fifth act, is surely a composition of a most mournful kind. Let us also remember that at this time the historical play was fast losing its vogue, and that tragedy under Shakespeare's influence was in great force; a not over-scrupulous publisher might well be tempted to give a play of that nature the title "Tragecall" for the purpose of tempting buyers; nor must we forget that in 1623 Heminge and Condell put into their list of tragedies in their first edition of the plays of Shakespeare, 1623, at least one play which has a distinctly prosperous conclusion; I, of course, refer to Cymbeline. Now this being so, the only possible shadow of evidence for the fraudulent intention of Simon Stafford in this matter is this, that when the play was published he never gave effect to his intention, for we read on the title-page of the 1605 edition

of this play "The True Chronicle History," not "The Tragecall History of," King Leir; and I ask, is there in this "matter to condemn a man "? In spite, therefore, of anything that has been advanced, I cannot but think it clear that this idea of Stafford attempting to gull the public is a matter of the merest conjecture.

Let us now examine the second part of Malone's evidence for the 1605 date of the play.

After mentioning Harsnett's book, Malone goes on, "This play is ascertained to have been written after the month of October 1604, by a minute change which Shakespeare made in a traditional line, put into the mouth of Edgar: 'His word was still, Fye, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man.'"

The old metrical saying, which is found in one of Nashe's pamphlets (ie. "Have with you to Saffron-Walden," printed in 1595; see Grosart's edition of Nashe's Works, vol. iii. p. 53) and in other books, was-" Fy, Fa, Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman"; and this convinced Malone that these words could not have been written till after October the 24th, 1604, when the two kingdoms were united in name, and James was proclaimed king of Great Britain (see Malone's Shakespeare, Boswell, 1821, vol. ii. pp. 404-406). I fully believe in the play having been written after October 1604, but in looking into the matter we see that even before that date the change might well have been made; for, as Chalmers 1 pointed out," there was issuyed from Greenwich, on the 13th of May 1603, a royal proclamation, declaring that until a complete union the King held and esteemed the two realms as presently 1 Chalmers' Supplemental Apology, etc., p. 413.

united as one kingdom"; and the poet Samuel Daniel in some verses addressed to James, published in 1603, writes:1

Now thou art All Great Britain, and no more;
No Scot, no English now, nor no Debate.

Malone makes no mention of the passage at Act IV. vi. 256, where the Folios read "upon the English party," the Quartos having "British "; and Mr. Aldis-Wright, in his Preface to the Clarendon Press edition of King Lear (1875), thus cleverly puts it: "It might be inferred that the line as it stands in the Folios was written before October 1604, and that it was corrected before the play was printed in 1608. But it is at least as likely that Shakespeare, writing not long after 1604, while the change was still fresh, and before the word 'British' had become familiar in men's mouths, may inadvertently have written 'English' and subsequently changed it into 'British.' In III. iv. 195 he had done the same with regard to the familiar line of the old ballad, 'I smell the blood of an Englishman,' and therefore it is, on the whole, probable that Lear was written after and not before the proclamation of James the First in 1604."

Mr. W. Aldis-Wright, indeed, confidently advances arguments for a later date than Malone's. Referring to Gloucester's speech (at I. ii. 113-115), “these late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us," and to Edmund's (at I. ii. 151 and 156), "O! these eclipses do portend these divisions," and "I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what 1 See a "Panegyricke Congratulatory," delivered to the King's most excellent Majesty at Burleigh-Harrington in Rutlandshire (Grosart's Daniel, 1885, vol. i. p. 143).

should follow these eclipses," he suggests if we read these speeches, after studying a passage of predictions in a book called A Discoursive Probleme concerning Prophecies (1588), written by one John Harvey of King's Lynn, which he quotes, "it can scarcely be doubted that Shakespeare had in his mind the great eclipse [of 1605], and that King Lear was written while the recollection of it was still fresh "; and he thinks this all the more likely, as it had been preceded (a month before) by an eclipse of the moon. Now to this ingenious supposition, though it has been advanced by a most distinguished scholar for whose judgment I have the very highest respect, and one to whom every earnest student of Shakespeare must owe an eternal debt of gratitude, I cannot help taking some exception. Many critics have accepted it. Mr. Boas, for instance, in his able and interesting work, Shakespeare and his Predecessors (1896, p. 438), writes thus: "The reference in Act I. scene ii. to 'these late eclipses' must have been suggested by the great eclipse of the sun of October 1605, preceded by an eclipse of the moon in September." Now, though it is quite possible that the speeches in question may refer to the eclipses of the year 1605, and to the numerous predictions concerning them, we must not forget that this is all mere conjecture. I can well imagine that when Shakespeare wrote the above passages he may not have been thinking of any particular eclipse; whether he wrote a little before, or, as I believe, a little after 1605, he would have had in his own recollection, and he would

have known that it was in the recollection of his audience that several remarkable eclipses had been of recent

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occurrence. In the year 1598 there was on the 7th of March a large partial eclipse of the sun visible in England, preceded on the 21st February by a large partial eclipse of the moon, and followed on the 16th August by a total eclipse of the moon; while in the year 1601 an annular eclipse of the sun occurred on the 24th December, which was preceded by two lunar eclipses in that year-one, a small partial eclipse, on the evening of the 15th June; the other, a large partial eclipse, nearly total, on the evening of the 9th December. Mr. Wright, indeed, in the quotation already mentioned, which he has given from Harvey's Work, includes a passage containing prophecies of eclipses of the sun and moon which were to happen in these two just-mentioned years, as well as in 1605 (see the Clarendon Press edition, p. xvi). "Moreover, the like concourse of two Eclipses in one, and the same month, shall hereafter more evidently in shew, and more effectually in deed, appeere, Anno 1590. the 7. and 21. daies of July: and Anno 1598. the 11. and 25. daies of February; and Anno 1601. the 29. day of Nouember and 14. of December." Now I ask, supposing that Shakespeare, when he wrote these passages, had in his mind pairs of eclipses visible in England, and books of prediction concerning them, and if we suppose he was writing in the end of 1603 or the beginning of 1604, could he not have written the passages in question concerning the eclipses of 1598 and 1601, and the predictions concerning them ? 1

Mr. Wright also hesitatingly refers to the idea that

1 For information respecting the eclipses of the years 1598 and 1601, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. W. H. Wesley, Royal Astronomical Society, Burlington House.

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