when Shakespeare wrote the words "machinations, hollowness, treachery," etc. (I. ii. 124, 125), the Gunpowder Plot of the 5th November 1605 was in his mind. This idea, which some critics confidently accept, I take, though possible, to be more visionary than the last; and I think that these words of the late Mr. Halliwell Phillipps are wise, "In fixing the date of a play of Shakespeare, allusions to such matters as eclipses, earthquakes, etc., must be regarded as exceedingly treacherous criteria."

In conclusion, though, as I have already said, we cannot determine the date of this play with absolute precision, I am very strongly inclined to think that it should be placed well within the year 1606. Mr. Sidney Lee, in his Life of Shakespeare (1898), p. 241, places it in that year, though without reason assigned. My reason is that the fact that it was performed before James the First at the end of 1606 points to this year; the plays selected on such occasions being seldom or never old plays.

Shakespeare, in the tragedy of King Lear, has not confined himself to the famous tale of the fortunes of that monarch; in Othello he confines himself to the story of the Moor and Desdemona; in Romeo and Juliet he confines himself to the fortunes of that " pair of starcross'd lovers"; but in King Lear Shakespeare has introduced, and blended with the original story, another theme of filial ingratitude and of filial faithfulness, that of the Earl of Gloucester and his two sons.

With regard to the story of King Lear, that touching and oft-told tale, there is not absolute agreement among

critics as to the exact sources from whence he drew; he followed, indeed, no one version of the story, known to us, very closely, but altered it in many ways to suit his purpose.

In the first place, he alone gives it a tragic ending. In all the earlier accounts known to us, King Leir is restored in the end to his dominions by his younger daughter and her husband, the King of France, or the ruler of part of France (or Gaul), and the two dukes are killed in battle. Nor in any known account does an Earl of Kent interfere in the cause of Cordelia, incur the sentence of banishment for so doing, and afterwards serve his king and master in disguise. Lear's fool, who plays such an important part in King Lear, is nowhere else introduced. Again, in all earlier accounts which we possess, Leir's three daughters are unmarried when he questions them about their love for him. Shakespeare alone makes Goneril and Regan married (to the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall) at the beginning of the play; and he is the first to introduce the Duke of Burgundy, "rivalling" with the King of France for the hand of his youngest daughter (we shall presently see that it is probable he follows a late source with regard to the coming of the King of France to England).

Again, though in the old accounts Lear's two elder daughters are invariably represented as ruthless and cruel towards their old father (in more than one account the elder plans his murder), not one word is said of their amours. Their common passion for Edmund in our play is therefore a new feature in the story.

Lastly, Shakespeare alone makes Lear lose his

reason;1 nor is there any note of his "great rage," nor of his cursing his eldest daughter, in any of the old accounts. In these, indeed, Leir bears his wrongs tamely -in many of them he utters, in his lowest estate, a long and pitiful complaint, partly levelled against Fortune. I may here notice that in no account before Shakespeare have I met with the form "Lear"; it is generally Leir or Leyre. Perhaps, by using the form "Lear," Shakespeare meant to distinguish his tragedy from the old Chronicle History of King Leir.

It

Where, then, did Shakespeare learn the story? may, indeed, have been related to him in his childhood or youth, but as it is told in Holinshed's Chronicles-that favourite volume of his, which supplied him with many a plot-he is sure to have read it there. It stands, indeed, but a few pages from the account of Cymbeline, which he used later. In Book II. chapters v. and vi. of that work (to give a condensed account of a rather lengthy narrative), we read that Leir, the son of Bladud, was admitted ruler over the Britons in the year of the world 3105... that he had by his wife three daughters, whose names were Gonorilla, Regan, and Cordeilla, whom he greatly loved, especially Cordeilla, the youngest. Coming to great years, and beginning to wax unwieldy through

1 Unless the old ballad of "King Leir and his Three Daughters" should be older than Shakespeare's account, where Leir grows "frantick mad" (line 135). It is in F. J. Child's English and Scottish Ballads, 1864, vol. vii. pp. 276-283. Child took it from A Collection of Old Ballads, London, 3 vols., 1st and 2nd vol. 1723, 3rd vol. 1725. Percy included it in his Reliques, 1765, i. 246, with one or two trifling verbal differences" (Child). Johnson believed King Lear to be posterior to the ballad; but Ritson, followed by the best later authorities, considers the ballad as modern. In the ballad, the name Cordelia occurs, but also Ragan, instead of Shakespeare's Regan.

age, he thought to understand the affections of his three daughters towards him, and prefer whom he best loved to the succession over the kingdom. Gonorilla, the eldest, was first asked by him how she loved him; who, calling her gods to record, protested that she loved him more than her own life. Leir, being well pleased with this answer, turned to the second, and demanded of her how well she loved him; who answered (confirming her sayings with great oaths) that she loved him more than tongue could express, and far above all other creatures of the world. Then called he his youngest daughter Cordeilla before him, and asked of her what account she made of him; unto whom she made this answer, that knowing the great love and fatherly zeal he had always borne her, she could not answer otherwise than she thought; she protested that she had loved him, and would, while she lived, love him as her natural father, and she bade him, if he would understand more of her love for him, to ascertain himself that so much as you have so much you are worth, and so much I love you and no more. Leir, nothing satisfied with this answer, married his two eldest daughters, the one to Henninus, the Duke of Cornewal, the other to Maglanus, the Duke of Albania, between whom he willed and ordained that his land should be divided after his death, and that the one-half thereof should be assigned to them in hand; but for Cordeilla he reserved nothing. Aganippus, however, one of the princes of Gallia, hearing of Cordeilla's beauty, womanhood, and good conditions, asked her in marriage, and wedded her, though her father would give her no dower. After that Leir was fallen into age, the two

dukes, thinking long ere the government did come into their hands, rose against him in armour, and reft from him the governance of the land, upon conditions to be continued during the term of Leir's life; by the which he was put to his portion, that is to live at a rate assigned him for the maintenance of his estate; which was in process of time diminished by both the dukes. But the greatest grief Leir took was to see the unkindness of his daughters, who seemed to think that all their father had was too much, the same being never so little; in so much that, going from one to the other, he was brought to that misery, that scarcely would they allow him one servant to wait upon him. In the end, such was their unkindness that Leir fled the land, and sailed unto Gallia, to seek some comfort of his younger daughter Cordeilla, whom before time he had hated; and he was so joyfully, honourably, and lovingly received, both by his son-in-law Aganippus, and also by his daughter Cordeilla, that his heart was greatly comforted. Aganippus, hearing of his wrongs, collected a mighty army and a great navy of ships, and passed into Britaine with Leir. Cordeilla also went, and they fought their enemies, and discomfited them in battle, in the which Maglanus and Henninus were slain, and Leir was restored to his kingdom, and he ruled it after this by the space of two years; and then he died, and Cordeilla was admitted Queen, and the supreme governess of Britaine, in the year of the world 3155.

We see that this account differs in some important respects from that adopted by Shakespeare in King Lear. In the first place, Leir's intention here seems to be to