her, made answer 'that he was very willing to bestow his daughter, but without either money or territories.' When this was told Aganippus, he being very much in love with the lady, sent again to King Leir to tell him 'that he had money and territories enough, as he possessed the third part of Gaul.' . . . At last the match was concluded, and Cordeilla was sent to Gaul and married to Aganippus. A long time after this Leir came to be infirm through old age ('torpere cœpit senio,' Geoffrey), the two dukes, upon whom he had bestowed Britain and his two daughters, made an insurrection against him, and deprived him of his kingdom and of all regal authority which he had hitherto exercised with great power and glory. At length, by mutual agreement, Maglaunus, Duke oí Albania, one of his sons-in-law, took him into his house, together with sixty soldiers, who were to be kept for state.

"After two years' stay with his son-in-law, his daughter, Gonorilla, grudged the number of his men, who began to upbraid the ministers of the court with their scanty allowance, and having spoken to her husband about it, she gave orders that the numbers of her father's followers should be reduced to thirty, and the rest discharged. The father, resenting this treatment, left Maglaunus and went to Henuinus, Duke of Cornwal, to whom he had married his daughter Regau ('petivit Hernuinum ducem Cornuliæ,' Geoffrey). Here he met with an honourable reception, but before the year was at an end, a quarrel happened between the two families which raised Regau's indignation; so that she com

manded her father to discharge all his attendants but five, and to be contented with their service. This second affliction was insupportable to him, and made him return to his former daughter ('ad primogenitam,' Geoffrey), with hopes that the misery of his position might move in her some sentiments of filial piety, and that he with his family might find a subsistence with her. But she, not forgetting her resentment, swore by the gods he should not stay with her unless he would dismiss his retinue, and be content with the attendance of one man; and with bitter reproaches she told him how ill his desire of vain-glorious pomp suited his age and poverty. When he found that she was by no means to be prevailed upon, he was at last forced to comply, and, dismissing the rest, to take up with one man only. But by the time he began to reflect more sensibly with himself upon the grandeur from which he had fallen, and the miserable state to which he was now reduced, and to entertain thoughts of going beyond sea to his youngest daughter. Yet he doubted whether he should be able to move her pity because, as was related above, he had treated her so unworthily.

"However, disdaining any longer to bear such hard usage, he took ship for Gaul." In the passage, he observed that he had only the third place given him among the princes that were with him in the ship, and broke out into a bitter lament, exclaiming against the cruelty of Fortune. Cordeilla, hearing by a messenger of her father's state and arrival, poured forth filial tears, and with her husband and the barons of the realm went out to meet him, and afterwards Aganippus permitted Cordeilla to go

with an army to restore her father.

Wherein her piety

so prospered that she vanquished her impious sisters, with those dukes; and Leir, as saith the story, in three years obtained the throne.1

We see by this, the first known account, that Leir's object in questioning his daughters was to make trial which of them loved him most, and so was worthiest of the largest share of his kingdom. This reason for the question is not followed by many writers; it gives us indeed but a poor idea of the old king's sense; it is adopted, however, by Higgins in the Mirror for MagisCordell is there made to say:

trates.

Us all our father Leire did love too well, God wot.

But minding her that lov'd him best to note,

Because he had no sonne t' enjoy his land,

He thought to guerdon most where favour most he fand.

We have already seen that Spenser, followed by Shakespeare, rejected this motive for Leir's question, giving to him an entirely different one, and that Holinshed adopted a third, different from either. We see also that this, the first account, in spite of a different intimation, makes the two elder sisters select husbands

1 Milton, in his History of Britain, freely translated Geoffrey's narrative; he alters it in some important particulars. For instance, he omits the passage which says that Leir meant to give the largest share to the strongest protester. Here are his words (see p. 178): Failing through age, he determines to bestow his daughters, and so among them to divide his kingdom. Yet, first to try which of them loved him best, . . . he resolves a simple resolution to ask them solemnly in order, and which of them should profess largest, her to believe." (Geoffrey's Latin is: "Sed ut sciret quæ illarum majori regni parte dignior esset, adivit singuals, ut interrogaret quæ ipsum magis diligeret.") Again, he makes Cordeilla give her harsher reply only when pressed by Leir. He also alters Geoffrey's words, "He bestowed his other two daughters upon the Dukes of Cornwal and Albania," to "He gives in marriage his other daughters, Gonorill to Maglaunus, Duke of Albania, Regan to Henninus, Duke of Cornwal," thus correcting an inconsistency in Geoffrey's narrative which misled after writers.

Cornwal and Albania-exactly as they do in Shakespeare, though no single writer of his day appears to adopt it (Spenser being nearest to it).

We are told also of Leir's household knights (milites; chevaliers in Wace), and their number (sixty, nearest to "the hundred knights by you to be sustained," of Lear, I. i. 133) is gradually cut down by each succeeding writer, and from all the accounts of Shakespeare's day omitted, except that in the Mirror for Magistrates, where we read "their husbands promised him a gard of sixtie knights"; the cutting down of the numbers of them, and Leir's "scanty allowance," also remind us of King Lear.

With regard to Cordeilla's reply to Leir, we observe, in the first place, that she is a good deal "more blunt and saucy" than she is in Shakespeare. Secondly, that her words are nearly identical with those which Holinshed puts into her mouth, "so much as you have so much are you worth, and so much will I love you and no more." Some accounts, on the other hand, as, for instance, those of the Mirror for Magistrates and Spenser, make her speak in much milder tones than she does in King Lear. Shakespeare's words appear to me to be most like those of the old play :

I cannot paint my duty forth in words,

I hope my deeds shall make report of me,
But look what love the child doth owe the father,
The same to you I beare, my gracious lord.

It has been noticed, by the way, that Geoffrey is guilty of an inconsistency in making Leir reserve for himself half his kingdom, after he has just parted with two-thirds of it.

The story of King Leir is next told in the Brut d'Angleterre of Maistre Wace. This romance, founded on Geoffrey of Monmouth's just mentioned, Historia Britonum, appeared about 1155. Wace tells the story in almost exactly four hundred lines of four accents; though Geoffrey is roughly followed, the story differs from his version in many respects. As to Leir's motive for questioning his daughters, he is at one with him. Wace assigns a peculiarly French motive for Cordeilla's caustic reply; she speaks in jest to expose the flattery of her sisters' speeches.1 The literal translation is, "she resolves to speak jestingly to her father, and in jesting she wishes to show him how her sisters flattered him." Again, in the following lively passage Wace writes originally, and we are in it a little reminded, I think, of King Lear. Gornorille oft said to her lord, "What is the use of this assembly of men? By my faith, sir, we are mad to have brought such a crowd here; my father knows not what he does, he is old and dotes! (in King Lear, Goneril thrice complains of her father's dotage, I. iv. 314 and 348, II. iv. 200)-shame to him who will increase his madness, or feed such a retinue for him; his servants wrangle with ours he is mad, and his retainers are perverse a fool is he who would support such a retinue; he has over many retainers; let them depart." Wace, like all these old romancers, is sometimes self-contradictory; we are first told that Cornwall wedded the elder daughter, and the Duke of Scotland the younger (et le Duc Descoce L'aisnee), who is

1 Layamon follows Wace here: "Then answered Cordoylle, loud, and no whit still, with game and with laughter to her loved father.