or two from. The old French romance of Perceforest, composed about the middle of the fifteenth century, probably after 1461, he is not likely to have seen. In that curious medley the story is to be met with (see La Treselegante, Delicieuse, Meliflue et tresplaisante Hystoire du tresnoble, victorieux et excellentisme roy Perceforest, Roy de la grande Bretaigne, fundatieur du Franc palais et du temple du souverain dieu, chap. v. pp. 18, 19). It occurs also in that remarkable mediæval hoard of anecdotes, The Gesta Romanorum, in two wholly different versions. One is found in the ordinary printed edition (see Sir Frederick Madden's edition, i. 123-158). But our story, in its other form, fathered on the Emperor Theodosius, "a wys emperour," which appears to have been first noticed by Douce, is found in a different version of the Gesta, contained in a Harleian MS., No. 7333. No names are given to the daughters or their husbands, but the story nearly resembles that of Lear. According to the story in the printed version, "Kynge Leyre's three daughters espouse respectively Managles, the kynge of Scotlonde; Hanemos, erle of Cornwaylle; and Agape, kynge of Fraunce." It is possible that our poet, who probably drew from this story-book in his Merchant of Venice, may have seen this account. Again, as Percy was, I think, the first to notice, Camden, in his "Wise Speeches" at the end of his Remains (see ed. 1605, p. 306), told a similar story to that of Leir, of Ina, king of the West Saxons. Malone observed "that it is probable that Shakespeare had a passage of it in his thoughts when he wrote Cordelia's reply to her father." Steevens had pre d viously quoted a passage from the Mirrour for Magistrates as a parallel to the same speech; but Malone thinks that Shakespeare rather drew from Camden, as Camden's book was published recently, before he appears to have composed this play, and "Wise Speeches,” near the passage in question, “furnished him with a hint in Coriolanus." Here are the two passages: First, Camden: "Ina, king of the West Saxons, had three daughters, of whom upon a time he demanded whether they did love him. The youngest, but the wisest, told her father flatly, without flattery, that albeit she did love, honour, and reverence him yet she did think one day it would come to passe that she would affect another more fervently, meaning her husband, when she were married. . . ." Higgins tells, or rather makes Cordell relate, the King Leir story in the first part of the Mirror for Magistrates, and here is the passage which Steevens noted: But not content with this, he asked me likewise If I did not him love and honour well. No cause (quoth I) there is I should your grace despise: To love you as I ought my father, well; Yet shortly I may chance, if Fortune will, To find in heart to beare another more good will. Thus much I said of nuptial loves that ment. And Singer writes that Shakespeare may have also taken from the Mirour "a hint for the behaviour of the steward (Oswald). Here is what he must refer to: The meaner upstart courtiers thought themselves his mates, His daughter him disdained and forced not (i.e. regarded not) his foile. Warner, again, gives a version of the story in his Albion's England, written in his homely, easy, gossiping, style. No reason is here assigned for Leir's questioning; Cordelia's reply, to her father resembles that in Spenser, "I love thee as behoveth me as a daughter"; and as in the old play, Goneril attempts her father's life (see Chalmers, English Poets, 1810, vol. iv. p. 539). But, as has been already mentioned, besides the original story which Shakespeare has adopted and much altered, he has blended with it another story, that of the Earl of Gloucester and his two sons, and I think it is practically certain, as Capell first pointed out, that for this story he is indebted to Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, a book which first appeared in 1590. In that first edition is an episode, entitled "The pitiful state and storie of the Paphlagonian vnkinde King and his kind sonne, first related by the son, then by the blind father." Space will not permit me to reproduce the entire story. I refer my readers to the original work, Book II. chap. x., ed. 1590, 4to; pp. 132, 133, ed. 1674 fol., or to the Clarendon Press edition of the play (1875, pp. ix-xiii), where Mr. Wright has printed the part of it to which our poet is indebted. The substance of it is as follows:" In the kingdome of Galacia, two princes, journeying, are overtaken by a violent storm, and forced to take refuge in a cave, where 'they heard the speech of a couple, who, not perceiving them, being hid within that rude canapie, held a straunge and pitiful disputation, which made them step out, yet in such a sort as they might see vnseene.' The couple consisted of an olde man and a young man who led him. The old man had had been rightful Prince of Paphlagonia, but, by the cruelty of a bastard son of his, he had been deprived not only of his kingdom, but of his sight. The bastard son had, by 'his desperate fraud,' etc., prevailed on his father to give orders that his legitimate son should be led by some of his servants (afterwards called thieves) into a forest, and there murdered; but he was allowed to escape. He served with distinction as a soldier in a neighbouring country, and was now attending on his blind father, who was trying to persuade him to lead him to the top of the rock under which their cave ran, that he (as the old man expressed it) might 'free him from so serpentine companion as I am.'" With great art Shakespeare has blended and united these two quite separate stories into one harmonious whole. They are connected by various links, of which the principal are these: Gloucester's legitimate son Edgar is associated with his "godfather" Lear in his sad sufferings, and later slays his brother, the base agent of the eldest daughter's designs. It is largely owing to the passionate attachment of Lear's two elder daughters to Edmund that they reap the reward of their crimes. Again, it is through Gloucester's attempt to succour the king that he unfortunately loses his eyes, and it is through this action that Regan's husband, the savage Cornwall, comes by his deserved doom. All sane1 critics are agreed that by interweaving this story with the simple "Leir" story, Shakespeare has, with a stroke of genius, given to his plot a variety, a solidity, 1 But see the criticism of Rümelin in Furness's Variorum edition, pp. 462, 463. and an interest which even his hand could not have given to the original story by itself. Let us hear Schlegel on this point: "The incorporation of the two stories has been censured as destructive of the unity of action, but whatever contributes to the intrigue or the denouement must always possess unity. And with what ingenuity and skill are the two main parts of the composition dovetailed into one another! The pity felt by Gloster for the fate of Lear becomes the means which enable his son Edmund to effect his complete destruction, and affords the outcast Edgar an opportunity of being the saviour of his father. On the other hand, Edmund is active in the cause of Regan and Goneril, and the criminal passion which they both entertain for him induces them to execute justice on each other and on themselves. The laws of the drama have therefore been sufficiently complied with. But that is the least; it is the very combination which constitutes the sublime beauty of the work. . . . Were Lear alone to suffer from his daughters, the impression would be limited to the powerful compassion felt by us for his private misfortune. But two such unheardof examples taking place at the same time have the appearance of a great commotion in the moral world. The picture becomes gigantic, and fills us with such alarm as we should entertain at the idea that the heavenly bodies might one day fall from their appointed orbits." 1 King Lear in the Quartos is divided neither into acts nor scenes. In the Folio it is divided into acts 1 Dramatic Literature, Bohn, 1846, p. 412. |