drive her out of his presence would be a contradiction to his declared intention." On the other hand, it is urged that Kent has said nothing to provoke so harsh a sentence. It is true, Kent has but started in his remonstrance; but Lear is supposed to know his bold and ardent temper; and he might well anticipate what presently comes from him.

This hideous rashness. So the quartos. The folio has "reserve thy state." I find it not easy to choose between the two readings.

P. 17. Five days we do allot thee, for provision

To shield thee from diseases of the world;

And, on the sixth, to turn thy hated back

Upon our kingdom: if, on the tenth day following,

Thy banish'd trunk be found in our dominions,

The moment is thy death. In the second of these lines the folio has disasters instead of diseases, which is the reading of the quartos. As Malone observes, "diseases, in old language, meant the slighter inconveniences, troubles, and distresses of the world. The provision that Kent could make in five days might in some measure guard him against the diseases of the world, but could not shield him from its disasters." In the fourth line, Collier's second folio substitutes sev enth for tenth. The change is plausible; but, as Mr. Crosby writes me, "the King orders Kent on the sixth day to turn his hated back, and start; and, as we can hardly suppose the King's palace, or Kent's, to be on the edge of the kingdom, he gives him three days to get out of our dominions'; so that on the tenth he shall have crossed the line."

P. 18. Lear.

Right-noble Burgundy,

When she was dear to us, we did hold her so;

But now her price is fall'n. — In the second of these lines the little word did is decidedly in the way, and I suspect it ought to be got rid of by printing "we held her so."

P. 18. The argument of your praise, balm of your age,

The best, the dearest, &c.—So the folio. The quartos have "Most best, most dearest." Shakespeare, it is true, often doubles the superlatives, as in most best; still I think the folio reading preferable.

66

P. 19. It is no vicious blot, nor other foulness,

No unchaste action, or dishonour'd step,

That hath deprived me of your grace and favour;

But even the want of that for which I'm richer, &c.— Instead of " nor other foulness," which is from Collier's second folio, the old copies have "murder, or foulness," and " murther, or foulness." Murder is certainly a very strange word for the place, and for the person speaking: nevertheless, on two occasions since the new reading came to light, I have, though not without grave misgivings, retained the old one, on the ground that perhaps Cordelia purposely uses it out of place, as a glance at the hyperbolical absurdity of denouncing her as a wretch whom Nature is ashamed to acknowledge." But this reason is probably something strained and far-fetched: at all events, the high authority of Mr. Furness, together with the reason of the thing, has induced me at last to admit the change, and to do it heartily. He notes upon the matter as follows: "Murder may have been a much less heinous crime in Shakespeare's days than at present, but that it could ever have been of less degree than foulness demands a faith that reason without miracle can never plant in me. Can a parallel instance of anticlimax be found in Shakespeare? And mark how admirably the lines are balanced: 'vicious blot or foulness, unchaste action or dishonour'd step." In the fourth line, the old text reads "But even for want"; for having probably been repeated by mistake. Hanmer's correction.

P. 21. Ye jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes

Cordelia leaves you.

The old copies have "The jewels." The same misprint occurs repeatedly, the old contractions of ye and the being very easily confounded. Here, as elsewhere, the context readily detects the error.

P. 21. Who cover faults, at last shame them derides. So the quartos, except that they have covers. The folio reads "at last with shame derides."

P. 23.

ACT I., SCENE 2.

Edmund the base

Shall top th' legitimate. — Instead of top th', the quartos have tooth', the folio, to' th'. Corrected by Capell.

P. 30.

ACT I., SCENE 3.

Now, by my life,

Old fools are babes again, and must be used With checks, when flatteries are seen abused. - Not in the folio. The quartos read" with checkes as flatteries when they are seen abus’d.” As it is hardly possible to strain any fitting sense out of this, various changes have been made or proposed. Warburton reads "With checks, not flatt'ries," and Jennens, "With checks, by flatteries when they're seen abused." As the lines ending with used and abused were obviously meant for a rhyming couplet, they should properly both be pentameters, whereas the old text makes the second an Alexandrine. By transposing when, and omitting as and they, we get both sense and metre right. Probably the Poet's first writing and his subsequent correction got jumbled together in the printing. When I first so printed the text, which was something more than a year ago, I was not aware that Dr. Schmidt had made the same conjecture. 1881.

ACT I., SCENE 4.

P. 36. Come place him here by me,

Or do thou for him stand.

In the second of these lines, Or,

needful alike to sense and to metre, is wanting in the old text.

P. 37. No, faith, lords and great men will not let me; if I had a monopoly out, they would have part on't: and ladies too, they will not let me have all fool to myself. This passage is not in the folio, and the quartos have loades and lodes instead of ladies. Some very ludicrous contortions of argument have been put forth, to sustain the old reading.

P. 39. The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, That it had its head bit off by its young. - Instead of its, the old copies here have it in both places. Of course this is an instance of it used possessively. The Cambridge Editors print "had it head bit off by it young"; though in various other cases they change it to its. See "The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth," vol. vii. page

note on

280.

P. 40. This admiration, sir, is much o' the savour

Of other your new pranks. — One of the quartos and the folio

have savour; the other quarto has favour. Either word suits the place well enough; and modern editors differ in their readings.

P. 41. And in the most exact regard support

The worship of their name.

The old copies have "The wor

ships of their name." According to old usage, both worship and name should be plural, or neither.

P. 44. Let me still take away the harms I fear,

Not fear still to be harm'd. I know his heart. — So Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, Warburton, and Singer. The old text has taken instead of harm'd. Probably taken crept in by mistake from the line before. At all events, it is clearly wrong in sense and metre too, while harm'd is as clearly right in both.

P. 44. And thereto add such reasons of your own

As may compact it more.

And hasten your return.

So get you gone,

The old copies lack So, which was

inserted by Pope.

P. 44. This milky course and gentleness of yours,

Though I condemn it not, yet, under pardon, &c. - So Pope. The old copies lack it, which is needful alike to sense and to metre.

ACT I., SCENE 5.

P. 45. If a man's brains were in's heels, were't not in danger of kibes?-Pope changed brains to brain, and so Walker would read. But is not brains sometimes used as a noun singular ?

P. 47. Fool. She that's a maid now, and laughs at my departure, Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter.—This was, no doubt, an interpolation foisted in by some vulgar hand to tickle the pruriency of the "groundlings." It is so utterly irrelevant, withal so out of character, and so grossly petulant, that I can hardly bear to let it stand in the text.

ACT II., SCENE 1.

P. 50. But that I told him the revenging gods

'Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend.

- So the quartos.

The folio reads "did all the thunder bend"; which some editors prefer: but, surely, a very inferior reading.

P. 50. But, whêr he saw my best alarm'd spirits

Bold in the quarrel's right, roused to th' encounter,

Or whether gasted by the noise I made,

Full suddenly he fled. — So Furness, adopting a conjecture of Staunton's. The old text has when instead of wher. Furness notes the change as "an emendatio certissima." And he adds, "It restores the construction, which with when is irregular, and to be explained only on the ground of Edmund's perturbation." It is hardly needful to observe that the Poet has many instances of whether thus contracted into one syllable. See vol. xiv. page 10, note 17.

P. 51. Yes, madam, he was of that consort. -Collier's second folio reads "Yes, madam, yes, he was of that consort." Dyce proposes "he was one of that consort." I suspect that one of these insertions ought to be admitted.

P. 52. 'Tis they have put him on the old man's death, To have the waste and spoil of his revenues. The folio reads "th' expence and wast of his Revenues."

ACT II., SCENE 2.

So the quartos.

P. 54. If I had thee in Finsbury pinfold, I would make thee care for me.- So Collier's second folio. The old text has Lipsbury instead of Finsbury. Jennens conjectured Ledbury. As there is no such place in England as Lipsbury, that name can hardly be right. Finsbury was the name of a place near London; and it is mentioned in King Henry the Fourth, iii. 1. It has been urged, however, that, if lipsbury was not a phrase well known in Shakespeare's time, to imply gagging, he may have coined it for that purpose; and that Kent's meaning may be, "where the movement of thy lips should be of no avail." So “Lipsbury pinfold” would mean a place where neither Oswald's legs