^{page 462 note 1} This discovery is due to Theobald. Cf. Furness, Variorum Shakspere, King Lear, (Philadelphia, 1880), pp. 186–7.

^{page 462 note 2} So the original entry of the “book” in the Stationers’ Register informs us. See below.

^{page 462 note 3} Variorum of 1821, ed. Boswell, ii, 404–5. Cf. Furness, p. 377. Malone's further argument based on the substitution of “British man” for “Englishman” in a well-known line in the play, seems not to have been well founded.

^{page 462 note 4} It has been more or less definitely accepted by Eschenburg, Ueber W. Shakspere (Zurich, 1787), p. 270; Nathan Drake, Shakspere and his Times (London, 1817), ii, 458; Collier, Works of Shakspere (London, 1843), vii, 352; Hudson, Works of Shakspere (Boston, 1856), ix, 391; Dyce, Works of Shakspere (London, 1857), i, clxxxvi; Staunton, Plays of Shakspere (London, 1860), iii, 56; Ulrici, Shaksperes Dramatische Werke (Berlin, 1871), xi, 4; Delius, Shaksperes Werke (Elberfield, 1872), ii, 427; von Friesen, Shakspere-Studien (Wien, 1876), iii, 79; Eidam, Ueber die Sage von König Lear (Würzburg, 1880), p. 13; Fleay, Life and Works of Shakspere (London, 1886), p. 237; Adee, Bankside Shakspere (New York, 1890), x, vi; Wendell, Wm. Shakspere (New York, 1894), p. 288; Boas, Shakspere and His Predecessors (New York, 1896), p. 438; Ward, History of English Dramatic Literature (London, 1899), ii, 174; Herford, Eversley Shakspere (London, 1899), ix, 7; Gollancz, Temple Shakspere (London, 1900), x, preface to Lear (pages not numbered). Doubtless this list could be much extended. On the other hand the theory has been received with disfavor by W. A. Wright, who in the Clarendon Press Series, King Lear (Oxford, 1879), p. xvii, dates it late in 1605, ignoring Malone; by Furness, Variorum King Lear, p. 378; by Lee, who adopts a later date for the play in his Life of Shakspere (London, 1898), p. 241; by Craig, King Lear (London, 1901), p. xx; and by Perrett, Story of King Lear (Palæstra, xxxv; Berlin, 1904), pp. 97–9.

^{page 463 note 1} Arber's Transcript, iii, 366.

^{page 464 note 1} I here follow the fac-simile title-page given by Prætorius in his reprint of Quarto 1 (London, 1885), p. 1. The few variations in wording between the two quartos do not concern us.

^{page 464 note 2} Scarcely less striking in each case is the carefulness of the publisher to note the company which is presenting the play. Moreover on his title-page he specifically mentions the Gloster subplot and the death of Lear—two details which distinguish Shakspere's play from its predecessor.

^{page 464 note 3} So Mr. Aldis Wright, p. xiv of his edition of the Lear.

^{page 464 note 4} Not April, 1593, as sometimes stated. Henslowe, to be sure, marks it 1593 in one place, but a close examination of the entries in this connection will convince every reader that what is meant is the year beginning with January, 1594, according to modern usage.

^{page 464 note 5} Henslowe's Diary, ed. Collier (London, 1845), pp. 33–4; ed. Greg. (London, 1904), i, 17.

^{page 465 note 1} Arber's Transcript, ii, 649. It has been suggested that Islip's name was first written and then crossed out because he was the printer and White the publisher. White does not seem to have done his own printing. It is on record that Islip printed for him de Guevara's Mount of Calvary, Pt. I, 1595, Part II, 1597; and The Key to Unknown Knowledge, 1599. See Ames, Typographical Antiquities (ed. Herbert, London, 1786), ii, 1200.

^{page 465 note 2} Peele's David and Bethsabe, and a lost play of John of Gaunt.

^{page 465 note 3} See title-page in Greene's Plays and Poems (ed. Collins, Oxford, 1905), ii, 15. The earliest extant copy of the David and Bethsabe was printed by Islip in 1599. The Robin Hood and Little John, with the John of Gaunt, seems to have perished.

^{page 466 note 1} Arber's Transcript, iii, 289. Arber adds in a note, “It is evident that King Lear was printed by S. Stafford before the 8th of May, 1605, though not entered until it was assigned on that date.” This statement Perrett, op. cit., p. 98, justly questions. Rather, if we already have a suspicion of fraud in this transaction, the immediate assignment of the book to another publisher, might tend to strengthen the suspicions. Halliwell-[Phillips], Works of Shakspere (London, 1865), xiv, 353, observes that it would seem from the second entry “that Leake had some interest in the work.” But Leake was then one of the wardens and probably his consent to the transfer was merely official.

^{page 466 note 2} Not having seen a copy of the quarto, I follow here the title as given in Capell's Shakspere (London, 1767–8?), i, 55. In Steevens's reprint the title-page differs slightly in spacing, but not in reading. A careful collation of the reprints made respectively by Steevens in Wm. Shakspere, Twenty of His Plays, iv (pages not numbered), by Nichols in Six Old Plays, etc., ii, 377 ff., and by Hazlitt in Shakspere's Library, ii, 307 ff., has brought forth differences of no importance whatever.

^{page 467 note 1} This evidence concerns the style, versification and technique of the play, and its relation to certain others of the 1590–95 period. Much of this matter is discussed at length by Perrett in his Story of King Lear; other evidence I hope to put into print later.

^{page 467 note 2} For example, Craig, King Lear, p. xvii, and Perrett, p. 97.

^{page 468 note 1} Cf. Fleay, Life of Shakspere, p. 353, stating that the “Leire …. was not the old play, but a prose history now lost,”—a remark probably based on what Halliwell-Phillips says, op. cit., xiv, 362.

^{page 468 note 2} Probably Edward Aldee, who printed for White the earliest extant edition of Kyd's Spanish Tragedy (cf. W. W. Greg, List of Plays, etc., p. 61); The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune, 1589 (Greg, p. 123); three editions of Soliman and Perseda (mentioned in the 1624 entry as transferred to Aldee), 1599, and another edition undated (Greg, p. 123). On June 25, 1600, Aldee and Wm. White were fined for printing, and Edward White for selling “a Disorderly ballad,” Arber, ii, 831. Again, on April 14 and May 30, 1603, Aldee was fined for printing, and Edward White for selling the Basilicon Boron, Arber, ii, 835–6.

^{page 469 note 1} Arber, iv, 120.

^{page 469 note 2} Arber, v, cix, makes her the widow of Edward White, Jr., who was publishing just before 1624, but an examination of the entry will show, I believe, that every one of the books on the list had been originally entered by the older White, and not one by the younger.

^{page 469 note 3} Arber, iv, 507. Mrs. Aldee is Elizabeth, widow of Edward. Halliwell-Phillips in his Shakspere, xiv, 363, speaks of still another assignment of the play: “In April, 1655, the copyright of this play was entered to William Gilbertson ‘by vertue of an assignment under the hand and seale of Edward Wright.’” Unfortunately Arber's Transcript does not extend beyond 1640, but Halliwell-Phillips gives a fac-simile of this entry, op. cit., xiv, facing p. 361. It is a coincidence that in 1655 was also published the third quarto of Shakspere's Lear. Edward Wright, as stated below, was the younger brother of John Wright, and probably inherited his interest in the Leir printed in 1605.

^{page 470 note 1} For a suggestion here I am indebted to Professor Kittredge, though he is not to be held responsible for inaccuracies in the form of the statement.

^{page 470 note 2} Arber, ii, 194. It was May 14, 1594, when White entered Leir. Probably the printing was done some weeks later while Wright was in the shop. So Shakspere's Lear entered November 26, 1607, was printed 1608.

^{page 470 note 3} Arber, ii, 732.

^{page 470 note 4} On August 6, 1604, he takes as apprentice Edward Wright, “sonne of Thomas Wright,” and evidently his brother. Arber, ii, 282.

^{page 470 note 5} Arber, v, cxi.

^{page 471 note 1} Lee, Life of Shakspere, p. 90. If one is disposed to question the authority of Mr. Lee concerning the Sonnets, one may refer to Rolfe, Life of Shakspere (Boston, 1904), p. 334, where Mr. Lee's general position is strongly combated, but Thorpe's edition is pronounced piratical.

^{page 471 note 2} Cf. Furness, p. 381. Of Mr. Fleay's further statement that Stafford's Edward III was surreptitious, I am not so sure. On the Pericles see Halliwell-Phillips's Shakspere, xvi, 72.

^{page 471 note 3} Arber, iii, 217. On the next page Stafford enters a book “not to be printed til he have gotten better authority for yt.”

^{page 473 note 1} In an article on this subject in Robinson's Epitome of Literature, quoted by Furness, Variorum Lear, p. 381.

^{page 473 note 2} King Lear, p. xix.

^{page 473 note 3} Story of King Lear, p. 97.

^{page 474 note 1} xiv, facing p. 354. Even Dr. Perrett seems to have overlooked this reproduction, although on p. 94 of his Lear Story he quotes from Halliwell-Phillips, xiv, 354.

^{page 474 note 2} The loop of the “d” is plainly visible. Under the last three letters of “Tragecall,” appear certain other letters, probably “-die,” while the word “historie” has been written above the line. All these corrections are in the same handwriting as the original entry.

^{page 474 note 3} Professor Kittredge suggests to me that this accounts for the spelling of “Tragecall.” Since this suggestion was made I have come upon the word very frequently in Elizabethan literature, but have yet to find another instance of it spelled with an -e. When the scribe is obliged to repeat the title just below, in transferring the play to Wright, it will be noted that he uses “Tragicall.”

^{page 475 note 1} The arguments of Mr. Craig and Dr. Perrett that the Leir could be called a “tragical history” are scarcely convincing. To prove that it could be termed a tragedy would be more difficult still. Mr. Fleay is partially right. If Wright and Stafford intended to call the play a “tragical history,” there must have been some reason why they did not use that phrase on their title-page.

^{page 475 note 2} I shall not attempt to say whether or not the scribe was actually led by the printers to believe that the play they were entering was the genuine tragedy which he had heard of. Possibly he had the tragedy in mind beforehand.

^{page 475 note 3} One must not forget that to the Elizabethans the story of Leir was veracious history, or that Shakspere's play was in part founded on Holinshed's Chronicle.

^{page 475 note 4} This is at variance with the theory of Mr. Fleay, as above, that the phrasing was first adopted by Stafford and Wright, and afterwards imitated by Butter. I do not feel quite sure that Mr. Fleay is in error.

^{page 476 note 1} Arguments for a later date based on internal evidence are far from convincing, and have convinced almost none of the editors of the play. Mr. Aldis Wright's inference from Edmund's allusion to “these eclipses” (cf. Furness, p. 379 f.) that “Shakspere did not begin to write King Lear till towards the end of the year 1605,” when occurred a great eclipse of the sun, following an eclipse of the moon, cannot have much weight in determining the question. It is not accepted by Furness (p. 381), or by Craig (op. cit., p. xxii), although both these last are inclined with Wright to a later date than Malone's. Even less may be said in favor of the supposed allusion to the Gunpowder Plot of November, 1605, in the same speech. Mr. Craig's suggestion (p. xxiv) that the Lear was probably a new play when presented at Whitehall in December, 1606, “the plays selected on such occasions being seldom or never old plays,” deserves more consideration. An answer to this argument is found in the court performance of The Tempest at the nuptial festivities of Princess Elizabeth and the Elector Frederick, May, 1613. The Tempest was one of nineteen plays performed on that occasion. “But none of the other plays produced seem to have been new; they were all apparently chosen because they were established favorites at Court and on the public stage…. But 1613 is, in fact, on more substantial ground far too late a date to which to assign the composition of The Tempest“(Lee, Life of Shakspere, p. 254).

^{page 477 note 1} For much more in this paper than can be acknowledged in detail, I am indebted to Professor George P. Baker of Harvard University, under whose direction the study was originally undertaken.