We have been unable to procure a copy of the Quarto edition of this play, edited in 1703 by 'the accurate Mr John Hughs' (Theobald's Shakespeare Restored, p. 26), and have therefore quoted the readings of it on Theobald's authority. It is different from the Players' Quarto of 1703, and is not mentioned in Bohn's edition of Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual. No copy of it exists in the British Museum, the Bodleian, the library of the Duke of Devonshire, the Capell collection, or any other to which we have had access.

We have to thank Dr C. M. Ingleby for the loan of several editions of Hamlet which we should otherwise have had difficulty in procuring.

2. KING LEAR first appeared in 1608. In this year there were two editions in Quarto. One bears the following title:

The printer's device is that of J. Roberts.

This we have called Q₁. In the few instances in which there are differences between Capell's copy and that in the Duke of Devonshire's library, we have distinguished the readings as those of Q₁ (Cap.) and Q₁ (Dev.) respectively. Through the kindness of Sir S. Morton Peto and Mr Lilly, we have been enabled to collate two other copies, but without discovering any variations from that in the Capell collection.

In the same year another Quarto edition of this play was issued by the same publisher. Its title is as follows:

We have called this Q₂. In the six copies we have collated there are a large number of very curious and important variations. To distinguish them we have made use of the following notation.

1. Q₂ (Cap.) The copy in Capell's collection.

2. Q₂ (Dev.) The copy in the Library of the Duke of Devonshire.

3. Q₂ (Mus. per.) A perfect copy in the British Museum (C. 34. K. 18).

4. Q₂ (Mus. imp.) An imperfect copy (wanting title) in the British Museum (C. 34. K. 17); formerly in the possession of Mr Halliwell.

5. Q₂ (Bodl. 1). A copy in the Bodleian Library (Malone 35), with the title, but wanting the last leaf.

6. Q₂ (Bodl. 2). A copy in the Bodleian Library (Malone 37), wanting title but having the last leaf.

It has been supposed in consequence of statements made by Malone and Boswell that a third edition of King Lear was published in 1608. We shall show that there is no evidence for this. In the Variorum Shakespeare (II. 652), edited by Boswell in 1821, three Quartos are described, which are distinguished in the notes to the play by the letters A, B, C, respectively. The first of these is a copy of Q₂, quoted by us as Q₂ (Bodl. 1); the second is a copy of Q₁; and the third, which is in reality another copy of Q₂ and is quoted by us as Q₂ (Bodl. 2), is described as follows:

"Title the same as the two former, except that like the first it begins at signature B: and like the second, has no reference to the place of sale."

This statement of Boswell's is taken from a note in Malone's handwriting prefixed to the copy in question, which we transcribe.

"This copy of King Lear differs in some particulars from the two others in Vol. IV.

"The title-page of it is the same as the second of those copies, that is, it has no direction to the place of sale, and the first signat. is B,--notwithstanding which there are minute diversities; thus, in this copy in H₃ verso, we have 'A foole vsurps my bed'; in the other whose first signature is also B, we find--'My foote usurps my body', and in the copy without any direction to the place of sale (whose first signature is A) 'My foote usurps my head'."

Now it is a little remarkable that at present the copy has no title-page at all, and there is no trace of the title-page having been removed since the volume has been in its present condition. The probability is that the title was originally wanting and that one had been supplied from a copy of Q₁ before it came into Malone's hands, and that while it was in this condition he wrote the above note upon it. It was then sent to be bound in a volume with other quartos, and the title may have been lost at the binder's, or may have been intentionally removed as not belonging to the book. That alterations were made by the binder is evident from the fact that the copy to which Malone refers as the second of those in Vol. IV. is in reality the first. Malone, writing his note when Vol. IV. was arranged for binding, described the then order of the plays, which must afterwards have been altered. In any case, however Malone's statement is to be accounted for, it is quite clear that Boswell must have described the Quarto after it was bound, when the title could not have existed.

We have said that Boswell quotes the three Quartos of Lear, now in the Bodleian, by the letters A, B, C, respectively. In doing so, however, he is not consistent. We record his mistakes that others may not be misled by them. Bearing in mind therefore that A = Q₂ (Bodl. 1), B = Q₁, and C = Q₂ (Bodl. 2), we find in Act II. Scene 2 (Vol. X. p. 97) 'Quarto B, ausrent; Quarto A, reads unreverent.' Here B and A should change places. In Act III. Scene 7 (p. 188), 'Quarto A omits roguish:' for A read C. In Act IV. Scene 2 (p. 199), for 'Quartos B and C, the whistling,' read 'Quarto C' alone. In Act IV. Scene 6 (p. 220) B and A should again be interchanged. In Act V. Scene 3 (p. 277), 'Quarto A omits this line'; for A read B. It will be seen from these instances that A has been in turn made to represent three different copies.

The differences in various copies of Q₂ are accounted for by supposing that the corrections were made before the sheets were all worked off, and that the corrected and uncorrected sheets were bound up indiscriminately. It will be observed that the readings of the uncorrected sheets of Q₂ agree for the most part with those of Q₁, and this led us to the conclusion which had previously been arrived at by Capell and also by J. P. Kemble, that the edition which we have called Q₁ was the earlier of the two printed in the same year. But upon collating a copy of Q₂ in the Bodleian, which we have called Q₂ (Bodl. 1), we found evidence which points to an opposite conclusion. In Kent's soliloquy (II. 2. 160) that copy, as will be seen in our notes, reads,

nothing almost sees my rackles But miserie, &c.

which of course is an accidental corruption, by displacement of the type, of 'myrackles' (i.e. 'miracles') the true reading. In the corrected copies of Q₂ this is altered, apparently by the printer's conjecture, to 'my wracke', which is also the reading of Q₁. Throughout the sheet in which this occurs the readings of Q₁ agree with the corrected copies of Q₂, and had it not been for the instance quoted, we might have supposed that the corrections in the latter were made from Q₁. But the corruption 'my rackles' for 'miracles' must have come from the original MS., and 'my wracke' is only a conjectural emendation, so that the order of succession in this sheet at least appears to be the following. First the uncorrected copy of Q₂, then the same corrected, and lastly Q₁. On the other hand it is remarkable that Q₁, if printed from Q₂ at all, must have been printed from a copy made up, with the exception just mentioned from II. 1. 128 to II. 4. 133, and another containing from IV. 6. 224 to V. 3. 64, of uncorrected sheets. Another hypothesis which might be made is that Q₁ and Q₂ were printed from the same manuscript, and that the printer of Q₁ corrupted 'miracles' into 'my wracke', while the printer of Q₂ made it 'my rackles', which was afterwards altered by a reference to Q₁. The question, however, is very difficult to decide, and at most is one rather of bibliographical curiosity than of critical importance. We may mention that, without giving the reasons for his conclusion, Jennens, in his edition of Lear in 1770, quotes as the 1st Quarto that which we have called Q₂ and vice versa.

A third Quarto, which we have called Q₃, was printed very carelessly page for page from Q₁ and published in 1655.

In the first Folio King Lear was printed from an independent manuscript, and its text is on the whole much superior to that of the Quartos. Each however supplies passages which are wanting in the other.