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, 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." afterwards called Maglamis le Rois Descoce, and we are later told that Leir went to that monarch's court in Scotland; but, later still, it appears that Leir went to his other son-in-law, the husband of Ragau, who lived in Scotland (“qui Ragau avoit, et qui en Escoce mariot ").1 We now come to the first English, or rather SemiSaxon or Mercian, rendering of the story. Layamon, a priest of Ernley on Severn, included it in his long poem The Brut, founded on Wace, and written at the beginning of the thirteenth century. In this account, which is far the longest and best of all the non-dramatic renderings of the tale known to us, Wace's French account, though on the whole followed, is greatly amplified. Geoffrey is also followed, but this fine and graphic rendering has much original matter (see Sir Frederick Madden's edition, 3 vols. 1847, vol. i. pp. 123–158). There are some strange inconsistencies in Layamon. Leir, after his eldest daughter has pleased him with her reply, and before he has heard what her sisters have to say, declares, "thou shalt have the best share of my land," though he had said a little before, "I will prove which of my daughters loves me most, and she shall have the best share of my lordly land." Again, though we are told several times that Leir divided all his land between his two sons-in-law, Maglanus and Henninus (or Hemeri), yet later we read "that the Scottish King and the Duke spake together that they should have all the land in their own hand, and feed Leyre while he lived with forty 1 See Le Roman de Brut par Wace par M. le Roux de Lincy, Rouen, 1836, tom. i. pp. 81-98; from line 1697 to 2096. knights," the probable meaning is that Leir's resignation was only nominal, and that he still kept much power in his own hands. Again, though here as in Geoffrey, Leir declares after disinheriting Cordoylle, that the Duke of Cornwall shall have Gornoille, and the Scottish King Regau the fair, yet, later, at the division of the kingdom, we read, as in Shakespeare, "he gave Gornoille to Scotland's King, and Cornwall's duke he gave Regau." Layamon, in the course of his exciting narrative, has some points which recall Shakespeare. We are told several times a detail which is in no other pre-Shakepearian account, "that the two dukes found Leir hawks and hounds." This reminds us of Lear (1. iii. 8, 9), where Goneril says, "When he returns from hunting I will not speak with him," and soon after, just before Lear's entrance, we notice the old stage-direction of the Folio, "Horns within." It is very remarkable also, I think, that Leir, when excited, invokes Apollo as the Lear of Shakespeare does (I. i. 160); addressing his youngest child, he says, "I will hear, so help me, Apollo, how dear is my life to thee." Again, in The Brut, Maglaunus, like Albany, is mild, pleading with his fierce wife in Leir's favour, and opposing the lessening of his train, and Gornoille's scornful reply to him, "Be thou still, let me all be" (¿.e. leave me to manage), reminds us of Goneril's reply to Albany under similar conditions, "Pray you content" (Lear, I. iv. 355). And in The Brut as in Lear, Cornwall is savage and cruel-more so, indeed, than Regau; when she proposes to him to do away with twenty of her father's knights, and let ten suffice, we read, "Then Duke Hemeri, who betrayed his old father, |