M. William Shak-speare: | HIS | True Chronicle Historie of the life and | death of King LEAR and his three | Daughters. | With the vnfortunate life of Edgar, sonne | and heire to the Earle of Gloster, and his | sullen and assumed humor of | TOM of Bedlam: | As it was played before the Kings Maiestie at Whitehall vpon | S. Stephans night in Christmas Hollidayes. | By his Maiesties seruants playing vsually at the Gloabe | on the Bancke-side. | LONDON,| Printed for Nathaniel Butter, and are to be sold at his shop in Pauls | Church-yard at the signe of the Pide Bull neere | St. Austins Gate. 1608. |
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."