This has not been done: but Dr. Ingram has applied one test,
and I have applied another, to the parts assigned by Mr. Fleay to
Shakespeare (see Note BB.).[268] The result is to place _Timon_ between
_King Lear_ and _Macbeth_ (a result which happens to coincide with that
of the application of the main tests to the whole play): and this result
corresponds, I believe, with the general impression which we derive from
the three dramas in regard to versification.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 268: These are I. i.; II. i.; II. ii., except 194-204; in III.
vi. Timon's verse speech; IV. i.; IV. ii. 1-28; IV. iii., except
292-362, 399-413, 454-543; V. i., except 1-50; V. ii.; V. iv. I am not
to be taken as accepting this division throughout.]
NOTE T.
DID SHAKESPEARE SHORTEN _KING LEAR_?
I have remarked in the text (pp. 256 ff.) on the unusual number of
improbabilities, inconsistencies, etc., in _King Lear_. The list of
examples given might easily be lengthened. Thus (_a_) in IV. iii. Kent
refers to a letter which he confided to the Gentleman for Cordelia; but
in III. i. he had given to the Gentleman not a letter but a message.
(_b_) In III. i. again he says Cordelia will inform the Gentleman who
the sender of the message was; but from IV. iii.
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