So also we find in the play of King Lear very frequent ellipses of relative pronouns, e.g., iii. 2, 12: Here's a night pities neither wise men nor fools. Equally characteristic of the Elizabethan language is the love of emphasis, which we find displayed in the use not only of double negatives (e.g., iv. 7, 67, and v. 3, 293), but also of double comparatives and superlatives; thus in ii. 2, 138 we find the line:— My sister may receive it much more worse. The same desire for emphasis led to a peculiar but impressive habit of interchanging the parts of speech with an absolute defiance of grammatical usage. So in Julius Cæsar (ii. 1, 83) Brutus says: For if thou path, thy native semblance on, Not Erebus itself were dim enough To hide thee from prevention. In this sentence "path" is obviously a verb meaning to walk about. Again, in King Lear, we read the following: Thou losest here, a better where to find; "here" and "where being used as nouns; there is another good illustration in King Lear, iii. 6, 108: He childed as I fathered. Such, briefly put, are the principal characteristics of the language in which the creators of Tamburlaine and The Jew of Malta, of Hamlet and of the Faerie Queene, gave free play to the exuberance of that genius which "made all England a nest of singing birds," a nest from which came as fledglings, Webster and Ford, Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher, and the great poet of the "Mermaid Tavern," rare Ben Jonson; the more polished stave of the writers of Queen Anne, though her reign was called the "Augustan Age" of English poetry, seems to have lacked the divine fire which sparkled in the songs of "the England of Elizabeth", SHAKESPEAREAN GRAMMAR. Before pronouncing definitely that in many instances Shakespeare was guilty of grammatical errors or of writing bad English, there are two important points to be remembered. Firstly, what would be considered bad English nowadays was regarded as correct three hundred years ago. The English language in the latter end of the sixteenth century was fast losing its inflectional character; indeed, in their desire for emphasis and brevity the Elizabethans carried too far the tendency to curtail inflectional endings, and we consequently find cases when confusion as to form arose, as, for instance, between the past participle and the past tense owing to the omission of final inflection-stole for stolen, forgot for forgotten. But there still remained a large element of the old inflected English, and so frequently what appears at first sight to be an obvious false concord is in reality a survival of old English usage. When, for example, we find a singular verb with a plural subject, that is not to be denounced at once as a flagrant error on the part of the author; it may be a survival of the old plural inflection -s or -es. Such a theory at least would account for the grammar in the following couplet from Richard II., ii. 3, 4-5 : These high wild hills and rough uneven ways Draws out our miles and makes them wearisome. Secondly, we must attach due importance to the difference. between the grammar of the historian and the dramatist; the former writes his own story using his own forms of speech, the latter makes his characters speak for him using the freedom of colloquialism, often inattentive to the details or proper sequence of grammar. In excitement a speaker may change his line of thought, may forget to conclude his sentence, or complete it merely by a gesture, Speech, in short, is necessarily often incorrect and ungrammatical, but for that we must not blame the playwright who concerned himself with the vivid representation of character and not with faultlessness of grammar. The following are some of the grammatical peculiarities which we find in King Lear, in which play, however, Shakespeare is not conspicuous for defiance of the laws of "good English ". 1. Questions are frequently asked without the inclusion of the auxiliary, e.g. : Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter? (i. 2, 5). What needed then that terrible dispatch of it to your pocket? (i. 2, 9). 2. Prepositions are used incorrectly, e.g. : In, for into (iv. 1, 76). Of, for in (iv. 5, 26). For, for from or through (ii. 4, 50). 3. Among pronouns :— : (a) The relative is sometimes omitted, e.g. : There's a great abatement of kindness appears as well, etc. (i. 4, 57). It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our condition (iv. 3, 34). (b) The relative takes a singular verb though the antecedent be plural, e.g. : You (France and Burgundy) who hath rivall'd (i. 1, 169, 170). (c) The wrong case of the relative is used, e.g. : Who would'st thou serve? (i. 4, 23). (d) "Their" is used instead of "of them" as an antecedent to the relative, e.g. : Until their greater pleasures first be known, That are to censure them. (v. 3, 2). (e) "His" is used instead of "its," and also "it" for "its" (i. 4, 202). This use of "his as a neuter possessive pronoun occurs in the psalmist : It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. (ƒ) “’Em” is found (iv. 6, 145) as an equivalent to "him". 4. Inversion of the negative, probably done for the sake of emphasis, e.g. :— If they not thought the profits of my death (ii. 1, 76). I marvel our mild husband Not met us on the way (iv. 2, 1-2). 5. Use of abbreviated participles (an imitation of Latin forms), e.g. : Distract (iv. 6, 259). Derogate (i. 4, 263). 6. Use of double negatives, double comparatives and double superlatives, e.g. : Nor I know not (iv. 7, 67). Nor no man else (v. 3, 293). More richer than my tongue (i. 1, 57). A more worthier way (i. 1, 190). Most best, most dearest (i. 1, 195). More corrupter ends (ii. 2, 92). 7. Use of singular verbs with the plurals of nouns, these nouns being held to be singular in sense, e.g. :— Here's France and Burgundy (i. 1, 167). Which very manners urges (when manners=courtesy) (v. 3, 236). There is means, madam (when "means "is treated as a singular noun, like the word "news in modern English) (iv. 4, 11). 8. Adjectival use of adverbs, e.g. :— As thou my sometime daughter (i. 1, 99). 9. Use of nouns in various forms as verbs, e.g. :Make thy words faith'd (ii. 1, 71). 10. Use of plural pronoun with singular noun, e.g. :These kind of knaves (ii. 2, 91). 11. Use of abstract for concrete nouns, e.g. : His spies and speculations (iii. 1, 24). VERSIFICATION. Some acquaintance with the laws of prosody (to give versification its more technical name) is necessary, not only to enable us to realise more fully the pleasure which can be acquired by reading poetry or plays either aloud or to oneself, but also because a knowledge of metre helps us to determine both the date and the authorship of such works. Thus, for instance, when we find a couplet of rhymed or "heroic" verse we might expect it to be a quotation from Dryden or Pope, if the couplet was written in unrhymed or "blank" verse it might be from the pen of Shakespeare, Milton or Tennyson. The poetry of the Greeks and Romans based its metrical laws upon the length of vowels which was termed their "quantity". Our poets who wished to model their prosody upon these ancient lines substituted for quantity the use of accent or emphasis. In the blank verse which Shakespeare generally employed each line was supposed to be decasyllabic, and in its most perfect form consisted of five feet of two syllables each with the accents on the the second, fourth, sixth, eighth and tenth syllables. Each of these pairs of syllables was called an iambus or iambic foot (Greek taußos), and the whole line of five iambic feet is called an iambic pentameter, e.g., i. 1, 18:— 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Conferring them / on younger strengths / while we /. But a constant adherence to the use of pure iambic pentameters naturally resulted in monotony, to relieve which Shakespeare had recourse to the following expedients: 1. Instead of the accent being placed upon the second of the two syllables it was placed upon the first of them, in which case the foot is properly called not an iambus but a |