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 and (2) that in each case the speaker remains behind alone to utter the words after the other persons have gone off.

I postpone discussion of the several passages until I have called attention to the fact that, if these passages are genuine, the number of scenes which end with a soliloquy is larger in King Lear than in any other undoubted tragedy. Thus, taking the tragedies in their probable chronological order (and ignoring the very short scenes into which a battle is sometimes divided), I find that there are in Romeo and Juliet four such scenes, in Julius Cæsar two, in Hamlet six, in Othello four, in King Lear seven, in Macbeth two, in Antony and Cleopatra three, in Coriolanus one. The difference between King Lear and the plays that come nearest to it is really much greater than it appears from this list, for in Hamlet four of the six soliloquies, and in Othello three of the four, are long speeches, while most of those in King Lear are quite short.

Of course I do not attach any great importance to the fact just noticed, but it should not be left entirely out of account in forming an opinion as to the genuineness of the three doubted passages.