As, during these Christmas days,1 I have sunk myself in the study of King Lear, I have felt that in the time itself, which you have given me, there is some fitness of coincidence. It was in the Christmas days of 1606 that Shakspere was busy with the preparation of his play for the stage. It was on the night after Christmas that the poet saw his play produced for the first time, produced before King and Court, in the palace of Whitehall. That night marks, at all events, an important epoch in the life of Shakspere. And, if Shelley was right when he called King Lear “the most perfect specimen of dramatic poetry existing in the world,” then that evening in Whitehall, 287 years ago, marks not only the culminating point of Shakspere's career but also the culminating point in the poetical achievement of mankind.

Lope de Vega's ‘Comedia,’ Sin secreto no ay amor, is contained in a volume of manuscript Spanish plays marked ‘Egerton. 548,’ in the British Museum.1 This volume, which is a quarto, bound in brown morocco, contains, besides the above ‘comedia,’ a number of others by Lope; they are as follows: Lo que ha de ser, Ay verdades que en amor, La competencia en lot nobles, Argel fingido, and two ‘autos sacramentales:’ El yugo de Christo, and El principe de la paz. Of these ‘comedias,’ Lo que ha de ser is an autograph, dated September 2, 1624, and is printed in Tom. XXII, de las comedias del Fenix de Espafta Lope de Vega y de lot mejores que hasta ahora han salido, Zaragoza, 1630;2 and also in Parle veinte cinco perfeta y verdadera, de las comedias del Fenix de España Frey Lope Felix de Vega Carpio, etc., Caragoça, 1647. Ay verdades que en amor is also an autograph, dated Madrid, November 12, 1625, with an approbation by Vargas Machuca, dated Madrid, February 4, 1626, and appeared in Veinte y una parte verdadera de las comedias del Fenix de España, Frei Lope Felix de Vega Carpio, etc., Madrid, 1635;3 also in Parte XXIX de las comedias de diferentes autores, Valencia, 1636.4 The rest of the plays are not in Lope's handwriting. La compelencia en los nobles, dated November 16th, 1625, with a license to play signed by don Juan de Velasco, Pamplona, November 6, 1628, has, so far as I am aware, never been printed.1 The copy is very carelessly written, in a round hand, and contains at the end the following letter, bound with the play: “Con las noticias que tengo de las comedias de vuesa merced, é venido a buscar esta: porque me an dicho que es muy buena: estamos en duda si es conforme vuesa merced la izo, y ansi le suplico vuesa merced la aga de pasar los hojos por ella esta noche que yo le servire; y mañana a las nueve sere aqui a besar a vuesa merced las manos que [here follow a number of words that are illegible] a vida . . . .(?) de vuesa merced;” signed—D. Juan Alonso de Morestin (?). From this letter it has been inferred that the many corrections and erasures which the copy contains, are by the hand of Lope, though it must be confessed that the handwriting in no respect resembles that of the author.

The subject of Phonetic Law and Analogy belongs to Psychology as well as to Philology; it originated, however, and was for a long time kept within the domain of the latter discipline. When it first came into the foreground of our interest, it was agitated by scholars in historical philology. The experience of daily linguistic research suggested both the question and the answer, and in fact the main importance of the whole problem was seen in the influence which its solution must have upon the methods of detailed investigation.