The story of this play, except the episode of Edmund, which is derived, I think, from Sidney, is taken originally from Geoffry of Monmouth, whom Hollinshed generally copied; but perhaps immediately from an old historical ballad.  My reason for believing that the play was posterior to the ballad, rather than the ballad to the play, is, that the ballad has nothing of Shakespeare’s nocturnal tempest, which is too striking to have been omitted, and that it follows the chronicle; it has the rudiments of the play, but none of its amplifications:  it first hinted Lear’s madness, but did not array it in circumstances.  The writer of the ballad added something to the history, which is a proof that he would have added more, if more had occurred to his mind, and more must have occurred if he had seen Shakespeare. [Johnson appends “A lamentable SONG of the Death of King Leir and his Three Daughters”]

Vol.  I

ROMEO AND JULIET

I.i.82 (9,7) Give me my long sword] The long sword was the sword used in war, which was sometimes wielded with both hands.

I.i.158 (11,2)

  As is the bud bit with an envious worm,
  Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
  Or dedicate his beauty to the same]

I cannot but suspect that some lines are lost, which connected this simile more closely with the foregoing speech; these lines, if such there were, lamented the danger that Romeo will die of his melancholy, before his virtues or abilities were known to the world.

I.i.176 (12,3)

  Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,
  Should, without eyes, see path-ways to his will.]

Sir T. Hanmer, and after him Dr. Warburton, read, to his ill.  The present reading has some obscurity; the meaning may be, that love finds out means to pursue his desire.  That the blind should find paths to ill is no great wonder.

I.i.183 (13,4) O brawling love!  O loving hate!] Of these lines neither the sense nor occasion is very evident.  He is not yet in love with an eneny, and to love one and hate another is no such uncommon state, as can deserve all this toil of antithesis.

I.i.192 (14,5) Why, such is love’s transgression] Such is the consequence of unskilful and mistaken kindness. (see 1765, VIII, 12, 2)

1.1.198 (14,6) Being purg’d, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes] The author may mean being purged of smoke, but it is perhaps a meaning never given to the word in any other place.  I would rather read, Being urged, a fire sparkling.  Being excited and inforced.  To urge the fire is the technical term.

I.i.199 (14,7) Being vex’d, a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears] As this line stands single, it is likely that the foregoing or following line that rhym’d to it, is lost.