on by Cornwall and Regan to Gloster's house.

In II. iv. Lear arrives at Gloster's house, having, it would seem,
failed to find Regan at her own home. And, later, Goneril arrives at
Gloster's house, in accordance with an intimation which she had sent in
her letter to Regan (II. iv. 186 f.).

Thus all the principal persons except Cordelia and Albany are brought
together; and the crises of the double action--the expulsion of Lear and
the blinding and expulsion of Gloster--are reached in Act III. And this
is what was required.

But it needs the closest attention to follow these movements. And, apart
from this, difficulties remain.

1. Goneril, in despatching Oswald with the letter to Regan, tells him to
hasten his return (I. iv. 363). Lear again is surprised to find that
_his_ messenger has not been sent back (II. iv. 1 f., 36 f.). Yet
apparently both Goneril and Lear themselves start at once, so that their
messengers _could_ not return in time. It may be said that they expected
to meet them coming back, but there is no indication of this in the
text.

2. Lear, in despatching Kent, says (I. v. 1):

Go you before to Gloster with these letters. Acquaint my
daughter no further with anything you know than comes from her
demand out of the letter.

This would seem to imply that Lear knew that Regan and Cornwall were at
Gloster's house, and meant either to go there (so Koppel) or to summon
her back to her own home to receive him. Yet this is clearly not so, for
Kent goes straight to Regan's house (II. i. 124, II. iv. 1, 27 ff., 114
ff.).

Hence it is generally supposed that by 'Gloster,' in the passage just
quoted, Lear means not the Earl but the _place_; that Regan's home was
there; and that Gloster's castle was somewhere not very far off. This is
to some extent confirmed by the fact that Cornwall is the 'arch' or
patron of Gloster (II. i. 60 f., 112 ff.). But Gloster's home or house
must not be imagined quite close to Cornwall's, for it takes a night to
ride from the one to the other, and Gloster's house is in the middle of
a solitary heath with scarce a bush for many miles about (II. iv. 304).

The plural 'these letters' in the passage quoted need give no trouble,
for the plural is often used by Shakespeare for a single letter; and the
natural conjecture that Lear sent one letter to Regan and another to
Gloster is not confirmed by anything in the text.

The only difficulty is that, as Koppel points