-on' when the mere sense would lead one to pass to the next line
without any pause.[287] This distinction is in a great majority of cases
quite easy to draw: in others it is difficult. The reader cannot judge
by rules of grammar, or by marks of punctuation (for there is a distinct
pause at the end of many a line where most editors print no stop): he
must trust his ear. And readers will differ, one making a distinct pause
where another does not. This, however, does not matter greatly, so long
as the reader is consistent; for the important point is not the precise
number of run-on lines in a play, but the difference in this matter
between one play and another. Thus one may disagree with Koenig in his
estimate of many instances, but one can see that he is consistent.

In Shakespeare's early plays, 'overflows' are rare. In the _Comedy of
Errors_, for example, their percentage is 12.9 according to Koenig[288]
(who excludes rhymed lines and some others). In the generally admitted
last plays they are comparatively frequent. Thus, according to Koenig,
the percentage in the _Winter's Tale_ is 37.5, in the _Tempest_ 41.5, in
_Antony_ 43.3, in _Coriolanus_ 45.9, in _Cymbeline_ 46, in the parts of
_Henry VIII._ assigned by Spedding to Shakespeare 53.18. Koenig's results
for the four tragedies are as follows: _Othello_, 19.5; _Hamlet_, 23.1;
_King Lear_, 29.3; _Macbeth_, 36.6; (_Timon_, the whole play, 32.5).
_Macbeth_ here again, therefore, stands decidedly last: indeed it stands
near the first of the latest plays.

And no one who has ever attended to the versification of _Macbeth_ will
be surprised at these figures. It is almost obvious, I should say, that
Shakespeare is passing from one system to another. Some passages show
little change, but in others the change is almost complete. If the
reader will compare two somewhat similar soliloquies, 'To be or not to
be' and 'If it were done when 'tis done,' he will recognise this at
once. Or let him search the previous plays, even _King Lear_, for twelve
consecutive lines like these:

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We 'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgement here; that we but teach