der will understand the
following table at once if I say that, according to it, _Othello_
contains three passages where a series of four successive overflowing
lines occurs, and two passages where a series of five such lines occurs:

-----------------------------------------------------------------
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 No. of Lines
(Fleay).
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Othello, 3 2 -- -- -- -- -- 2,758
Hamlet, 7 -- -- -- -- -- -- 2,571
Lear, 6 2 -- -- -- -- -- 2,312
Timon, 7 2 1 1 -- -- -- 1,031 (?)
Macbeth, 7 5 1 1 -- 1 -- 1,706
Coriolanus, 16 14 7 1 2 -- 1 2,563
-----------------------------------------------------------------

(The figures for _Macbeth_ and _Timon_ in the last column must be borne
in mind. I observed nothing in the non-Shakespeare part of _Timon_ that
would come into the table, but I did not make a careful search. I felt
some doubt as to two of the four series in _Othello_ and again in
_Hamlet_, and also whether the ten-series in _Coriolanus_ should not be
put in column 7).

III. _The light and weak ending test._

We have just seen that in some cases a doubt is felt whether there is an
'overflow' or not. The fact is that the 'overflow' has many degrees of
intensity. If we take, for example, the passage last quoted, and if with
Koenig we consider the line

The taints and blames I laid upon myself

to be run-on (as I do not), we shall at least consider the overflow to
be much less distinct than those in the lines

but God above
Deal between thee and me! for even now
I put myself to thy direction, and
Unspeak my own detraction, here abjure

And of these four lines the third runs on into its successor at much the
greatest speed.

'Above,' 'now,' 'abjure,' are not light or weak endings: 'and' is a weak
ending. Prof. Ingram gave the name weak ending to certain words on which
it is scarcely possible to dwell at all, and which, therefore,
precipitate the line which they close into the following. Light endings
are certain words which have the same effect in a slighter degree. For
example, _and_, _from_, _in_, _of_, are weak endings; _am_, _are_, _I_,
_he_, are light endings