restoration writers obliged them by adapting shakespeare's plays freely. writers such as william davenant and nahum tate rewrote some of shakespeare's plays to suit the tastes of the day, which favoured the courtly comedy of beaumont and fletcher and the neo-classical rules of drama. in 1681, tate provided "the history of king lear", a modified version of shakespeare's original tragedy with a happy ending. according to stanley wells, tate's version "supplanted shakespeare's play in every performance given from 1681 to 1838," when william charles macready played lear from a shortened and rearranged version of shakespeare's text. "twas my good fortune", tate said, "to light on one expedient to rectify what was wanting in the regularity and probability of the tale, which was to run through the whole a love betwixt edgar and cordelia that never changed words with each other in the original".