sions of his passion are terrible as a volcano: they are storms turning up and disclosing to the bottom that sea, his mind, with all its vast riches. It is his mind which is laid bare. This case of flesh and blood seems too insignificant to be thought on; even as he himself neglects it. On the stage we see nothing but corporal infirmities and weakness, the impotence of rage; while we read it, we see not Lear, but we are Lear.” 1 His sufferings bring out good qualities that have been stunted in fortune. When we first know him he is so self-centred as to be absolutely regardless of others. But he comes to suspect his own “jealous curiosity” (i. 4. 75), tries to find an excuse for his enemies (ii. 4. 106-113), and is finally moved to contrition for his former indifference to the lot of even his meanest subjects (iii . 4. 28–36). He knows he must be patient. “You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need” (ii. 4. 274). He asserts that he will be “the pattern of all patience” (iii. 2. 37). But the blow has come too late. His fond old heart cannot endure the outrage of "the offices of nature, bond of childhood, effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude.” He is too old to learn resignation. His remarks only increase in intensity. When he meets Regan after his rebuff by Goneril, he can greet her only by saying that if she is not glad to see him, her mother must have been an adulteress (ii. 4. 132–134). At last he becomes almost inarticulate with passion (ii. 4. 281-289). The strain is too great, and the bonds of reason snap. Of this the premonitions have been so skillfully given that his madness seems inevitable. Yet he could never more truly say that he was every inch a king” than when he threw aside the lendings of royalty and stood against the deep dread-bolted thunder, and defied the villainy of his unnatural daughters. If he baffles our sympathy or regard in the height of his fortune, he wins our reverence pow; and the imagination fondly lingers over his recognition of Cordelia and his contentment with prison if only she is with him, and finds his early folly nobly expiated in his conduct at her death and his inability to live without her. Yet this ending, as beautiful as it is inevitable, has been con 1 Lamb, On the Tragedies of Shakespeare. ? Several accounts of the course of Lear's madness have been given by medical men. See, for example, Bucknill's Mad Folk of Shakespeare, pp.160235. * The Edipus Coloneus of Sophocles offers a remarkable comparison with King Lear. Edipus, too, is a man more sinned against than sinning (see note, iii. 2. 60), but he has learned patience and self control and has a strength of character wanting in the aged Lear. His curse on Polynices is even more terrible than Lear's on Goneril, because it is deliberate, and does not spring from a passionate desire for revenge. And Antigone is his Cordelia. demned on the score of what is called “poetical justice.” As Lear [ is a man more sinned against than sinning, some would have him restored to his kingdom. But crime is not the chief tragic motive in the Shakespearean drama any more than in that of Greece. [ Lear is guilty of an error, and through it he meets his fate. The play of Macbeth is an exception to the general rule, in that the tragedy is founded upon crime; on the other hand, Hamlet and Othello, for instance, resemble Lear in being the victims of their [ own character and the circumstances in which they are placed. Cordelia can well say, we are not the first, Who with best meaning have incurred the worst.” That she and Lear, after all that has happened, should not incur the worst would be contrary to the Shakespearean method, if only for the reason that it would be glaringly inartistic. Much as we regret Lear's fate, it alone can satisfy our sense of the fitness of things. As Charles Lamb has put it with admirable force: “A happy ending ! - as if the living martyrdom that Lear had gone through, the flaying of his feelings alive, did not make a fair dismissal from the stage of life the only decorous thing for him. If he is to live and be happy after, if he could sustain this world's burden after, why all this pudder and preparation, why torment us with all this unnecessary sympathy? As if the childish pleasure of getting his gilt robes and sceptre again could tempt him to act over again his misused station, -- as if at his years, and with his experience, anything was left but to die.” But, it may be asked, does this ending, which is in accordance with artistic necessity, entirely fail to satisfy the claims of poetical justice? Lear is not troubled by the loss of his kingdom. Why, then, should his kingdom be restored to him, the more especially as he had in his sane mind given it away? What he feels is not the actual diminution of his train by his daughters and their other unkindnesses so much as the brutality which prompted these acts. Justice can be done him, not by restoration to his kingdom, but by restoration to filial respect, and it is satisfied by the love of Cordelia. This alone“ does redeem all sorrows that ever I have felt." DRAMATIS PERSONÆ . . . . LEAR. King of Britain DUKE OF ALBANY Son to Gloucester EDMUND Bastard Son to Gloucester CURAN . . A courtier Old Man Tenant to Gloucester Doctor Fool : OSWALD. Steward to Goneril A Captain employed by Edmund Gentleman attendant on Cordelia A Herald Servants to Cornwall GONERIL W REGAN Daughters to Lear CORDELIA Knights of Lear's train, Captains, Messengers, Soldiers, and Attendants SCENE- BRITAIN KING LEAR ACT I SCENE I — King Lear's palace Enter KENT, GLOUCESTER, and EDMUND Kent. I thought the king had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall. Glou. It did always seem so to us : but now, in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values most; for equalities are so weighed, that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety. Kent. Is not this your son, my lord ? Glou. His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge : I have so often blushed to acknowledge him, that 10 now I am brazed to it. Kent. I cannot conceive you. Glou. Sir, this young fellow's mother could : whereupon she grew round-wombed, and had, indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault ? Kent. I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper. Glou. But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer 20 in my account: though this knave came something saucily into the world before he was sent |