Alb. Trust to thy single virtue ;'for thy soldiers,
All levied in my name, have in my name
Took their discharge.

Reg.

Gon.

This is mere practice,' Gloster ·

By the law of arms, thou wast not bound to answer
An unknown opposite; thou art not vanquish'd,
But cozen'd and beguil'd.
Shut your mouth, dame,

Alb.

This sickness grows upon me. Or with this paper shall I stop it:-Hold, sir:-
Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil :—
No tearing, lady; I perceive, you know it.

Enter a Herald.

If any man of quality, or degree, within the lists of the army, will maintain upon Edmund, supposed earl of Gloster, that he is a manifold traitor, let him appear at the third sound of the trumpet: He is bold in his defence.

Edm. Sound.
Her. Again.

Her. Again.

[Gives the letter to Edmund.

Gon. Say, if I do; the laws are mine, not

thine :
Who shall arraign me for't?

Alb.

Know'st thou this paper?
Gon.

Most monstrous!

Ask me not what I know. [Exit Goneril. Alb. Go after her: she's desperate; govern her. Edm. What you have charg'd me with, that have [To an Officer, who goes out.

I done;

And more, much more: the time will bring it out; 'Tis past, and so am I: But what art thou, [1 Trumpet. That hast this fortune on me? If thou art noble, [2 Trumpet. I do forgive thee. [S Trumpet. Edg. Let's exchange charity. [Trumpet answers within. I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund; If more, the more thou hast wrong'd me. My name is Edgar, and thy father's son. The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to scourge us :

Enter Edgar, armed, preceded by a trumpet. Alb. Ask him his purposes, why he appears Upon this call o'the trumpet.

Her.

What are you?
Your name, your quality? and why you answer
This present summons ?

Edg.
Know, my name is lost;
By treason's tooth bare-gnawn, and canker-bit :
Yet am I noble, as the adversary
I come to cope withal.

Alb.
Which is that adversary?
Edg. What's he, that speaks for Edmund earl of
Gloster?

Edm. Himself;-What say'st thou to him?
Edg.
Draw thy sword;

Where have you hid yourself?
How have you known the miseries of your father?
Edg. By nursing them, my lord.-List a brief
tale;-
And, when 'tis told, O, that my heart would burst!-
The bloody proclamation to escape,
That follow'd me so near, (O our lives' swcetness:
That with the pain of death we'd hourly die,
Rather than die at once!) taught me to shifts
Into a madman's rags; to assume a semblance
That very dogs disdain'd: and in this habit
Met I my father with his bleeding rings,
Their precious stones new lost; became his guide,
Led him, begg'd for him, sav'd him from despair;

That, if my speech offend a noble heart,
Thy arm may do thee justice: here is mine.
Behold, it is the privilege of mine honours,
My oath and my profession: I protest,—
Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence,
Despite thy victor sword, and fire-new fortune,
Thy valour, and thy heart,-Thou art a traitor:
False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father;
Conspirant 'gainst this high illustrious prince;
And, from the extremnest upward of thy head,
To the descent and dust beneath thy feet,
A most toad-spotted traitor. Say thou, No,
This sword, this arm, and my best spirits, are Never (O fault!) reveal'd myself unto him,

bent

To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak,
Thou liest.

Edm. In wisdom, I should ask thy name ;3
But, since thy outside looks so fair and warlike,
And that thy tongue some 'say of breeding breathes,
What safe and nicely I might well delay
By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn:
Back do I toss these treasons to thy head;
With the hell-hated lie o'erwhelm thy heart;
Which (for they yet glance by, and scarcely bruise,)
This sword of mine shall give them instant way,
Where they shall rest for ever.-Trumpets, speak.
[Alarums. They fight. Edmund falls.

Alb. O save him, save him!

(1) i. e. Valour. (2) Notwithstanding. (3) Because if his adversary was not of equal rank, Edmund might have declined the combat.

Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man,
Who having seen me in my worst estate,
Shunn'd my abhorr'd society; but then, finding
Who 'twas that so endur'd, with his strong arms
He fasten'd on my neck, and bellow'd out
As he'd burst heaven; threw him on my father;
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him,
That ever ear receiv'd: which in recounting
His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life
Began to crack: Twice then the trumpet sounded,
And there I left him tranc'd.

Alb.

But who was this? Edg. Kent, sir, the banish'd Kent; who in

guise

Follow'd his enemy king, and did him service
Improper for a slave.

To lay the blame upon her own despair,
That she forbid2 herself.

Alb. The gods defend her! Bear him hence a while. [Edmund is borne off. Enter Lear, with Cordelia dead in his arms; Edgar, Officer, and others.

Lear. Howl, howl, hov.l, howl!-0, you are
men of stones;

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so
That heaven's vault should crack:-O, she is gone
for ever!-

dis-I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She's dead as earth :-Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.
Kent.

Touches us not with pity.

Edg.

Alb. O it is he.

Enter Kent.

[Exit Gentleman.

Is this the promis'd end?"
Edg. Or image of that horror?
Alb.
Fall, and cease!
Lear. This feather stirs; she lives! if it be so,
It is a chance that does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt.

I

Kent..

O my good master!

[Kneeling.

"Tis noble Kent, your friend. Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, traitors

all!

might have sav'd her; now she's gone for ever!— Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ĥa!

What is't thou say'st?-Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman:-
kill'd the slave that was a hanging thee.
Offi. 'Tis true, my lords, he did.
Lear.

I

Did I not, fellow?
I have seen the day, with my good biting faulchion
I would have made them skip: I am old now,

Here comes Kent, sir. And these same crosses spoil me.-Who are you?
Mine eyes are none o'the best :-I'll tell you straight.
Kent. If fortune brag of two she lov'd and hated
One of them we behold.

The time will not allow the compliment,
Which very manners urges.

Kent.

I am come

To bid my king and master aye' good night;

Is he not here?

Lear. This is a dull sight: Are you not Kent?
Kent.

The same
Your servant Kent: Where is your servant Caius?
Lear. He's a good fellow, I can tell you that;

Speak, Edmund, where's the king? and where's He'll strike, and quickly too:-He's dead and

Kent. No, my good lord; I am the very man ;-
Lear. I'll see that straight.

Kent. That, from your first of difference and
decay,

Yet Edmund was belov'd; Have follow'd your sad steps.
The one the other poison'd for my sake,
And after slew herself.

Lear.
You are welcome hither.
Kent. Nor no man else; all's cheerless, dark,
and deadly.-

Your eldest daughters have fore-doom'd themselves
And desperately are dead.

Lear.

Ay, so I think.

Alb. He knows not what he says; and vain it is That we present us to him.

Edg.

Very bootless."

Enter an Officer.

Offi. Edmund is dead, my lord.
Alb.

That's but a trifle here.-
You lords, and noble friends, know our intent.
What comfort to this great decay may come,
Shall be applied: For us, we will resign,
During the life of this old majesty,

To him our absolute power :-You, to your rights;
[To Edgar and Kent.

(4) i. e. Die; Albany speaks to Lear.
(5) Useless. (6) i. e. Lear,

With boot,' and such addition as your honours
Have more than merited.-All friends shall taste
The wages of their virtue, and all foes
The cup of their deservings.-O, see, see!

Lear. And my poor fool' is hang'd! No, no, no
life:

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

nicely discriminates, and so minutely describes the characters of men, he commonly neglects and confounds the characters of ages, by mingling customs ancient and modern, English and foreign.

My learned friend Mr. Warton, who has in The Adventurer very minutely criticised this play, remarks, that the instances of cruelty are too savage

And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no and shocking, and that the intervention of Edmund

more,

Never, never, never, never, never!

Edg.

destroys the simplicity of the story. These objections may, I think, be answered by repeating, that Pray you, undo this button: Thank you, sir.- the cruelty of the daughters is an historical fact, to Do you see this? Look on her,-look,-her lips, which the poet has added little, having only drawn Look there, look there![He dies. it into a series by dialogue and action. But I am He faints!-My lord, my lord,-not able to apologize with equal plausibility for the Kent. Break, heart; I pr'ythee, break! extrusion of Gloster's eyes, which seems an act too Edg. Look up, my lord. horrid to be endured in dramatic exhibition, and Kent. Vex not his ghost:-0, let him pass! such as must always compel the mind to relieve its hates him, distress by incredulity. Yet let it be remembered that our author well knew what would please the audience for which he wrote.

That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.

O, he is gone, indeed.

he

Edg.
Kent. The wonder is, he hath endur'd so long:
He but usurp'd his life.

The injury done by Edmund to the simplicity of the action is abundantly recompensed by the addition of variety, by the art with which he is made to

Alb. Bear them from hence.-Our present busi-co-operate with the chief design, and the opportu

ness

Is general wo. Friends of my soul, you twain

[To Kent and Edgar.
Rule in this realm, and the gor'd state sustain.
Kent. I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
My master calls, and I must not say, no.
Alb. The weight of this sad time we must
obey;

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we, that are young,
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
[Exeunt, with a dead march.

nity which he gives the poet of combining perfidy with perfidy, and connecting the wicked son with the wicked daughters, to impress this important moral, that villany is never at a stop, that crimes lead to crimes, and at last terminate in ruin.

But though this moral be incidentally enforced, Snakspeare has suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause, contrary to the natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and what is yet more strange, to the faith of chronicles. Yet this conduct is justified by The Spectator, who blames Tate for giving Cordelia success and happiness in his alteration, and declares, that in his opinion, the tragedy has lost half its beauty. Dennis has remarked, whether justly or not, that, to secure the favourable reception of Cato, the town was poisoned with much false and abominable The tragedy of Lear is deservedly celebrated criticism, and that endeavours had been used to among the dramas of Shakspeare. There is perhaps discredit and decry poetical justice. A play in no play which keeps the attention so strongly fixed; which the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miswhich so much agitates our passions, and interests carry, may doubtless be good, because it is a just our curiosity. The artful involutions of distinct in-representation of the common events of human life: terests, the striking oppositions of contrary charac-but since all reasonable beings naturally love justers, the sudden changes of fortune, and the quick tice, I cannot easily be persuaded, that the obsersuccession of events, fill the mind with a perpetual vation of justice makes a play worse; or that, if tumult of indignation, pity, and hope. There is no other excellencies are equal, the audience will not scene which does not contribute to the aggravation always rise better pleased from the final triumph of of the distress or conduct to the action, and scarce persecuted virtue. a line which does not conduce to the progress of the scene. So powerful is the current of the poet's imagination, that the mind, which once ventures within it, is hurried irresistibly along.

In the present case the public has decided. Cordelia, from the time of Tate, has always retired with victory and felicity. And, if my sensations could add any thing to the general suffrage, I might On the seeming improbability of Lear's conduct, relate, I was many years ago so shocked by Corit may be observed, that he is represented accord-delia's death, that I know not whether I ever ening to histories at that time vulgarly received as dured to read again the last scenes of the play, till true. And, perhaps, if we turn our thoughts upon I undertook to revise them as an editor. the barbarity and ignorance of the age to which There is another controversy among the critics this story is referred, it will appear not so unlikely concerning this play. It is disputed whether the as while we estimate Lear's manners by our own. prominent image in Lear's disordered mind be the Such preference of one daughter to another, or re-loss of his kingdom or the cruelty of his daughters. signation of dominion on such conditions, would Mr. Murphy, a very judicious critic, has evinced be yet credible, if told of a petty prince of Guinea by induction of particular passages, that the cruelor Madagascar. Shakspeare, indeed, by the men- ty of his daughters is the primary source of his distion of his earls and dukes, has given us the idea tress, and that the loss of royalty affects him only of times more civilized, and of life regulated by as a secondary and subordinate evil. He observes, softer manners; and the truth is, that though he so with great justness, that Lear would move our com passion but little, did we not rather consider the (1) Benefit. (2) Titles. injured father than the degraded king.

(3) Poor fool in the time of Shakspeare, was an expression of endearment.

(4) Dic.

(5) Dr. Joseph Warton,

The story of this play, except the episode of Ed-[that it follows the chronicle; it has the rudiments mund, which is derived, I think, from Sidney, is of the play, but none of its amplifications: it first taken originally from Geoffry of Monmouth, whom hinted Lear's madness, but did not array it in cirHolinshed generally copied; but perhaps immedi- cumstances. The writer of the ballad added ately from an old historical ballad. My reason for something to the history, which is a proof that he believing that the play was posterior to the ballad, would have added more, if more had occurred to rather than the ballad to the play, is, that the bal- his mind; and more must have occurred if he had lad has nothing of Shakspeare's nocturnal tempest, seen Shakspeare.

which is too striking to have been omitted, and]

JOHNSON.