of his mind; and a most interesting interview ensues between this daughter, that was so unjustly suspected of disaffection, and the rash and mistaken father. Lear, during his slumber, has been arrayed in regal apparel, and is brought upon the stage in a chair, not recovered from his trance. I know not a speech more truly pathetic than that of Cordelia when she first sees him :

Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Did challenge pity of them. Was this a face
To be expos'd against the warring winds?

The dreadfulness of that night is expressed by a circumstance of great humanity; for which kind of strokes Shakspeare is as eminent as for his poetry :

My very enemy's dog,

Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire. And wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn,
In short and musty straw?

Lear begins to awake; but his imagination is still distempered, and his pain exquisite;

You do me wrong to take me out o' th' grave:
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound

Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears

Do scald like molten lead.

When Cordelia in great affliction asks him if he knows her, he replies,

You are a spirit, I know; when did you die?

Y

This reply heightens her distress; but his sensibility beginning to return, she kneels to him, and begs his benediction. I hope I have no readers that can peruse his answer without tears:

Pray do not mock me:

I am a very foolish, fond old man,
Fourscore and upwards; and to deal plainly,

I fear I am not in my perfect mind.

Methinks I should know you, and know this man,
Yet I am doubtful: for I'm mainly ignorant
What place this is.-Do not laugh at me;
For as I am a man, I think this lady

To be my child Cordelia.

The humility, calmness, and sedateness of this speech, opposed to the former rage and indignation of Lear, is finely calculated to excite commiseration. Struck with the remembrance of the injurious suspicion he had cherished against this favourite and fond daughter, the poor old man intreats her not to weep,' and tells her that ‘if she has prepared poison for him, he is ready to drink it; for I know,' says he,' you do not, you cannot love me, after my cruel usage of you: your sisters have done me much wrong, of which I have some faint remembrance: you have some cause to hate me, they have none.' Being told that he is not in France, but in his own kingdom, he answers hastily, and in connection with that leading idea which I have before insisted on, Do not abuse me' and adds, with a meekness and contrition that are very pathetic, Pray now forget and forgive; I am old and foolish.'

Cordelia is at last slain: the lamentations of Lear are extremely tender and affecting; and this accident is so severe and intolerable, that it again deprives him of his intellect, which seemed to be returning.

His last speech, as he surveys the body, consists of such simple reflections as nature and sorrow dictate :

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

And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more;
Never, never, never, never, never!—

The heaving and swelling of his heart is described by a most expressive circumstance :

Pray you undo this button. Thank you, Sir.

Do you see this? Look on her, look on her lips:
Look there, look there-

Dies.

I shall transiently observe, in conclusion of these remarks, that this drama is chargeable with considerable imperfections. The plot of Edmund against his brother, which distracts the attention, and destroys the unity of the fable; the cruel and horrid extinction of Gloster's eyes, which ought not to be exhibited on the stage; the utter improbability of Gloster's imagining, though blind, that he had leaped down Dover cliff; and some passages that are too turgid and full of strained metaphors; are faults which the warmest admirers of Shakspeare will find it difficult to excuse." I know not,

The objection which is here made by Dr. Warton to the secondary plot in Lear, as destroying the unity of the fable, and

also, whether the cruelty of the daughters is not painted with circumstances too savage and unna

to the occasional barbarity of the scene, will be found, I think, satisfactorily replied to by the following remarks of the ingenious Schlegel. "The story of Lear and his daughters," he cbserves," was left by Shakspeare exactly as he found it in a fabulous tradition, with all the features characteristical of the simplicity of old times. But in that tradition, there is not the slightest trace of the story of Gloster and his sons, which was derived by Shakspeare from another source. The incorporation of the two stories has been censured as destructive of the unity of action. But whatever contributes to the intrigue or the dénouement, must always possess unity. And with what ingenuity and skill the two main parts of the composition are dovetailed into one another! The pity felt by Gloster for the fate of Lear becomes the means which enables his son Edmund to effect his complete destruction, and affords the outcast Edgar an opportunity of being the saviour of his father. On the other hand, Edmund is active in the cause of Regan and Gonerill; and the criminal passion which they both entertain for him, induces them to execute justice on each other, and on themselves. The laws of the drama have therefore been sufficiently complied with; but that is the least: it is the very combination which constitutes the sublime beauty of the work. The two cases resemble each other in the main: an infatuated father is blind towards his well-disposed child, and the unnatural offspring, to whom he gives the preference, requite him by the destruction of his entire happiness. But all the circumstances are so different, that these stories, while they make an equal impression on the heart, form a complete contrast for the imagination. Were Lear alone to suffer from his daughters, the impression would be limited to the powerful compassion felt by us for his private misfortune. But two such unheard of examples taking place at the same time, have the appearance of a great commotion in the moral world: the picture becomes

tural; for it is not sufficient to say that this monstrous barbarity is founded on historical truth, if we recollect the just observation of Boileau,

Le vrai peut quelquefois n'être pas vraisemblable.

Some truths may be too strong to be believed.

SOMES.

JOSEPH WARTON."

gigantic, and fills us with such alarm as we should entertain at the idea that the heavenly bodies might one day fall out of their regular orbits. To save, in some degree, the honour of human nature, Shakspeare never wishes that his spectators should forget that the story takes place in a dreary and barbarous age. He lays particular stress on the circumstance that the Britons of that day were still heathens, although he has not made all the remaining circumstances to coincide learnedly with the time which he has chosen. From this point of view, we must judge of many coarsenesses in expression and manners; for instance, the immodest manner in which Gloster acknowledges his bastard; Kent's quarrel with the steward; and more especially the cruelty personally exercised on Gloster by the Duke of Cornwall. Even the virtue of the honest Kent bears the stamp of an iron age, in which the good and the bad display the same ungovernable strength."-Lectures on Dramatic Literature, Vol 2, p. 206.

a Adventurer, No. 122, January 5th, 1754.