Steward whom he kills, and his finding the letter from Goneril to his brother upon him which leads to the final catastrophe, and brings the wheel of Justice "full circle" home to the guilty parties. The bustle and rapid succession of events in the last scenes is surprising. But the meeting between Lear and Cordelia is by far the most affecting part of them. It has all the wildness of poetry, and all the heartfelt truth of nature. The previous account of her reception of the news of his unkind treatment, her involuntary reproaches to her sisters, "Shame of ladies, sisters," Lear's backwardness to see his daughter, the picture of the desolate state to which he is reduced, "Alack, 'tis he; why he was met even now, as mad as the vex'd sea, singing aloud,"1 only prepare the way for and heighten our expectation of what follows, and assuredly this expectation is not disappointed when through the tender care of Cordelia he revives and recollects her. "Cordelia. How does my royal lord? majesty! How fares your Lear. You do me wrong to take me out o' the grave: Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears Cordelia. Sir, do you know me? Lear. You are a spirit, I know: when did you die? Doct. He's scarce awake; let him alone awhile. light? Where am I?-Fair day I'm mightily abus'd.—I should e'en die with pity, I will not swear these are my hands :-let's see; Cordelia. O, look upon me, sir, And hold your hands in benediction o'er me :- Act iv., sc. 4.] Lear. Pray, do not mock me: I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward; not an hour more nor less; I fear, I am not in my perfect mind. Methinks, I should know you, and know this man; What place this is; and all the skill I have To be my child Cordelia. Cordelia. And so I am, I am!"1 Almost equal to this in awful beauty is their consolation of each other when, after the triumph of their enemies, they are led to prison: "Cordelia. We are not the first Who, with best meaning, have incurr'd the worst. Lear. No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison:` And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too- As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out, Edmund. Take them away. The concluding events are sad, painfully sad; but their pathos is extreme. The oppression of the feelings is relieved by the very interest we take in the misfortunes of others, and by the reflections to which they give birth [2 Act v., sc. 3. [Act iv., sc. 7.] Cordelia is hanged in prison by the orders of the bastard Edmund, which are known too late to be countermanded, and Lear dies broken-hearted, lamenting over her. "Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no, life : And thou no breath at all? Thou wilt come no more, Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir."1 He dies, and indeed we feel the truth of what Kent says on the occasion "Vex not his ghost: O let him pass! he hates him, That would upon the rack of this tough world Yet a happy ending has been contrived for this play, which is approved of by Dr. Johnson and condemned by Schlegel. A better authority than either, on any subject in which poetry and feeling are concerned, has given it in favour of Shakespear, in some remarks on the acting of Lear, with which we shall conclude this account. "The Lear' of Shakespear cannot be acted. The contemptible machinery with which they mimic the storm which he goes out in, is not more inadequate to represent the horrors of the real elements than any actor can be to represent Lear. The greatness of Lear is not in corporal dimension, but in intellectual; the explosions of his passions are terrible as a volcano; they are storms turning up and disclosing to the bottom that rich 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; we are in his mind: we are sustained by a grandeur which baffles the malice of daughters and storms; in the aberrations of his reason, we discover a mighty ['Act v., sc. 3.] [ Ibid.] with such things? tamperings with it irregular power of reasoning, immethodised from the ordinary purposes of life, but exerting its powers, as the wind blows where it listeth, at will on the corruptions and abuses of mankind. What have looks or tones to do with that sublime identification of his age with that of the heavens themselves, when in his reproaches to them for conniving at the injustice of his children, he reminds them that they themselves are old?' What gesture shall we appropriate to this? What has the voice or the eye to do But the play is beyond all art, as the show: it is too hard and stony: it must have love-scenes, and a happy ending. It is not enough that Cordelia is a daughter, she must shine as a lover too. Tate has put his hook in the nostrils of this Leviathan, for Garrick and his followers, the showmen of the scene, to draw it about more easily. 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." Four things have struck us in reading 'Lear:' 1. That poetry is an interesting study, for this reason, that it relates to whatever is most interesting in human life. Whoever therefore has a contempt for poetry, has a contempt for himself and humanity. 2. That the language of poetry is superior to the language of painting; because the strongest of our recollections relate to feelings, not to faces. See an article, called 'Theatralia,' in the second volume of the Reflector,' by Charles Lamb [or in his 'Works,' 1818, 2 vols., 12mo.]. 3. That the greatest strength of genius is shown in describing the strongest passions: for the power of the imagination, in works of invention, must be in proportion to the force of the natural impressions, which are the subject of them. 4. That the circumstance which balances the pleasure against the pain in tragedy is, that in proportion to the greatness of the evil, is our sense and desire of the opposite good excited; and that our sympathy with actual suffering is lost in the strong impulse given to our natural affections, and carried away with the swelling tide of passion, that gushes from and relieves the heart. RICHARD II.2 RICHARD II.' is a play little known compared with 'Richard III.,' which last is a play that every unfledged candidate for theatrical fame chooses to strut and fret his hour upon the stage in; yet we confess that we prefer the nature and feeling of the one to the noise and bustle of the other; at least, as we are so often forced to see it acted. In 'Richard II.' the weakness of the king leaves us leisure to take a greater interest in the misfortunes of the man. After the first act, in which the arbitrariness of his behaviour only proves his want of resolution, we see him staggering under the unlooked-for blows of fortune, bewailing his loss of kingly power, not preventing it, sinking under the aspiring genius of Bolingbroke, his authority trampled on, his hopes failing him, and his 1 The date of its composition seems to be uncertain. It was first printed in 1597. In 1608 were first incorporated 'New Additions of the Parliament Scene, and the Deposing of King Richard.' There were two other early dramas on this subject; but to what extent, if any, Shakespear was indebted to them cannot at present be ascertained.-ED. |