Enter Lear, with Cordelia dead in his arms. Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl,-- O you are men of stone, Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so, Kent. Is this the promis'd end? Lear. This feather stirs, she lives; if it be so, Kent. O my good master! Edg. 'Tis noble Kent, your friend. [Kneeling. Lear. A plague upon you, murd'rous traitors all! I might have sav'd her; now she's gone for ever! I've seen the may, with my good biting faulchion Lear. Are you not Kent? Kent. The fame; your servant Kent; Where is your servant Caius? Lear. 'Twas a good fellow, I can tell you that, (62) He'd strike, and quickly too:-he's dead and rotten. (62) He's a good fellow, I can tell you that, He'll strike and quickly too: he's dead and rotten.] We have feen Lear mad; but, never, a stark fool till this moment; to tell us, that a dead and rotten man will strike quickly. But it was a stupidity of the editors, and not chargeable on the poet. Kent. Kent. No, my good Lord, I am the very man, Lear. I'll see that strait. Kent. That, from your first of difference and decay, Have follow'd your sad steps Lear. You're welcome hither. Kent. Nor no man else;--all's cheerless, dark, and dead: Your eldest daughters have fore-done themselves, And desp'rately are dead. Lear. Ay, so I think. Alb. He knows not what he says; and vain is it, That we present us to him. Edg. Very bootless. Enter a Messenger. Mes. Edmund is dead, my Lord. Alb. That's but a trifle. You Lords and noble friends, know our intent; To him our abfolute power: to you, your rights, [To Edgar. With boot, and fuch addition as your honours The cup or their deservings: O fee, see Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd: no, no, no life. 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 Pray you, undo this button. Do you see this? look on her, look on her lips, (63) Look there, look there Thank you, Sir; [He dies. Edg. (63) Do you see this? look on her, look on ber lips; Look there, look there. Our poet has taken the liberty in the catastrophe of this play to depart from the Chronicles; in which Lear is said to be reinstated in his throne by Cordelia, and to have reign'd upwards of two years after his restoration. He might have done this for two reasons. Either, to heighten the compaffion towards the poor old King: or to vary from another, but most execrable, dramatic performance Edg. He faints; my Lord, - Edg. performance upon this story: which I certainly believe to have preceded our author's piece, and which none of our stage-hiftorians appear to have had any knowledge of. The edition, which I have of it, bears this title. The true chronicle history of King LEIR, and bis three daught rs, Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordella. As it bath bene di Vers times lately and jundry acted. London; printed by Simon Stafford for John Wright, and are to be fold at bis shop at Christes Church dore next Newgate Market. 1605. That Shakespeare, however, may stand acquitted from the least suspicion of plagiarism, in the opinion of his readers, I'll fubjoin a small taste of this other anonymous author's abilities both in conduct and diction. Leir, with one Perillus his friend, embarks for France to try what reception he should find from his daughter Cordella. When they come ashore, neither of them has a rag of money: and they are forc'd to give their cloaks to the mariners to pay for their passage. This, no doubt, our playwright intended for a mastery in distress: as he must think it a notable fetch of invention to bring the King and Queen of France disguis'd like rufticks, travelling a long way on foot into the woods, with a basket of provisions, only that they may have the cafual opportunity of relieving Leir and Perillus from being starv'd. Now for a little specimen of style, and dignity of thinking. Cordella, now Queen of France, and in her own palace, comes in and makes this pathetick soliloquy. I have been over negligent to day So Edg. Look up, my Lord. Kent. Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him, That would upon the rack of this rough world Edg. He is gone, indeed. Kent. The wonder is, he hath endur'd so long: He but ufurpt his life. Alb. Bear them from hence, our present business Is general woe: friends of my foul, you twain Rule in this realm, and the gor'd state sustain. Kent. I have a journey, Sir, shortly to go;, My master calls me; I must not say, no. Alb. The weight of this fad time we must obey, (64) Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldeft hath borne most; we, that are young, Shall never fee so much, nor live so long. [Dies. [Exeunt with a dead March. So he but to forgive me once would please, Oh fifters! you are much to blame in this; I will to church, and pray unto my Saviour, That, e'er I die, I may obtain his favour. [Exit. This is, furely, fuch postry as one might hammer out, Stans pede in uno; or, as our author says, " it is the right butter-woman's rank "to market: and a man might verfify you so eight years together, " dinners, and suppers, and fleeping hours excepted."-Again, Shakespeare was too well vers'd in Holingshead not to know, that King Lear reign'd above 800 years before the period of chriftianity. The gods his King talks of are Jupiter, Juno, Apollo; and not any deities more modern than his own time. Licentious as he was in anachronisms, he would have judg'd it an unpardonable absurdity to have made a Briton of Cordella's time talk of her Saviour. And, his not being trapt into such ridiculous slips of ignorance, seems a plain proof to me that he stole neither from his predeceffors, nor contemporaries of the English theatre, both which abounded in them. (64) Alb. The weight of this fad time, &c.] This speech from the authority of the old 4to is rightly plac'd to Albany: in the edition by the players it is given to Edgar, by whom, I doubt not, it was of custom spoken. And the cafe was this: He who play'd Edgar, being a more favourite actor, than he who perfonated Albany; in spight of decorum, it was thought proper he should have the last word. ΤΙΜΟΝ |