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With regard to Lear itself, nothing more true has been ever said than was said long since by Hazlitt in his Characters of Shakespeare's Plays: 'To attempt to give a description of the play itself or of its effect upon the mind, is mere impertinence.' And with this may be coupled the deliberate judgement of that fine critic and devout worshipper of Shakespeare, Charles Lamb: Lear is essentially impossible to be represented on a stage.' His Essay on the Tragedies of Shakespeare, considered with reference to their fitness for stage representation, is of the greatest value and should be read as a whole as an example of the subtlest and profoundest criticism. I quote only what he says of our play: 'So to see Lear acted,—to see an old man tottering about the stage with a walking-stick, turned out of doors by his daughters in a rainy night, has nothing in it but what is painful and disgusting. We want to take him into shelter and relieve him. That is all the feeling which the acting of Lear ever produced in me. But the Lear of Shakspeare cannot be acted. The contemptible machinery by 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: they might more easily propose to personate the Satan of Milton upon a stage, or one of Michael Angelo's terrible figures. The greatness of Lear is not in corporal dimension, but in intellectual: the explosions 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,—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 irregular power of reasoning, immethodised from the ordinary purposes of life, but exerting its powers, as the wind blows where it listeth, at will upon

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 with such things? But the play is beyond all art, as the tamperings with it show: it is too hard and stony; it must have lovescenes, 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 the mighty beast about more easily. A happy ending!—as if the living martyr-、 dom 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.'

For an analysis of the characters of the various personages I know nothing better than what is contained in the Introduction to the play in the edition of Shakespeare by the Rev. H. N. Hudson (Boston, 1863), and in Mrs. Jameson's Characteristics of Women.

The present text has been taken from the Globe and Cambridge editions, with such slight omissions as were rendered necessary to adapt it for use in schools.

WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT.

TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,

August, 1875.

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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 now I am brazed to it. But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year

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elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account : though this knave came something saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair, and he must be acknowledged. Do you know this noble gentleman,

Edmund ?

Edm. No, my lord.

Glou. My lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as my honourable friend.

Edm. My services to your lordship.

Kent. I must love you, and sue to know you better. 20 Edm. Sir, I shall study deserving.

Glou. He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again. The king is coming.

Sennet. Enter one bearing a coronet, KING LEAR, Cornwall, ALBANY, GONERIL, REGAN, CORDELIA, and Attendants. Lear. Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.

Glou. I shall, my liege.

[Exeunt Gloucester and Edmund. Lear. Meantime we shall express our darker purpose. Give me the map there. Know we have divided In three our kingdom: and 'tis our fast intent To shake all cares and business from our age; Conferring them on younger strengths, while we Unburthen'd crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall, And you, our no less loving son of Albany,

We have this hour a constant will to publish

Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife

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May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy, Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love,

Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,

And here are to be answer'd. Tell me, my daughters,

Since now we will divest us both of rule,

Interest of territory, cares of state,

Which of you shall we say doth love us most?

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That we our largest bounty may extend

Where nature doth with merit challenge. Goneril,
Our eldest-born, speak first.

Gon. Sir, I love you more than words can wield the

matter;

Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty;

Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;

No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;
As much as child e'er loved, or father found;

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A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable;
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

Cor. [Aside] What shall Cordelia do? Love, and be silent. Lear. Of all these bounds, even from this line to this, With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd,

With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
We make thee lady: to thine and Albany's issue
Be this perpetual. What says our second daughter,
Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak.

Reg. I am made of that self metal as my sister,
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love;

Only she comes too short: that I profess

Myself an enemy to all other joys,

Which the most precious square of sense possesses
And find I am alone felicitate

In your dear highness' love.

Cor.

[Aside] Then poor Cordelia

And yet not so, since I am sure my love 's
More richer than my tongue.

Lear. To thee and thine hereditary ever
Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom;
No less in space, validity and pleasure,
Than that conferr'd on Goneril. Now, our joy,
Although the last, not least; to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy

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