Beat at the gate, that let thy folly in,

[Striking his head.

And thy dear judgment out!- -Go, go, my people!
ALBANY. My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant
Of what hath mov'd you.

LEAR. It may be so, my lord————

Hear, nature, hear! dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful!

Into her womb convey sterility;

Dry up in her the organs of increase;
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honor her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen: that it may live,
To be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,
Turn all her mother's pains, and benefits,
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!-Away, away!

[Exit.

ALBANY. Now, gods, that we adore, whereof comes this?

GONERILL. Never afflict yourself to know the cause;

But let his disposition have that scope

That dotage gives it.

Re-enter LEAR.

LEAR. What, fifty of my followers at a clap!

Within a fortnight!

ALBANY. What's the matter, sir?

LEAR. I'll tell thee; life and death! I am asham'd

That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus:

[To Gonerill.

That these hot tears, which break from me perforce,

Should make thee worth them.- -Blasts and frogs upon thee

The untented woundings of a father's curse

Pierce every sense about thee !Old fond eyes
Beweep this cause again, I'll pluck you out;
And cast you, with the waters that you lose,
To temper clay.- -Ha! is it come to this?
Let it be so:— -Yet have I left a daughter,
Who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable;
When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails
She'll flea thy wolfish visage. Thou shalt find,
That I'll resume the shape, which thou dost think
I have cast off for ever.

[Exeunt LEAR, KENT, and Attendants."

This is certainly fine: no wonder that Lear says after it, “O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heavens,” feeling its effects by anticipation but fine as is this burst of rage and indignation at the first blow aimed at his hopes and expectations, it is nothing near so fine as what follows from his double disappointment, and his lingering efforts to see which of them he shall lean upon for support and find comfort in, when both of his daughters turn against his age and weakness. It is with some difficulty that Lear gets to speak with his daughter Regan, and her husband, at Gloster's castle. In concert with Gonerill, they have left their own home on purpose to avoid him. His apprehensions are first alarmed by this circumstance, and when Gloster, whose guests they are, urges the fiery temper of the Duke of Cornwall as an excuse for not importuning him a second time, Lear breaks out,

"Vengeance! Plague! Death! Confusion!

Fiery? What fiery quality? Why, Gloster,

I'd speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife."

Afterwards, feeling perhaps not well himself, he is inclined to admit their excuse from illness, but then recollecting that they have set his messenger (Kent) in the stocks, all his suspicions are roused again, and he insists on seeing them. The scene which ensues is of the higher power. If there is anything in. any author like the yearning of the heart, the throes of tenderness, the profound expression of all that can be thought and felt in the most heart-rending situations that it exhibits, we are glad of it; but it is in some author that we have not read.

The scene in the storm, where Lear is exposed to all the fury of the elements, though grand and terrible, is not so fine; but the moralising scenes with mad Tom, Kent, and Gloster, are upon a par with the former. His exclamation in the supposed trial scene of his daughters, "See, the little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me;" his issuing his orders, "Let them anatomize Regan, see what breeds about her heart;" and his reflection when he sees the misery of Edgar, "Nothing but his unkind daughters could have brought him to this;" are in a style of pathos, where the extremest resources of the imagination are called in to lay open the deepest move

ments of the heart, which was peculiar to Shakspeare. In the same style and spirit is his interrupting the Fool, who asks, "whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman," by answering “ A king, a king !"

The indirect part that Gloster takes in these scenes, where his generosity leads him to relieve Lear and resent the cruelty of his daughters, at the very time that he is himself instigated to seek the life of his son, and suffering under the sting of his supposed ingratitude, is a striking accompaniment to the situation of Lear. Indeed, the manner in which the threads of the story are woven together is almost as wonderful in the way of art as the carrying on the tide of passion, still varying and unimpaired, is on the score of nature. Among the remarkable instances of this kind are Edgar's meeting with his old blind father; the deception he practises upon him when he pretends to lead him to the top of Dover-cliff-“Come on, sir, here's the place," to prevent his ending his life and miseries together; his encounter with the perfidious Steward, whom he kills, and his finding the letter from Gonerill 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, ladies, shame," 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," only prepare the way 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? How fares your majesty !
LEAR. You do me wrong, to take me out of the 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.

CORDELIA. Sir, do you know me?

LEAR. You are a spirit I know: when did you die?

CORDELIA. Still, still far wide!

PHYSICIAN. He's scarce awake; let him alone awhile.

LEAR. Where have I been? Where am I?-Fair daylight?

I am mightily abused—I should even die with pity,

To see another thus.-I know not what to say.

I will not swear these are my hands :-let's see;

I feel this pin prick. Would I were assur'd
Of my condition.

CORDELIA. O, look upon me, sir,

And hold your hands in benediction o'er me :-
No, sir, you must not kneel.

LEAR. Pray do not mock me :

I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward;

Not an hour more, nor less: 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 am mainly ignorant
What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night: do not laugh at me;
For, as I am a man, I think this lady

To be my child Cordelia.

CORDELIA And so I am, I am!"

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.
For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;
Myself could else out-frown false fortune's frown.-
Shall we not see these daughters, and these sisters ?
LEAR. No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison :
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask my blessing, I'll kneel down,

And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh

At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too-
Who loses, and who wins; who's in, who's out ;-
And take upon us the mystery of things,

As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,

In a wall'd prison, packs, and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.

EDMUND. Take them away.

LEAR. Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,

The gods themselves throw incense."

The concluding events are sad, painfully sad; but their pathos is extreme. The oppression of our feelings is relieved by the very interest we take in the misfortunes of others, and by the reflections to which they give birth. 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:
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!-

Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.".

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 rough world
Stretch him out longer."

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 favor of Shakspeare, in some remarks on the acting of Lear with which we shall cɔnclude this account.

"The LEAR of Shakspeare 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: