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Alb. A herald, ho!
Edm.

A herald, ho, a herald!

Alb. Trust to thy single virtue; for thy soldiers,
All levied in my name, have in my name
Took their discharge.
Reg.

Gon.

This is mere practice, Gloster⚫

By the law of arms, thou wast not bound to answer
An unknown opposite; thou art not vanquish'd,
But cozen'd and beguil'd.
Alb.
Shut your mouth, dame,

This sickness grows upon me. Or with this paper shall I stop it:-Hold, sir :-
Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil :-
No tearing, lady; I perceive, you know it.

Enter a Herald.

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Edm, Sound.
Her. Again,
Her, Again,

[Gives the letter to Edmund.

Gon. Say, if I do; the laws are mine, not

thine :
Who shall arraign me for't?
Alb.

Know'st thou this paper?
Gon.

Most monstrous!

Ask me not what I know. [Exit Goneril. Alb. Go after her: she's desperate; govern her. [To an Officer, who goes out.

Edm. What you have charg'd me with, that have

I done;

And more, much more: the time will bring it out; 'Tis past, and so am 1: But what art thou, [1 Trumpet. That hast this fortune on me? If thou art noble, [2 Trumpet. I do forgive thee.

13 Trumpet.

Edg.

Let's exchange charity.

[Trumpet answers within. I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund;
If more, the more thou hast wrong'd me.
My name is Edgar, and thy father's son.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to scourge us:

Enter Edgar, armed, preceded by a trumpet. Alb. Ask him his purposes, why he appears Upon this call o'the trumpet.

Her.

What are you? Your name, your quality? and why you answer This present summons ?

Edg.

Know, my name is lost;
By treason's tooth bare-gnawn, and canker-bit:
Yet am I noble, as the adversary
I come to cope withal,

Which is that adversary?

Alb.
Edg. What's he, that speaks for Edmund earl of
Gloster?

Edm. Himself;-What say'st thou to him?
Edg.
Draw thy sword;

That, if my speech offend a noble heart,
Thy arm may do thee justice: here is mine.
Behold, it is the privilege of mine honours,
My oath and my profession: I protest,-
Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence,
Despite thy vietor sword, and fire-new fortune,
Thy valour, and thy heart,-Thou art a traitor:
False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father;
Conspirant 'gainst this high illustrious prince;
And, from the extremest upward of thy head,
To the descent and dust beneath thy feet,
A most toad-spotted traitor. Say thou, No,

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Where have you hid yourself?
How have you known the miseries of your father?
Edg. By nursing them, my lord.-List a brief
tale;-
And, when 'tis told, O, that my heart would burst!→
The bloody proclamation to escape,
That follow'd me so near, (O our lives' sweetness
That with the pain of death we'd hourly die,
Rather than die at once!) taught me to shifts
Into a madman's rags; to assume a semblance
That very dogs disdain'd: and in this habit
Met I my father with his bleeding rings,
Their precious stones new lost; became his guide,
Led him, begg'd for him, sav'd him from despair;

This sword, this arm, and my best spirits, are Never (O fault!) reveal'd myself unto him,

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Edm. In wisdom, I should ask thy name;1
But, since thy outside looks so fair and warlike,
And that thy tongue some 'say of breeding breathes,
What safe and nicely I might well delay
By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn:
Back do I toss these treasons to thy head;
With the hell-hated lie o'erwhelm thy heart;
Which (for they yet glance by, and scarcely bruise,)
This sword of mine shall give them instant way,
Where they shall rest for ever.-Trumpets, speak.
[Alarums. They fight. Edmund falis,

Alb. O save him, save him!

(1) i. e. Valour. (2) Notwithstanding. (3) Because if his adversary was not of equal rank, Edmund might have declined the combat.

Until some half-hour past, when I was arm'd,
Not sure, though hoping, of this good success,
I ask'd his blessing, and from first to last
Told him my pilgrimage: But his flaw'd heart,
(Alack, too weak the conflict to support!)
Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
Burst smilingly.
Edm. This speech of yours hath mov'd me,
And shall, perchance, do good: but speak you on:
You look as you had something more to say,
Alb, If there be more, more woful, hold it in;
For I am almost ready to dissolve,
Hearing of this.
Edg.
This would have seem'd a period
To such as love not sorrow; but another,
To amplify too much, would make much more,
And top extremity,

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Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man,
Who having seen me in my worst estate,
Shunn'd my abhorr'd society; but then, finding
Who 'twas that so endur'd, with his strong arms
He fasten'd on my neck, and bellow'd out
As he'd burst heaven; threw him on my father;
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him,
That ever ear receiv'd: which in recounting
His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life
Began to crack: Twice then the trumpet sounded,

And there I left him tranc'd.

Alb.

guise

But who was this?

To lay the blame upon her own despair,
That she forbid2 herself.

Alb. The gods defend her! Bear him hence a while. [Edmund is borne off. Enter Lear, with Cordelia dead in his arms; Edgar, Officer, and others.

Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl!-0, you are men of stones;

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so That heaven's vault should crack:-0, she is gone for ever!

Edg. Kent, sir, the banish'd Kent; who in dis-I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She's dead as earth :-Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.
Kent.

Follow'd his enemy king, and did him service
Improper for a slave.

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Who, man? speak. Gent. Your lady, sir, your lady: and her sister By her is poison'd; she confesses it.

Edm. I was contracted to them both; all three Now marry in an instant.

Alb. Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead! This judgment of the heavens, that makes us tremble,

Touches us not with pity.

Enter Kent.

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[Exit Gentleman.

Is this the promis'd end?'
Edg. Or image of that horror?
Alb.

Fall, and cease!
Lear. This feather stirs; she lives! if it be so,
It is a chance that does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt.

I

Kent.

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O my good master!

[Kneeling,

'Tis noble Kent, your friend. Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, traitors

all!

might have sav'd her; now she's gone for ever!-
Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha!
What is't thou say'st ?-Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman:-
I kill'd the slave that was a hanging thee.
Offi. 'Tis true, my lords, he did.
Lear.

Did I not, fellow?
I have seen the day, with my good biting faulchion
I would have made them skip: I am old now,

Here comes Kent, sir. And these same crosses spoil me.-Who are you?

The time will not allow the compliment,

Which very manners urges.

Kent.

I am come

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Speak, Edmund, where's the king? and where's He'll strike, and quickly too:-He's dead and

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Kent. No, my good lord; I am the very man;-
Lear. I'll see that straight.

Kent. That, from your first of difference and
decay,

Yet Edmund was belov'd; Have follow'd your sad steps.
The one the other poison'd for my sake,
And after slew herself.

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Lear.
You are welcome hither.
Kent. Nor no man else; all's cheerless, dark,
and deadly.-

Your eldest daughters have fore-doom'd themselves,
And desperately are dead.

Lear.

Ay, so I think.

Alb. He knows not what he says; and vain it is That we present us to him.

Edg.

Very bootless."

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With boot,' and such addition as your honours
Have more than merited.-All friends shall taste
The wages of their virtue, and all foes
The cup of their deservings.-O, see, see!

Lear. And my poor fool' is hang'd! No, no, no
life:

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

nicely discriminates, and so minutely describes the characters of men, he commonly neglects and confounds the characters of ages, by mingling customs ancient and modern, English and foreign.

My learned friend Mr. Warton, who has in The Adventurer very minutely criticised this play, remarks, that the instances of crucity are too savage

And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no and shocking, and that the intervention of Edmund

more,

Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you, undo this button: Thank you, sir.

destroys the simplicity of the story. These objec tions may, I think, be answered by repeating, that the cruelty of the daughters is an historical fact, to

Do you see this? Look on her,-look,-her lips,-which the poet has added little, having only drawn Look there, look there![He dies. it into a series by dialogue and action. But I am Edg. He faints!-My lord, my lord, not able to apologize with equal plausibility for the Kent. Break, heart; I pr'ythee, break! extrusion of Gloster's eyes, which seems an act too Edg. Look up, my lord. horrid to be endured in dramatic exhibition, and Kent. Vex not his ghost:-0, let him pass! he such as must always compel the mind to relieve its hates him, distress by incredulity. Yet let it be remembered that our author well knew what would please the audience for which he wrote.

That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.

Edg.

O, he is gone, indeed. Kent. The wonder is, he hath endur'd so long: He but usurp'd his life.

Alb. Bear them from hence.-Our present busi

ness

Is general wo. Friends of my soul, you twain

[To Kent and Edgar.
Rule in this realm, and the gor'd state sustain.
Kent. I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
My master calls, and I must not say, no.
Alb. The weight of this sad time we must
obey;

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we, that are young,
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

[Exeunt, with a dead march.

The tragedy of Lear is deservedly celebrated among the dramas of Shakspeare. There is perhaps no play which keeps the attention so strongly fixed; which so much agitates our passions, and interests our curiosity. The artful involutions of distinct interests, the striking oppositions of contrary characters, the sudden changes of fortune, and the quick succession of events, fill the mind with a perpetual tumult of indignation, pity, and hope. There is no scene which does not contribute to the aggravation of the distress or conduct to the action, and scarce a line which does not conduce to the progress of the scene. So powerful is the current of the poet's imagination, that the mind, which once ventures within it, is hurried irresistibly along.

The injury done by Edmund to the simplicity of the action is abundantly recompensed by the addition of variety, by the art with which he is made to co-operate with the chief design, and the opportunity which he gives the poet of combining perfidy with perfidy, and connecting the wicked son with the wicked daughters, to impress this important moral, that villany is never at a stop, that crimes lead to crimes, and at last terminate in ruin.

But though this moral be incidentally enforced, Snakspeare has suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause, contrary to the natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and what is yet more strange, to the faith of chronicles. Yet this conduct is justified by The Spectator, who blames Tate for giving Cordelia success and happiness in his alteration, and declares, that in his opinion, the tragedy has lost half its beauty. Dennis has remarked, whether justly or not, that, to secure the favourable reception of Cato, the town was poisoned with much false and abominable criticism, and that endeavours had been used to discredit and decry poetical justice. A play in which the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry, may doubtless be good, because it is a just representation of the common events of human life: but since all reasonable beings naturally love justice, I cannot easily be persuaded, that the obser vation of justice makes a play worse; or that, if other excellencies are equal, the audience will not always rise better pleased from the final triumph of persecuted virtue.

In the present case the public has decided. Cordelia, from the time of Tate, has always retired with victory and felicity. And, if my sensations could add any thing to the general suffrage, I might relate, I was many years ago so shocked by Cor delia's death, that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play, till

On the seeming improbability of Lear's conduct, it may be observed, that he is represented according to histories at that time vulgarly received as true. And, perhaps, if we turn our thoughts upon I undertook to revise them as an editor. the barbarity and ignorance of the age to which There is another controversy among the critics this story is referred, it will appear not so unlikely concerning this play. It is disputed whether the as while we estimate Lear's manners by our own. prominent image in Lear's disordered mind be the Such preference of one daughter to another, or re-loss of his kingdom or the cruelty of his daughters. signation of dominion on such conditions, would Mr. Murphy, a very judicious critic, has evinced be yet credible, if told of a petty prince of Guinea by induction of particular passages, that the cruelor Madagascar. Shakspeare, indeed, by the men- ty of his daughters is the primary source of his dis tion of his earls and dukes, has given us the idea tress, and that the loss of rovalty affects him only of times more civilized, and of life regulated by as a secondary and subordinate evil. He observes, softer manners; and the truth is, that though he so with great justness, that Lear would move our compassion but little, did we not rather consider the injured father than the degraded king.

(1) Benefit.

(2) Titles.

(3) Poor fool in the time of Shakspeare, was an expression of endearment.

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The story of this play, except the episode of Ed-that it follows the chronicle; it has the rudiments muud, which is derived, I think, from Sidney, is of the play, but none of its amplifications: it first taken originally from Geoffry of Monmouth, whom hinted Lear's madness, but did not array it in eir Holinshed generally copied; but perhaps immedi- cumstances. The writer of the ballad added ately from an old historical ballad. My reason for something to the history, which is a proof that he believing that the play was posterior to the ballad, would have added more, if more had occurred to rather than the ballad to the play, is, that the bal- his mind; and more must have occurred if he had lad has nothing of Shakspeare's nocturnal tempest, seen Shakspeare.

which is too striking to have been omitted, and |

JOHNSON.

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