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The little dogs and all,

Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see! they bark at me. He again resumes his imaginary power, and orders them to anatomize Regan; See what breeds about her heart.-Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts! You, Sir,' speaking to Edgar, I entertain for one of my Hundred;' a circumstance most artfully introduced to remind us of the first affront he received, and to fix our thoughts on the causes of his distraction.

General criticism is on all subjects useless and unentertaining, but is more than commonly absurd with respect to Shakspeare, who must be accompanied step by step, and scene by scene, in his gradual developements of characters and passions, and whose finer features must be singly pointed out, if we would do complete justice to his genuine beauties. It would have been easy to have declared, in general terms, that the madness of Lear was very natural and pathetic;' and the reader might then have escaped, what he may, perhaps, call a multitude of well-known quotations but then it had been impossible to exhibit a perfect picture of the secret workings and changes of Lear's mind, which vary in each succeeding passage, and which render an allegation of each particular sentiment absolutely necessary.

JOSEPH WARTON.

Adventurer, No. 116, December 15, 1753.

No. V.

OBSERVATIONS ON KING LEAR CONCLUDED.

MADNESS being occasioned by a close and continued attention of the mind to a single object, Shakspeare judiciously represents the resignation of his crown to daughters so cruel and unnatural, as the particular idea which has brought on the distraction of Lear, and which perpetually recurs to his imagination, and mixes itself with all his ramblings. Full of this idea, therefore, he breaks out abruptly in the Fourth Act: 'No, they cannot touch me for coining: I am the king himself.' He believes himself to be raising recruits, and censures the inability and unskilfulness of some of his soldiers: There's your press-money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: draw me a clothier's yard. Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace: this piece of toasted cheese will do it.' The art of our poet is transcendent in thus making a passage that even borders on burlesque, strongly expressive of the madness he is painting. Lear suddenly thinks himself in the field; there's my gauntlet-I'll prove it on a giant!'-and that he has shot his arrow successfully: O well-flown barb! i'th clout, i'th clout: hewgh! give the word.' He then recollects the falsehood and cruelty of his

daughters, and breaks out in some pathetic reflections on his old age, and on the tempest to which he was so lately exposed: Ha! Gonerill, ha! Regan! They flattered me like a dog, and told me I had white hairs on my beard, ere the black ones were there. To say, Ay, and No, to every thing that I said-Ay and No too, was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I found 'em, there I smelt 'em out. Go to, they're not men of their words; they told me I was every thing: 'tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.' The impotence of royalty to exempt its possessor, more than the meanest subject, from suffering natural evils, is here finely hinted at.

His friend and adherent Gloster, having been lately deprived of sight, enquires if the voice he hears is not the voice of the king; Lear instantly catches the word, and replies with great quickness,

Ay, every inch a king;

When I do stare, see how the subject quakes;

I pardon that man's life. What was thy cause?

Adultery? no, thou shalt not die; die for adultery?

He then makes some very severe reflections on the hypocrisy of lewd and abandoned women, and adds, Fie, fie, fie; pah, pah; give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination;' and as every object seems to be present to the eyes of the lunatic, he thinks he pays for the drug there's money for thee!' Very strong and

lively also is the imagery in a succeeding speech, where he thinks himself viewing his subjects punished by the proper officer:

Thou rascal bedel, hold thy bloody hand :

Why dost thou lash that whore? strip thy own back;
Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind

For which thou whip'st her!

This circumstance leads him to reflect on the efficacy of rank and power, to conceal and palliate profligacy and injustice; and this fine satire is couched in two different metaphors, that are carried on with much propriety and elegance:

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;

Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;

Arm it in rags, a pigmy straw doth pierce it.

We are moved to find that Lear has some faint knowledge of his old and faithful courtier :

If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes.

I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloster.

The advice he then gives him is very affecting :

Thou must be patient; we came crying hither:
Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air
We wawle and cry.-

When we are born, we cry that we are come

To this great stage of fools!

This tender complaint of the miseries of human life bears so exact a resemblance with the following passage of Lucretius, that I cannot forbear transcribing it :

Vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut equum est,
Cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum.

Then with distressful cries he fills the room,
Too sure presages of his future doom.

DRYDEN.

It is not to be imagined that our author copied from the Roman; on such a subject it is almost impossible but that two persons of genius and sensibility must feel and think alike. Lear drops his moralities, and meditates revenge :

It were a delicate stratagem to shoe

A troop of horse with felt. I'll put't in proof;
And when I've stol'n upon these sons-in-law,
Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.

The expedient is well suited to the character of a
lunatic, and the frequent repetitions of the word
'kill' forcibly represent his rage and desire of
revenge, and must affect an intelligent audience at
once with pity and terror.
and terror. At this instant Cor-
delia sends one of her attendants to protect her
father from the danger with which he is threatened
by her sisters: the wretched king is so accustomed
to misery, and so hopeless of succour, that when
the messenger offers to lead him out, he imagines
himself taken captive and mortally wounded:

No rescue? what! a prisoner? I am e'en
The nat'ral fool of fortune: use me well,
You shall have ransom. Let me have surgeons;

I am cut to the brain.

Cordelia at length arrives; an opiate is adminis

tered to the king, to calm the agonies and agitations

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