LEAR

We wish that we could pass this play over, and say nothing about it.

All that we can say must fall far short of the subject; or even of

what we ourselves conceive of it. To attempt to give a description

of the play itself or of its effect upon the mind, is mere

impertinence: yet we must say something.--It is then the best of all

Shakespeare's plays, for it is the one in which he was the most in

earnest. He was here fairly caught in the web of his own

imagination. The passion which he has taken as his subject is that

which strikes its root deepest into the human heart; of which the

bond is the hardest to be unloosed; and the cancelling and tearing

to pieces of which gives the greatest revulsion to the frame. This

depth of nature, this force of passion, this tug and war of the

elements of our being, this firm faith in filial piety, and the

giddy anarchy and whirling tumult of the thoughts at finding this

prop failing it, the contrast between the fixed, immoveable basis of

natural affection, and the rapid, irregular starts of imagination,

suddenly wrenched from all its accustomed holds and resting-places

in the soul, this is what Shakespeare has given, and what nobody

else but he could give. So we believe.--The mind of Lear staggering

between the weight of attachment and the hurried movements of

passion is like a tall ship driven about by the winds, buffeted by

the furious waves, but that still rides above the storm, having its

anchor fixed in the bottom of the sea; or it is like the sharp rock

circled by the eddying whirlpool that foams and beats against it, or

like the solid promontory pushed from its basis by the force of an

earthquake.

The character of Lear itself is very finely conceived for the

purpose. It is the only ground on which such a story could be built

with the greatest truth and effect. It is his rash haste, his

violent impetuosity, his blindness to everything but the dictates of

his passions or affections, that produces all his misfortunes, that

aggravates his impatience of them, that enforces our pity for him.

The part which Cordelia bears in the scene is extremely beautiful:

the story is almost told in the first words she utters. We see at

once the precipice on which the poor old king stands from his own

extravagant and credulous importunity, the indiscreet simplicity of

her love (which, to be sure, has a little of her father's obstinacy

in it) and the hollowness of her sisters' pretensions. Almost the

first burst of that noble tide of passion, which runs through the

play, is in the remonstrance of Kent to his royal master on the

injustice of his sentence against his youngest daughter--'Be Kent

unmannerly, when Lear is mad!' This manly plainness which draws down

on him the displeasure of the unadvised king is worthy of the

fidelity with which he adheres to his fallen fortunes. The true

character of the two eldest daughters, Regan and Gonerill (they are

so thoroughly hateful that we do not even like to repeat their

names) breaks out in their answer to Cordelia who desires them to

treat their father well--'Prescribe not us our duties'--their hatred

of advice being in proportion to their determination to do wrong,

and to their hypocritical pretensions to do right. Their deliberate

hypocrisy adds the last finishing to the odiousness of their

characters. It is the absence of this detestable quality that is the

only relief in the character of Edmund the Bastard, and that at

times reconciles us to him. We are not tempted to exaggerate the

guilt of his conduct, when he himself gives it up as a bad business,

and writes himself down 'plain villain'. Nothing more can be said

about it. His religious honesty in this respect is admirable. One

speech of his is worth a million. His father, Gloster, whom he has

just deluded with a forged story of his brother Edgar's designs

against his life, accounts for his unnatural behaviour and the

strange depravity of the times from the late eclipses in the sun and

moon. Edmund, who is in the secret, says when he is gone: 'This is

the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune

(often the surfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our

disasters the sun, the moon, and stars: as if we were villains on

necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and

treacherous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and

adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all

that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion

of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of

a star! My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tale,

and my nativity was under Ursa Major: so that it follows, I am rough

and lecherous. I should have been what I am, had the maidenliest

star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.'--The whole

character, its careless, light-hearted villany, contrasted with the

sullen, rancorous malignity of Regan and Gonerill, its connexion

with the conduct of the under-plot, in which Gloster's persecution

of one of his sons and the ingratitude of another, form a

counterpart to the mistakes and misfortunes of Lear--his double

amour with the two sisters, and the share which he has in bringing

about the fatal catastrophe, are all managed with an uncommon degree

of skill and power.

It has been said, and we think justly, that the third act of OTHELLO,

and the three first acts of LEAR, are Shakespeare's great masterpieces

in the logic of passion: that they contain the highest examples not only

of the force of individual passion, but of its dramatic vicissitudes and

striking effects arising from the different circumstances and characters

of the persons speaking. We see the ebb and flow of the feeling, its

pauses and feverish starts, its impatience of opposition, its

accumulating force when it has time to recollect itself, the manner in

which it avails itself of every passing word or gesture, its haste to

repel insinuation, the alternate contraction and dilatation of the soul,

and all 'the dazzling fence of controversy' in this mortal combat with

poisoned weapons, aimed at the heart, where each wound is fatal. We have

seen in OTHELLO, how the unsuspecting frankness and impetuous passions

of the Moor are played upon and exasperated by the artful dexterity of

Iago. In the present play, that which aggravates the sense of sympathy

in the reader, and of uncontrollable anguish in the swollen heart of

Lear, is the petrifying indifference, the cold, calculating, obdurate

selfishness of his daughters. His keen passions seem whetted on their

stony hearts. The contrast would be too painful, the shock too great,

but for the intervention of the Fool, whose well-timed levity comes in

to break the continuity of feeling when it can no longer be borne, and

to bring into play again the fibres of the heart just as they are

growing rigid from over-strained excitement. The imagination is glad to

take refuge in the half-comic, half-serious comments of the Fool, just

as the mind under the extreme anguish of a surgical operation vents

itself in sallies of wit. The character was also a grotesque ornament of

the barbarous times, in which alone the tragic ground-work of the story

could be laid. In another point of view it is indispensable, inasmuch as

while it is a diversion to the too great intensity of our disgust, it

carries the pathos to the highest pitch of which it is capable, by

showing the pitiable weakness of the old king's conduct and its

irretrievable consequences in the most familiar point of view. Lear may

well 'beat at the gate which let his folly in', after, as the Fool says,

'he has made his daughters his mothers'. The character is dropped in the

third act to make room for the entrance of Edgar as Mad Tom, which well

accords with the increasing bustle and wildness of the incidents; and

nothing can be more complete than the distinction between Lear's real

and Edgar's assumed madness, while the resemblance in the cause of their

distresses, from the severing of the nearest ties of natural affection,

keeps up a unity of interest. Shakespeare's mastery over his subject, if

it was not art, was owing to a knowledge of the connecting links of the

passions, and their effect upon the mind, still more wonderful than any

systematic adherence to rules, and that anticipated and outdid all the

efforts of the most refined art, not inspired and rendered instinctive

by genius.

One of the most perfect displays of dramatic power is the first

interview between Lear and his daughter, after the designed affronts

upon him, which till one of his knights reminds him of them, his

sanguine temperament had led him to overlook. He returns with his

train from hunting, and his usual impatience breaks out in his first

words, 'Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go, get it ready.' He then

encounters the faithful Kent in disguise, and retains him in his

service; and the first trial of his honest duty is to trip up the

heels of the officious Steward who makes so prominent and despicable

a figure through the piece. On the entrance of Gonerill the

following dialogue takes place:

Lear. How now, daughter? what makes that frontlet on?

Methinks, you are too much of late i' the frown.

Fool. Thou wast a pretty fellow, when thou had'st no

need to care for her frowning; now thou art an O without

a figure: I am better than thou art now; I am a fool, thou

art nothing.--Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue; [To

Gonerill.] so your face bids me, though you say nothing.

Mum, mum.

He that keeps nor crust nor crum,

Weary of all, shall want some--

That's a sheal'd peascod! [Pointing to Lear.]

Gonerill. Not only, sir, this your all-licens'd fool,

But other of your insolent retinue

Do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth

In rank and not-to-be-endured riots.

I had thought, by making this well known unto you,

To have found a safe redress; but now grow fearful,

By what yourself too late have spoke and done,

That you protect this course, and put it on

By your allowance; which if you should, the fault

Would not 'scape censure, nor the redresses sleep,

Which in the tender of a wholesome weal,

Might in their working do you that offence,

(Which else were shame) that then necessity

Would call discreet proceeding.

Fool. For you trow, nuncle,

The hedge sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,

That it had its head bit off by its young.

So out went the candle, and we were left darkling.

Lear. Are you our daughter?

Gonerill. Come, sir,

I would, you would make use of that good wisdom

Whereof I know you are fraught; and put away

These dispositions, which of late transform you

From what you rightly are.

Fool. May not an ass know when the cart draws the

horse?--Whoop, Jug, I love thee.

Lear. Does any here know me?--Why, this is not

Lear:

Does Lear walk thus? speak thus?--Where are his eyes?

Either his notion weakens, or his discernings

Are lethargy'd--Ha! waking?--'Tis not so.--

Who is it that can tell me who I am?--Lear's shadow?

I would learn that: for by the marks

Of sov'reignty, of knowledge, and of reason,

I should be false persuaded I had daughters.--

Your name, fair gentlewoman?

Gonerill. Come, sir:

This admiration is much o' the favour

Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you

To understand my purposes aright:

As you are old and reverend, you should be wise:

Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;

Men so disorder'd, so debauch'd, and bold,

That this our court, infected with their manners,

Shows like a riotous inn: epicurism and lust

Make it more like a tavern, or a brothel,

Than a grac'd palace. The shame itself doth speak

For instant remedy: be then desir'd

By her, that else will take the thing she begs,

A little to disquantity your train;

And the remainder, that shall still depend,

To be such men as may besort your age,

And know themselves and you.

Lear. Darkness and devils!

Saddle my horses; call my train together.--

Degenerate Bastard! I'll not trouble thee;

Yet have I left a daughter.

Gonerill. You strike my people, and your disorder'd rabble

Make servants of their betters.