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At which, with a beautiful apostrophe, he suddenly addresses himself to his absent daughters, tenderly reminding them of the favours he had so lately and so liberally conferred upon them:

-O Regan, Gonerill,

Your old kind father; whose frank heart gave all !–
O that way madness lies; let me shun that;

No more of that!

The turns of passion in these few lines are so quick and so various, that I thought they merited to be minutely pointed out by a kind of perpetual commentary.

The mind is never so sensibly disposed to pity the misfortunes of others, as when it is itself subdued and softened by calamity. Adversity diffuses a kind of sacred calm over the breast, that is the parent of thoughtfulness and meditation. The following reflections of Lear in his next speech, when his passion has subsided for a short interval, are equally proper and striking:

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er ye are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm!
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these!

He concludes with a sentiment finely suited to his condition, and worthy to be written in characters of gold in the closet of every monarch upon earth:

O! I have ta'en

Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp!
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel;
That thou may'st shake the superflux to them,
And shew the Heavens more just!-

Lear being at last persuaded to take shelter in the hovel, the poet has artfully contrived to lodge there

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Edgar, the discarded son of Gloucester, who counterfeits the character and habit of a mad beggar, haunted by an evil demon, and whose supposed sufferings are enumerated with an inimitable wildness of fancy; Whom the foul fiend hath led through fire, and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, o'er bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters in his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge; made him proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting horse over four inch'd bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor.— Bless thy five wits, Tom's a-cold!' The assumed madness of Edgar, and the real distraction of Lear, form a judicious contrast.

Upon perceiving the nakedness and wretchedness of this figure, the poor king asks a question that I never could read without strong emotions of pity and admiration:

What! have his daughters brought him to this pass?
Could'st thou save nothing? Didst thou give them all?

And when Kent assures him that the beggar hath no daughters; he hastily answers;

Death, traitor, nothing could have subdued nature
To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters.

Afterwards, upon the calm contemplation of the misery of Edgar, he breaks out into the following serious and pathetic reflection: Thou wert better in thy grave, than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here's three of us are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more than such a poor,

bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here.'

Shakspeare has no where exhibited more inimitable strokes of his art, than in this uncommon scene; where he has so well conducted even the natural jargon of the beggar, and the jestings of the fool, which in other hands must have sunk into burlesque, that they contribute to heighten the pathetic to a very high degree.

The heart of Lear having been agitated and torn by a conflict of such opposite and tumultuous passions, it is not wonderful that his wits should now begin to unsettle.' The first plain indication of the loss of his reason, is his calling Edgar a learned Theban;' and telling Kent, that he will keep still

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with his philosopher.' When he next appears, he imagines he is punishing his daughters. The imagery is extremely strong, and chills one with horror to read it;

To have a thousand with red burning spits
Come hissing in upon them!-

As the fancies of lunatics have an extraordinary force and liveliness, and render the objects of their frenzy as it were present to their eyes, Lear actually thinks himself suddenly restored to his kingdom, and seated in judgment to try his daughters for their cruelties:

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I'll see their trial first; bring in the evidence.
Thou robed man of justice take thy place;
And thou, his yoke-fellow of equity,

Bench by his side. You are of the commission,
Sit you too. Arraign her first, 'tis Goneril-

And here's another, whose warpt looks proclaim

What store her heart is made of

Here he imagines that Regan escapes out of his hands, and he eagerly exclaims,

Stop her there.

Arms, arms, sword, fire-Corruption in the place!
False justicer, why hast thou let her 'scape?

A circumstance follows that is strangely moving indeed for he fancies that his favourite domestic creatures, that used to fawn upon and caress him, and of which he was eminently fond, have now their tempers changed, and joined to insult him:

The little dogs and all,

Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see! they bark at me.

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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.

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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 dual developments 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.

Z.

No 117. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1753.

Nequicquam patrias tentâsti lubricus artes.

VIRG.

Caught in the train which thou thyself hast laid.

DRYDEN.

SIR

TO THE ADVENTURER.

I WILL not anticipate the subject of this letter, by relating the motives from which I have written it; nor shall I expect it to be published, if, when you have read it, you do not think that it contains more than one topic of instruction.

My mother has been dead so long that I do not remember her; and when I was in my eighteenth year, I was left an orphan with a fortune of twenty thousand pounds at my own disposal. I have been often told, that I am handsome; and I have some reasons to believe it to be true, which are very far from gratifying my vanity or conferring happiness.

I was soon addressed by many lovers, from among whom I selected Hilario, the elder brother

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