servility of Oswald. It is the same with the disguised Edgar. While no character more appropriate to the realities of the dramatic situation could have been conceived than the supposed “ Abraham man" (whose assumption of lunacy was carefully imitated from the ravings of persons believed to be possessed), the sight of his wretchedness is well calculated to push the mind of Lear, already strained by reflection to the height of torture, into the abyss of madness. The transition from the King's sympathetic meditations on the miseries of humanity ("Poor naked wretches," etc.), inspired by his own sufferings, to the profound though passionate reasoning which makes him tear off his clothes at the sight of Edgar's nakedness, is a stroke of art perhaps unequalled even in Shakespeare: Why, 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 owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! there's three on 's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings.1 Not less dramatically effective in the philosophical situation is the figure of the Fool. It is the object of the dramatist to bring Lear from his high, arbitrary, and wilful folly to a sense of the reality of things; and this can best be done through the teaching of that wellestablished stage figure, the Fool; since, as Jaques says, when he desires to put on motley : I must have liberty Withal, as large a charter as the wind, To blow on whom I please; for so fools have ; When King Lear begins to doubt whether he has acted wisely in parting with his authority, his Fool (whom he 1 King Lear, Act iii. Sc. 4. has sent for merely for his amusement) at once begins to put the truth before him in the plainest way, and when the King, displeased, threatens to have him whipped, the Fool claims his privilege of free speech. The King is thus forced to reflect, and thence, by the finest gradations, he is brought to laugh at himself with a merriment already verging upon madness : FOOL. If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I'd have thee beaten for being old before thy time. wise. LEAR. How's that? FOOL. Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been LEAR. O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Like Touchstone, the Fool in Lear has the clearest perception of material things in themselves. When, in the midst of the storm, Lear calls upon the thunder to smite the world of 'ingrateful man," the Fool observes : O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters' blessing here's a night pities neither wise man nor fool.2 When the King proceeds to upbraid the elements with being his daughters' "servile ministers," the Fool recalls to him indirectly that he has only himself to blame; and Lear perceives that he is right : FOOL. He that has a house to put's head in has a good headpiece. The man that makes his toe What he his heart should make Shall of a corn cry woe, And turn his sleep to wake. For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass. LEAR. No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.8 Gradually personal sympathy with the Fool's physical 1 King Lear, Act i. Sc. 5. 2 Ibid. Act iii. Sc. 2. 3 Ibid. Act iii. Sc. 2. discomfort shows Lear that in the face of the tyranny of Nature all men are, in a sense, equal : LEAR. My wits begin to turn. Come on, my boy: how dost, my boy? art cold? I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow ? That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel. That's sorry yet for thee. FOOL (singing). He that has and a little tiny wit,— With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, Must make content with his fortunes fit, LEAR. True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.1 King Lear is a play characteristic of the final phase in Shakespeare's dramatic career. It has less dramatic unity than Macbeth, Othello, or even Hamlet; it does not represent, like these tragedies, the evolution of a single action founded on a legendary tale; the episode of Gloucester, for example, is not essentially necessary to the structure of the play, and the effect of combining it with the historical legend is to divide the interest between the calamities of Lear, the sufferings of Gloucester, and the misfortunes of Edgar. The element of contemplation in King Lear prevails over the element of action: it is a play fitted for the study rather than the stage, giving a philosophic and comprehensive view of the world and of human nature, without paying much attention to the progress of the plot from one point to another. This characteristic links it to the group of tragedies which (with one exception, Julius Cæsar) formed certainly some of Shakespeare's last work for the theatre, Timon of Athens, Troilus and Cressida, Julius Cæsar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus. All these resemble each other in certain marked particulars. Their subjects are taken either from Plutarch's Lives or from the medieval story of the Trojan war. They are dependent for their interest rather on the exhibition of character than on the development of a plot. Like King Lear, they dwell on a certain well-defined philo 1 King Lear, Act iii. Sc. 2. has sent for merely for his amusement) at once beg to put the truth before him in the plainest way, when the King, displeased, threatens to have him whip the Fool claims his privilege of free speech. The J is thus forced to reflect, and thence, by the finest g tions, he is brought to laugh at himself with a merri already verging upon madness :— FOOL. If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I'd have thee bea being old before thy time. wise. LEAR. How 's that? FOOL. Thou shouldst not have been old till thou had LEAR. O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Like Touchstone, the Fool in Lear has the O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is bette rain-water out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy blessing here's a night pities neither wise man nor fool. When the King proceeds to upbraid the with being his daughters' "servile ministers," recalls to him indirectly that he has only blame; and Lear perceives that he is right: FOOL. He that has a house to put's head in has a piece. The man that makes his toe What he his heart should make Shall of a corn cry woe, And turn his sleep to wake. For there was never yet fair woman but she made mo LEAR. No, I will be the pattern of all patien nothing.3 Gradually personal sympathy with the Fo |