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giveness, he falls on his knees with a very striking kind of irony, and asks her how such supplicating language as this becometh him:

Dear daughter, I confess that I am old;
Age is unnecessary: on my knees I beg,

That you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.

But being again exhorted to sue for reconciliation, the advice wounds him to the quick, and forces him into execrations against Gonerill, which, though they chill the soul with horror, are yet well suited to the impetuosity of his temper:

She hath abated me of half my train;

Look'd black upon me; struck me with her tongue,
Most serpent-like, upon the very heart-

All the stor❜d vengeances of heaven fall

On her ungrateful top! Strike her young bones,

Ye taking airs, with lameness!

Ye nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames
Into her scornful eyes!

The wretched king, little imagining that he is to be outcast from Regan also, adds very movingly;

-"Tis not in thee

To grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train,
To bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes.-
-Thou better know'st

The offices of nature, bond of childhood-
Thy half o'th' kingdom thou hast not forgot,
Wherein I thee endow'd-

That the hopes he had conceived of tender usage from Regan should be deceived, heightens his distress to a great degree. Yet it is still aggra

vated and increased by the sudden appearance of Gonerill; upon the unexpected sight of whom he exclaims,

-Who comes here? O heavens !

If you do love old men, if your sweet sway
Allow obedience, if yourselves are old,

Make it your cause, send down and take my part!

This address is surely pathetic beyond expression; it is scarce enough to speak of it in the cold terms of criticism. There follows a question to Gonerill, that I have never read without tears:

Ar't not asham'd to look upon this beard?

This scene abounds with many noble turns of passion, or rather conflicts of very different passions. The inhuman daughters urge him in vain, by all the sophistical and unfilial arguments they were mistresses of, to diminish the number of his train. He answers them by only four poignant words:

I gave you all!

When Regan at last consents to receive him, but without any attendants, for that he might be served by her own domestics, he can no longer contain his disappointment and rage. First he appeals to the Heavens, and points out to them a spectacle that is, indeed, inimitably affecting:

You see me here, ye gods! a poor old man,
As full of griefs as age, wretched in both :
If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely!

Then suddenly he addresses Gonerill and Regan in the severest terms, and with the bitterest threats:

No, you unnatural hags!

I will have such revenges on you both

That all the world shall-I will do such things-
What they are yet, I know not-

Nothing occurs to his mind severe enough for them to suffer, or him to inflict. His passion rises to a height that deprives him of articulation. He tells them that he will subdue his sorrow, though almost irresistible; and that they shall not triumph over his weakness:

You think I'll weep!

No! I'll not weep; I have full cause of weeping:
But this heart shall break into a thousand flaws,
Or e'er I'll weep!

He concludes,

O fool-I shall go mad!

which is an artful anticipation, that judiciously prepares us for the dreadful event that is to follow in the succeeding acts.

JOSEPH WARTON."

W

Adventurer, No. 113, December 4, 1753.

No. IV.

OBSERVATIONS ON KING LEAR CONTINUED.

THUNDER and a ghost have been frequently introduced into tragedy by barren and mechanical play-wrights, as proper objects to impress terror and astonishment, where the distress has not been important enough to render it probable that nature would interpose for the sake of the sufferers, and where these objects themselves have not been supported by suitable sentiments. Thunder has, however, been made use of with great judgment and good effect by Shakspeare, to heighten and impress the distresses of Lear.

The venerable and wretched old king is driven out by both his daughters, without necessaries and without attendants, not only in the night, but in the midst of a most dreadful storm, and on a bleak and barren heath. On his first appearance in this situation, he draws an artful and pathetic comparison betwixt the severity of the tempest and of his daughters:

Rumble thy belly full! spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters.
I tax not you, ye elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children;
You owe me no subscription. Then let fall

Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave;
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man!

The storm continuing with equal violence, he drops for a moment the consideration of his own miseries, and takes occasion to moralize on the terrors which such commotions of nature should raise in the breast of secret and unpunished villainy :

Tremble, thou wretch!

That hast within thee undivulged crimes

Unwhipt of justice! Hide thee, thou bloody hand,

Thou perjur'd, and thou similar of virtue

That art incestuous !

Close pent-up guilts

Rive your concealing continents, and cry
These dreadful summoners grace !—

He adds, with reference to his own case,

I am a man

More sinn'd against, than sinning.

Kent most earnestly intreats him to enter a hovel which he had discovered on the heath; and on pressing him again and again to take shelter there, Lear exclaims,

Wilt break my heart?

Much is contained in these four words; as if he had said, the kindness and the gratitude of this servant exceeds that of my own children. Though I have given them a kingdom, yet have they basely discarded me, and suffered a head so old and

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