If, however, we pass the line much beyond the Duke and Isabella, we come to the unfeeling executioner, Abhorson, whose morality is shocked at a communion with Pompey; or to Barnadine, who staggers before us in a state of brutish insensibility to his kind, and to himself. Hazlitt calls Barnadine "a fine antithesis;" he is so, but not exactly in Hazlitt's meaning; he is brought before us in violent opposition to an argument, that might be carried to a speculative extreme. Looking around farther, we see how every one's plea, or sentence of justice, is swayed by a peculiar disposition; and if we want a striking moral to set forth the consequences of heartless libertinism, it is given by the knave Pompey, who has been forced to leave his infamous service, and become an assistant in the prison. "I am as well acquainted here,” he knowingly says, " as I was in our house of profession : one would think it were Mistress Overdone's own house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here's young Master Rash,"—and then he enumerates them. A summing up of the evidence from the whole work belongs to the lawgiver or the casuist; the witnesses on both sides have been heard. 66 XXV. CYMBELINE. XXVI. LEAR. 1605.-Tate's profanation induced me, fifteen years ago, to write a paper in the Liberal, on Shakespeare's Fools;" as I was aware that the same manager's hand which might replace Lear's Fool, must also sweep aside the deformities attached to the tragedy as it was then represented. Though at present inapplicable, thanks to Mr. Macready, yet I repeat a part of the paper, lest another Tate should arise; and because the character, having long been misunderstood, is consequently liable to fall again into disrepute. "Now, our joy, though last, not least," my dearest of all Fools, Lear's Fool! Ah, what a noble heart, a gentle and a loving one, lies beneath that partycoloured jerkin! Thou hast been cruelly treated. Regan and Goneril could but hang thee, while the unfeeling players did worse; for they tainted thy character, and at last thrust thee from the stage, as one unfit to appear in their worshipful company. Regardless of that warning voice, forbidding them to "speak more than is set down for them," they have put into thy mouth words so foreign to thy nature,* that they might, with as much propriety, be given to Cardinal Wolsey. But let me take thee, without addition or diminution, from the hands of * There are three passages, foisted in by the players, and adopted by the printers, which ought to be for ever expunged from the text. They are the following:-The couplet at the end of the first act; the whole of Merlin's prophecy during the storm, beginning with "This is a brave night," as the Fool should go out with Lear; and those brutal words, "And I'll go to bed at noon," when the old King sinks into sleep. Such contradictions puzzled me for a long time, till looking among the Annotations, a profitable task once in a hundred times, I discovered that none of these three passages are in the quarto editions, printed eight years before Shakespeare's death, but are introduced into the folio one, printed seven years after it. This, together with their absurdity, makes it plain they are not Shakespeare's. Shakespeare, and then thou art one of his perfect creations. Look at him! It may be your eyes see him not as mine do, but he appears to me of a light delicate frame, every feature expressive of sensibility even to pain, with eyes lustrously intelligent, a mouth blandly beautiful, and withal a hectic flush upon his cheek. O that I were a painter! O that I could describe him as I knew him in my boyhood, when the Fool made me shed tears, while Lear did but terrify me! "But where's my Fool! I have not seen him these two days. "Knight. Since my young lady's going into France, the Fool hath much pined away. "Lear. No more of that; I have noted it well." I have sometimes speculated on filling an octavo sheet on Shakespeare's admirable introduction of characters; but a little reflection showed me that I must write a volume, and that's a fearful thing. This would rank among his best. his best. We are prepared to see him with his mind full of the fatal "division of the kingdom" and oppressed with "thick-coming fancies;" and when he appears before us we are convinced of both, though not in an ordinary way. Those who have never read any thing but the French theatre, or the English plays of the last century, would expect to see him upon the scene wiping his eyes with his cloak; as if the worst sorrows did not frequently vent themselves in jests, and that there are not beings who dare not trust their nature with a serious face when the soul is deeply struck. Besides, his profession compels him to raillery and seeming jollity. The very excess of merriment is here an evidence of grief; and when he enters throwing his coxcomb at Kent, and instantly follows it up with allusions to the miserable rashness of Lear, we ought to understand him from that moment to the last. Throughout this scene his wit, however varied, still aims at the same point; and in spite of threats, and regardless how his words may be construed by Goneril's creatures, with the eagerness of a filial love he prompts the old King to "resume the shape which he had cast off." "This is not altogether fool, my lord." But, alas! it is too late; and when driven from the scene by Goneril, he turns upon her with an indignation that knows no fear of the "halter" for himself:- "A fox when one has caught her, And such a daughter, Should sure to the slaughter, If my cap would buy a halter." That such a character should be distorted by players, printers, and commentators! Observe every word he speaks; his meaning, one would imagine, could not be misinterpreted; and when at length, finding his covert reproaches can avail nothing, he changes his discourse to simple mirth, in order to distract the sorrows of his master. When Lear is in the storm, who is with him? None-not even Kent "None but the Fool; who labours to outjest The tremendous agony of Lear's mind would be But it Let too painful, and even deficient in pathos, without this poor faithful servant at his side. It is he that touches our hearts with pity, while Lear fills the imagination to aching. "The explosions of his passion," as Lamb has written in an excellent criticism, "are terrible as a volcano; they are storms turning up and disclosing to the bottom that sea, his mind, with all its vast riches." Such a scene wanted relief, and Shakespeare, we may rely upon it, gives us the best. is acted otherwise,-no, it is Tate that is acted. them, if they choose, bring this tragedy on the stage; but, by all means, let us not be without the Fool. I can imagine an actor in this part, with despair in his face, and a tongue for ever struggling with a jest, that should thrill every bosom. What! banish him from the tragedy, when Lear says, "I have one part in my heart that's sorry yet for thee;" and when he so feelingly addresses him with, "Come on, my boy: how dost, my boy? Art cold? I am cold myself." At that pitch of rage, "Off! off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here!" could we but see the Fool throw himself into his master's arms, to stay their fury, looking up in his countenance with eyes that would fain appear as if they wept not, and hear his pathetic entreaty, "Pr'ythee, nuncle, be contented;"-pshaw! these players know nothing of their trade. While Gloster and Kent are planning to procure shelter for the king, whose wits at that time "begin to unsettle," he remains silent in grief; but afterwards, in the farm-house, we find him endeavouring to divert the progress of Lear's madness, as it becomes haunted by the visions of his daughters, and that in the most art |