melious insults of his two unnatural children, and perceives his impending distraction: O fool, I sh go mad. When Goneril and Regan have barred him out, he alternately braves the storm with violent imprecations, and conciliates it with a wounded spirit. Blow! winds, and crack your cheeks. Again he endeavours to restrain the bursting torrent of his passion: 1 No! I will be the pattern of all patience, I will say nothing. And concludes a speech of exquisite beauty with a temperate and consoling reflection: I am a man More sinn'd against than sinning. The actual perversion of his mind is now fast approaching; the alarm for the continuance of reason increases; his restraints are less effectually imposed. Some internal sensations whisper that the mental eclipse is commencing: My wits begin to turn. Lear next becomes aware that he sustains privations with extraordinary nerve, and that cold and hunger do not exert their usual influence on his frame. This insensibility to external impressions is a marked symptom of approaching and existing derangement, and it is physiologically accounted for by the inimitable author : When the mind's free, The body's delicate; the tempest in my mind Does from my senses take all feeling else, Save what beats there. Still reason, though feebly and tremulously, holds the rein; and he feels a kind of instinctive horror, a soreness that penetrates to the quick, and at which he writhes when he adverts to his daugh ters: O Regan! Goneril! Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave you all; Although Lear's mind had been strained by the torture it had undergone, he has only hitherto approached the confines of madness; he has perceived the dangerous brink on which he stands, and caught in momentary glimpses the distractions that hover round him. It is not till he comes in contact with the counterfeit lunatic that the fabric of his intellect loosens; and he presumes that no misfortune could have reduced another so low in the scale of humanity, but the sources of his own affliction. At sight of Edgar, (who feigns madness to answer a purpose,) he asks What! have his daughters brought him to this pass? How admirable is the contrivance, and how natural the result of this interview between Lear and Edgar. The king, with his mind oppressed and weakened by the ingratitude of his children, meets the pretended maniac, and concludes that Nothing could have subdued nature To such a lowness but his unkind daughters. Adding Judicious punishment! 'twas this flesh begot The declension of Lear's mind into raving madness by force of sympathy created by the frantic appearance and manner of Edgar is exquisitely simple and natural. In stripping off his garments, to copy the nakedness of Edgar, Lear manifests the first overt act of insanity. Off, off, you lendings:-Come, unbutton here. Delighted with the maniac, the pitiless pelting of the storm is disregarded, and he leaves his friends unheeded to form a nearer intimacy with his new acquaintance: his derangement magnifies the wretched and apparently brainless wanderer into an oracle of wisdom, and a sage preceptor; the remonstrance of his attendants is disregarded, he lingers" to talk with this philosopher," "this learned Theban," "this good Athenian." He adheres to him with an affection and confidence that banish all fears for his own safety; he seems inspired by his associate, and his madness blazes with a rival flame: To have a thousand with red burning spits And again, The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me. The poet felt that the mere impertinency of madness could not be long sustained; it would fail to excite the attention, and would lower the dignity of the scene: the deprivation of reason is therefore supplied by acuteness of feeling, and an impassioned recurrence to the source of his derangement: "Then let them anatomize Regan, see what breeds about her heart: Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?" In the ruins of his mind many fragments of the stately pile still remain entire; for even madness cannot extinguish pride and ambition: and in his wildest sallies recollection prompts him, "that he is every inch a king;" and that when a Monarch "stares" "the Subject quakes."-Even in our ashes live our wonted fires. The dutiful and affectionate Cordelia, hearing that her father wanders about "mad as the vext sea, singing loud," is solicitous for his restoration by medical sagacity and experience. She is informed that he lacks repose; that there Are many simples operative whose power These remedial agents are employed with so much effect, that in the heaviness of his sleep his attend ants put fresh garments on him. In this scene. Shakespeare displays not only a perfect knowledge of the disease under which Lear labours, but an intimate acquaintance with the course of medical treatment which in those days, and indeed until very recently, was pursued with a view to its cure. It may fairly be presumed that some narcotic drug, some oblivious antidote, had been administered in order to procure the desired repose, as the king's first impressions when he is awakened by Cordelia are obviously the broken continuation of a distressing dream, as if he had been roused before the operation of the opiate had been exhausted: You do me wrong to take me out o' the grave: Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears Do scald like molten lead. Cordelia inquires, "Sir, do you know me?" Lear replies, "You are a a spirit, I know; When did you die?" The gradual and imperfect return of perception, the glance at his sufferings, and the doubt of his personal identity, are exquisitely drawn: Where have I been? Where am I? fair day-light? I am mightily abused.—I should e'en die with pity I will not swear these are my hands: let's see; I feel this pin prick. Would I were assur'd |