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Page 25
KING LEAR
The Tragedy of Lear is deservedly celebrated among the dramas of
Shakespeare. There is perhaps no play which keeps the attention so
strongly fixed; which so much agitates our passions and interests
our curiosity. The artful involutions of distinct interests, the
striking opposition of contrary characters, the sudden changes of
fortune, and the quick succession of events, fill the mind with a
perpetual tumult of indignation, pity, and hope. There is no scene
which does not contribute to the aggravation of the distress or
conduct of the action, and scarce a line which does not conduce
to the progress of the scene. So powerful is the current of the
poet's imagination, that the mind, which once ventures within it,
is hurried irresistibly along.
On the seeming improbability of Lear's conduct it may be observed,
that he is represented according to histories at that time vulgarly
received as true. And perhaps if we turn our thoughts upon the
barbarity and ignorance of the age to which this story is referred,
it will appear not so unlikely as while we estimate Lear's manners
by our own. Such preference of one daughter to another, or resignation
of dominion on such conditions, would be yet credible, if told of
a petty prince of Guinea or Madagascar. Shakespeare, indeed, by the
mention of his Earls and Dukes, has given us the idea of times more
civilised, and of life regulated by softer manners; and the truth
that though he so nicely discriminates, and so minutely describes
the characters of men, he commonly neglects and confounds the
characters of ages, by mingling customs ancient and modern, English
and foreign.
My learned friend Mr. Warton, who has in the Adventurer very minutely
criticised this play, remarks, that the instances of cruelty are too
savage and shocking, and that the intervention of Edmund destroys
the simplicity of the story. These objections may, I think, be
answered, by repeating, that the cruelty of the daughters is an
historical fact, to which the poet has added little, having only
drawn it into a series by dialogue and action. But I am not able to
apologise with equal plausibility for the extrusion of Gloucester's
eyes, which seems an act too horrid to be endured in dramatick
exhibition, and such as must always compel the mind to relieve its
distress by incredulity. Yet let it be remembered that our authour
well knew what would please the audience for which he wrote.
The injury done by Edmund to the simplicity of the action is abundantly
recompensed by the addition of variety, by the art with which he
is made to co-operate with the chief design and the opportunity
which he gives the poet of combining perfidy with perfidy, and
connecting the wicked son with the wicked daughters, to impress
this important moral, that villany is never at a stop, that crimes
lead to crimes, and at last terminate in ruin.
But though this moral be incidentally enforced, Shakespeare has
suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause contrary
to the natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and,
what is yet more strange, to the faith of chronicles. Yet this
conduct is justified by the Spectator, who blames Tate for giving
Cordelia success and happiness in his alteration, and declares,
that, in his opinion, the tragedy has lost half its beauty. Dennis
has remarked, whether justly or not, that, to secure the favourable
reception of Cato, "the town was poisoned with much false and
abominable criticism," and that endeavours had been used to discredit
and decry poetical justice. A play in which the wicked prosper,
and the virtuous miscarry, may doubtless be good, because it is a
just representation of the common events of human life: but since
all reasonable beings naturally love justice, I cannot easily be
persuaded, that the observation of justice makes a play worse; or,
that if other excellencies are equal, the audience will not always
rise better pleased from the final triumph of persecuted virtue.
In the present case the publick has decided. Cordelia, from the
time of Tate, has always retired with victory and felicity. And,
if my sensations could add any thing to the general suffrage, I
might relate, that I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia's
death, that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last
scenes of the play till I undertook to revise them as an editor.
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