less and miserable wanderers of the night (III. iv.); his definition of the 'needs' of the miserable. (II. iv.) And the poet has certainly surpassed himself in his intuitive conception of CORDELIA'S character, which appears, as remarked in the notes on IV. iii. and v. iii., to embody his conception of the ideal Englishwoman, whose faithfulness, strong will, and transparent candour, combine with her 'gentle and low' voice, and the steadfast peace which is ever present with her, to make a character such as the mind of man never imagined before or since. It should be remarked, too, how the folly of LEAR never seems for a moment to rob him of his royalty of nature. He is most indisposed to see neglects and unkindness to himself; and in deepest distress he is always kind and fatherly to those who are dependent upon him. Moreover, there is something peculiarly touching in his humiliation before CORDELIA, whom he knows he has wronged, though she is far from admitting it. The idea of some critics that Shakspere intended him to be weak and foolish is not tenable for a moment. Even in his madness he shews himself, in his imagined battle, a general cool and determined, with an eye for all that goes on in the field. His error is simply and solely the one act of despotic wilfulness which overthrows him and all his house; and indeed this very act may be, as Dr. Bucknill maintains, the first symptom of a madness which is not far from breaking out into specific delusions. If the derivations given at I. i. 54 for the names of GONERIL and REGAN are true, they would serve to indicate the real antiquity and perhaps historic truth of the main facts on which the tragedy rests. On the date of these events, according to the chronicler's notion, remarks will also be found there. ON THE SOURCES FROM WHICH KING LEAR IS DERIVED, AND ON ITS DATE These are, as already stated, 1. Holinshed's Chronicle. This writer in turn took it from Geoffrey of Monmouth. Here LEAR is son of Bladud, king of England at the time when Joash was king of Judah, and the founder of Caerleir, or Leicester. The love-testing scene is given as in Shakspere; the DUKE OF CORNWALL is named Henninus, and the DUKE OF ALBANY, Magbanus; AGANIPPUS, who marries CORDELIA, is one of the twelve princes who ruled Gallia in those days. LEAR does not abdicate at the same time when he proposes his question; but is deposed by the two dukes, and takes refuge in France with CORDELIA and her husband. AGANIPPUS raises a great army and fleet to conquer Britain, LEAR promising that CORDELIA shall be his successor. The invaders on arriving defeat and kill both dukes, and LEAR is restored to his kingdom. After two years he dies, and is buried at Leycester, in a vault underneath the "channel of the river of Sore." 2. Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia. From this is derived the story of GLOUCESTER, EDMUND, and EDGAR, and of the cliff at Dover, all which Shakspere interweaves with extraordinary skill in his main plot. These are the main sources from whence the action of DATE, ETC., OF KING LEAR. 13 the play is drawn. Shakspere may also have known the ballad of King Leir, which is printed in Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, and was certainly acquainted with Spenser's treatment of the subject in the Faerie Queen (ii. 10), as the first three books of this noble poem were published in 1590. This brings us to enquire at what period of Shakspere's life KING LEAR was written, a question which admits of an unusually clear and decisive answer. It was published in 1608, having been entered at Stationers' Hall in November, 1607, and the original edition contains a statement that it was acted before the king at Christmas, 1606. The latter year then is the last in which it could have been written. But it could not have been composed before 1603, since it contains abundant quotations from Harsnet's Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures, which was published in that year. Consequently its composition must have fallen between 1603 and the end of 1606; and the mention in I. ii. 96 of eclipses, as considered portentous, makes it almost certain that the allusion is to the solar eclipse of October, 1605, which occurred within a few days of the celebrated 5th of November, on which the Gunpowder Plot was to have been carried out, and was at the time of its occurrence considered very alarming. The play, therefore, must have been written in 1605-6, in the midst of the stirring events connected with the Plot; and the absence of allusion to them is a striking instance of the way in which Shakspere's mind, like that of Goethe in after-time, could keep aloof from subjects of absorbing public interest, and live simply among its own creations, KING LEAR ACT I. SCENE I.-King Lear's palace. Enter KENT, GLOUCESTER, and EDMUND. KENT. I thought the king had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall. GLOU. It did always seem so to us: but now, in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values most; for equalities are so weighed, that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety. KENT. Is not this your son, my lord? GLOU. His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to it. Do you smell a fault? 16 KENT. I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper. GLOU. But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account : though this knave came something saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair, and he must needs be acknowledged. Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund? GLOU. My lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as EDM. No, my lord. my honourable friend. EDM. My services to your lordship. 30 KENT. I must love you, and sue to know you better. EDM. Sir, I shall study deserving. GLOU. He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again. The king is coming. |