Friendly together: so through Lud's town

And in the temple of great Jupiter

Our peace we'll ratify; seal it with feasts.-
Set on there:- Never was a war did cease,
Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with such a
[Exeunt

KING LEAR.

LITERARY AND HISTORICAL NOTICE.

THE subject of this interesting tragedy, which was probably written in 1605, is derived from an old historical ballad, founded on a story in Holinshed's Chronicles, and originally told by Geoffery of Monmouth. "Leir (says the Welsh historian) was the eldest son of Bladud, nobly governed his country for sixty years, and died about 800 years before Christ." Camden tells a similar story of Isra, king of the West Saxons, and his three daughters.---The episode of Gloster and his sons is taken from Sidney's Arcadia. Tate, the laureat, greatly altered, and in a degree polished this play, inserting new scenes or passages, and transposing or omitting others: in particular, he avoided its original heart-rending catastrophe, by which the virtue of Cordelia was suffered to perish in a just cause, contrary to the natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and to the facts of the ancient narrative. He also introduced Edgar to the audience as the suitor of Cordelia, cancelling the excellent scene in which, after being rejected as dowerless, by Burgundy, her misfortunes and her goodness recommend her to the love of the king of France. Yet the restauration of the king, and the final happiness of Cordelia, have been censured (in the Spectator especially) as at variance with true tragic feeling and poetical beauty: although it may fairly be presumed, since mankind naturally love justice, that an attention to its dictates will never make a play worse, and that an audience will generally rise more satisfied where persecuted virtue is rewarded and triumphant. Lear's struggles against his accumulated injuries, and his own strong feelings of sorrow and indignation, are exquisitely drawn. The daughters severally working him up to madness, and his finally falling a martyr to that malady, is a more deep and skilful combination of dramatic portraiture than can be found in any other writer. "There is no play (says Dr. Johnson,) which keeps the attention so constantly fixed; which so much agitates our passions and interests our curiosity." The celebrated Dr. Warton, who minutely criticised this play in the Adventurer, objected to the instances of cruelty, as too savage and too shocking. But Johnson observes, that the barbarity of the daughters is an historical fact, to which Shakspeare has added little, although he cannot so readily apologize for the extrusion of Gloster's eyes, which is too horrid an act for dramatic exhibition, and such as must always compel the mind to relieve its distresses by incredulity. Colman, as well as Tate, re-modelled this celebrated Drama, but it is acted, with trifling variations, on the original plan of the latter.

Kent. Is not this your son, my lord?

Glo. His breeding, Sir, hath been at my

SCENE I-A Room of State in King LEAR'S charge: I have so often blush'd to acknowledge

him, that now I am brazed to it.
Kent. I cannot conceive you.

Glo. Sir, this young fellow's mother could: whereupon she grew round-wombed; and had, indeed, Sir, a son for her cradle, ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault ?

Kent. I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper..

Glo. But I have, Sir, a son, by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer

Handsome.

In my account: though this knave came some- | No less in space, validity, and pleasure, what saucily into the world before he was sent Than that confirm'd on Goneril. Now, our joy, for, yet his mother was fair; there was good Although the last, not least; to whose young

The vines of France, and milk of Burgundy,
Strive to be interess'd: + what can you say, to

Glo. My lord of Kent: remember him here- A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.

[matter

Do love you more than words can wield the
Dearer than eye-sight, space and liberty;
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty,

As much as child e'er lov'd, or father found:
A love that makes breath poor, and speech

Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
Cor. What shall Cordelia do? Love, and be
[Aside.

Call Burgundy, Cornwall and Albany,
With my two daughter's dowers digest this
Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
champains I do invest you jointly with my power,
Pre-eminence, and all the large effects

Lear. Of all these bounds, even from this line to this, With stradowy forests and with

With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads, We make thee lady: To thine and Albany's issue

[daughter, With reservation of a hundred knights, Be this perpetual. What says our second By you to be sustain'd, shall our abode [retain