Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1888-06-03

that has caused great deal OF discussion
among critics is whether the preponde-
rant image in Lear's disordered mind be
the loss OF his kingdom or the cruelty OF
his daughters Tho text of the play
clearly establishes that the great source
OF his grief is the cruelty OF his daugh-
ters. and the loss of his kingdom il en-
tirely subordinate 10 that. In Act l..
Scene 4. Lear closes his terrible curse Of
Goneril by saying:
- that she may feel
How sharper than q sorpenrs tooth III
To have "a thanBless child"
And in Act H., Scene 2, in the first scene
in the storm in which Lear has become
insane, he SAYS:
''splt, nrol Spout. rslnl
Nor rain, wind. thunder, IRE arc my daughters
tax not you, you elements, with unkindness
never gave you kingO om-cali'd you children
You owe me no subscription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure; here Stand your slave,
4 poor, indrm, weak. aud deSpis'd old man.
But yet call you not servile ministers,
That will, with two perniciOus daughters join
Your hieh-engender'd battles against head
SO old and white as this"
And again in Scene 4, Act ILL.,, he says
"In such e night,
To shut mo out ! Pour on will endure.
Ia such night as this o, Regan. Gonerl
Your Old, kind fathor, whose FRANK heart gave
all
o. that way madness los let me shun that
No more OF that "
And again 10 the same act, in tho same
scene, when he meets Edgar disguised
as a mailman, he exclaims
"Didst thou give all to thy daughters' And
art thou come 70 thi5!
And again in Act H.. Scene 6, in which
be affects the trial OF Goneril in the de-
lirium of his insanity the following dla-
logue occurs:
Lear: Arraign hor first; tits Goneril. ! here
take my oath before this honorable assembly, she
kicked tho poor King, her father.
Fool: Come hitler, mistress. Is your name
GOneril.
Lear: She cannot deny It.
Fool: Cry you mercy. took you for joint
stool.
Lear: And heros another, whose LOOKS pro-
What sore her heart is made on. Stop
her thcrel
Arms, arms, sword, hrol Corruption in
False lustlcor, why hast thou let her
scapof"
And in the same scene, in speaking of
Regain, he says:
breeds about her heart. Ia there any cause in
nature that makes those hard hearts7"
In Act w., Scene 6, he says:
"For Gloster's bastard son was kinder to his
father than my daughters
But I might multiply these quotations
as establishing beyond question this
phase of Lear's mind, but will stop by
quoting again the speech of Lears in
Act H.. scene 4, that has been pre- giously
quoted in this essay, when he first meets
Edgar disguised as a mailman, the dia-
logue between Lear and Kent being as
follows:
Lear: Now all the plaques that ia the pendu
lOus air
Hang fated DER mems faults light on
their daughters
Kent: He hath no daughters, sir.
Lear: Death. traitor; nothing could have sub
dued nature
To such lowness but his unklnd dsugh-
ters.
It is the injured father and not the de-
graded King that appeals to our com
passion. If it were the King and not
the father. our pity would be infinitely
less. and the pathos Of the play inf
nitely diminished.
Shakespeare has been censured for al
lowing Cordelis to be destroyed in
righteous cause. and contrary to our
ideas of justice and the facts Of the
English fable This conviction in re-
gard to the play doubtless caused Nahum
Tate TO change its dcnOuenlcnt in 1851,
and happy ending was made to the
play by him. Lear does not die and
Cordelia lives and marries Edgar. This
arrangement OF the play held the stage
for over one hundred and fifty years, and
Garrick, Kean, aud other great actors
performed Tate's arrangement OF tho
play and won the highest applause in
their rendition Of the part. 1t was
changed by the stage about forty years ago
TO the ending as written by Shakespeare.
Tate's change in the deHOucmcnt OF the
play follows Holinshed's history of Lear
and his daughters, and also the Qucene
Cordita by John Higgins. in the Mir
ror for Magistrates, to the extent that
Lear is restored to his kingdom, and sue
ceeded by Cordelis at his death, but the
parallel ceases at this point, for Cordelia
in turn is dethroned by her two nepheTs,
and she commits suicide. Tate S ending
of the pay is disapproved by Schlegel
and Addison in the Spectator, and also
by Charles Lamb, but DR.. johnson
rather intimates his approval OF it, and
goes so far MS to declare that he was so
shocked by Cordelia's death that he
could never endure to read the last
scenes of the play until he came to
revise them as an editor, and Addison
declares in the Spectator that by
Tate's change in tho play the tragedy
had lost half OF its beauty, and this
judgement | think is correct. Shake
speare's divine inspiration saw that a
happy ending of Lear was impossible,
and hence he rejected the ending of the
English fable that had come down
through so long period, restoring Lear
to complete and Cordelia to partial hap
piness. and ended the play with the
death of both OF them. After Lear's
and Cordelia's speeches. woe and mar
tyrdom. death was the only solution of
the problem of their lives.
Dowden has truly said Of Lear that
Gas we read the play We arc haunted by
presence OF something beyond the
story of a suffering old man we become
dimly aware that the play has some vast
impersonsl significance like the Prone
Mcus BoVHd of A1scbylos, and like
Goethe's Faust" The explanation of
this is that OF all OF shaktspeare's plays
King Learis the only one that recalls
the tragic Greek drama. The Greek dra-
matist was compelled to comply with
the rules of unity of time and
place. The plot had TO be con-
fined to one place, and to period of
time very little more than that occupied
in its rendition. Whatever was not sup
posed to occur in the presence OF the
chorus aud within few hours was re-
lated and was not acted. Shakespeare
totally disregarded time and spGcc. The
resemblance, therefore, in Lear is not in
its dramatic construction, but an rs
embodiment Of fate, OF a terrible,
resistless fate. Lear
is creature in the hands of
fate. An imperious fate drives
Jocasta and Gdipus to their crime.
Promotions Bound embodies nm irwin