His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life
Began to crack: Twice then the trumpet sounded,
And there I left him tranc'd.

Alb. But who was this?

Edg. Kent, sir, the banish'd Kent; who in disguise Follow'd his enemy king, and did him service Improper for a slave.

Enter a Gentleman hastily, with a bloody knife. Gent. Help! help! O help!

Edg. What kind of help ?

Alb. Speak, man.

Edg. What means that bloody knife?

Gent. 'Tis hot, it smokes ;

It came even from the heart of

Alb. Who, man? speak.

Gent. Your lady, sir, your lady: and her sister By her is poison'd; she confesses it.

Edm. I was contracted to them both; all three

Now marry in an instant.

Alb. Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead!This judgment of the heavens, that makes us tremble, Touches us not with pity. [Exit Gentleman.

Enter KENT.

Edg. Here comes Kent, sir,

Alb. O it is he.

The time will not allow the compliment

Which very manners urges.

Kent. I am come

To bid my king and master aye good night;

Is he not here?

Alb. Great thing of us forgot!

Speak, Edmund, where's the king? and where's Cordelia? -See'st thou this object, Kent?

[The bodies of GON. and REG. are brought in.

Kent. Alack, why thus?

Edm. Yet Edmund was belov'd :

The one the other poison'd for my sake,

And after slew herself.

Alb. Even so.-Cover their faces.

Edm. I pant for life :-Some good I mean to do,
Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send,-

Be brief in it,-to the castle; for my writ
Is on the life of Lear, and on Cordelia :-
Nay, send in time.

Alb. Run, run, O, run

Edg. To who, my lord?-Who has the office? send

Thy token of reprieve.

Edm. Well thought on; take my sword,

Give it the captain.

Alb. Haste thee, for thy life.

[Exit EDGAR

Edm. He hath commission from thy wife and me

To hang Cordelia in the prison, and

To lay the blame upon her own despair,

That she fordid herself.2

Alb. The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile.

[EDMUND is borne off. Enter LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, Officers, and others.

Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl!-(), you are men of stones;

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so

That heaven's vault should crack :-O, she is gone for

ever!

I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She's dead as earth:-Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.

Kent. Is this the promis'd end?
Edg. Or image of that horror ?3

[2] To fordo signifies to destroy by suicide.

STEEVENS.

[3] It appears to me that by the promised end Kent does not mean that conclusion which the state of their affairs seemed to promise, but the end of the world. In St. Mark's Gospel, when Christ foretels to his disciples the end of the world, and is describing to them the signs which were to precede, and mark the approach of, our final dissolution, he says, "For in those days shall be affliction such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be:" and afterwards he says, "Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death." Kent in contemplating the unexampled scene of exquisite affliction which was then before him, and the unnatural attempt of Goneril and Regan against their father's life, recollects these passages, and asks, whether that was the end of the world that had been foretold to us? To which Edgar adds, or only a representation or resemblance of that horror? So Macbeth, when he calls upon Banquo, Malcolm, &c. to view Duncan murdered, says

"-up, up, and see

"The great doom's image! Malcolm ! Banquo!

"As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprights,
"To countenance this horror."

There is evidently an allusion to the same passages in scripture, in a speech of Gloster's, which he makes in the second scene of the first Act: "These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us ;-love cools; friendship falls off; brothers divide; in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked twixt son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction; there's som

Alb. Fall, and cease!

Lear. This feather stirs ; she lives! if it be so, It is a chance that does redeem all sorrows

That ever I have felt.

Kent. O my good master !

Lear. Pr'ythee, away.

Edg. 'Tis noble Kent, your friend.

[Kneeling.

Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
I might have sav'd her; now she's gone for ever!-
Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha!

What is't thou say'st?—Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman :-
I kill'd the slave that was a hanging thee.
Off. 'Tis true, my lords, he did.

Lear. Did I not, fellow?

I have seen the day, with my good biting faulchion
I would have made them skip : I am old now,
And these same crosses spoil me.-Who are you ?
Mine eyes are none o'the best :--I'll tell you straight.
Kent. If fortune brag of two she lov'd and hated,
One of them we behold.

Lear. This is a dull sight: Are you not Kent?
Kent. The same; your servant Kent: Where is your
servant Caius ?

Lear. He's a good fellow, I can tell you that; He'll strike, and quickly too :-He's dead and rotten. Kent. No, my good lord; I am the very man ;— Lear. I'll see that straight.

Kent. That, from your first of difference and decay, Have follow'd your sad steps.

Lear. You are welcome hither.

Kent. Nor no man else; all's cheerless, dark, and

Your eldest daughters have fore-doom'd themselves,
And desperately are dead.

Lear. Ay, so I think.

Alb. He knows not what he says; and vain it is That we present us to him,

Edg. Very bootless.

against father; the king falls from the bias of nature; there's father against child: We have seen the best of our time."

If any criticks should urge it as an objection to this explanation, that the persons of the drama are pagans, and of consequence unacquainted with the scriptures, they give Shakspeare credit for more accuracy than I fear he possessed. M. MASON.

This note deserves the highest praise, and is inserted in the present work with the utmost degree of gratitude to its author.

STEEVENS.

Enter an Officer.

Off. Edmund is dead, my lord.

Alb. That's but a trifle here.

You lords, and noble friends, know our intent.
What comfort to this great decay may come,
Shall be applied: For us, we will resign,
During the life of this old majesty,

To him our absolute power :-You, to your rights;

[To EDGAR and KENT. With boot, and such addition as your honours

Have more than merited.-All friends shall taste
The wages of their virtue, and all foes

The cup of their deservings.-O, see, see!

Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd 14 No, no, no life : Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you, undo this button.5

Thank you, sir.—
Do you see this? Look on her,-look,-her lips,-
Look there, look there !-

Edg. He faints :-My lord, my lord,-
Kent. Break, heart; I pr'ythee, break!

Edg. Look up, my lord.

He dies.

Kent,Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! He hates him, That would upon the rack of this tough world

Stretch him out longer.

Edg. O, he is gone, indeed.

Kent. The wonder is, he hath endur'd so long: He but usurp'd his life.

Alb. Bear them from hence.-Our present business

Is general woe. Friends of my soul, you twain

[TO KENT and EDGAR. Rule in this realm, and the gor'd state sustain. Kent. I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;

My master calls, and I must not say, no.

Alb. The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most we, that are young,
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

[Exeunt, with a dead march.

[4] This is an expression of tenderness for his dead Cordelia, (not his fool, as some have thought) on whose lips he is still intent, and dies away, while be is searching therefor indications of life. STEEVENS.

[5] The Rev. J. Warton judiciously observes, that the swelling and heaving of the heart is described by this most expressive circumstance. STEEV.