The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded Part 28

'Ay, every inch--_a King_. When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.' But the voice within overpowers him, and the axioms that are the vintage of science, the inductions which are the result of that experiment, are forced from his lips. 'To say ay and no to everything that _I_--that _I_--said! To say _ay_ and _no_ too, was no GOOD DIVINITY. They told me that I was everything. 'T IS A LIE. I am not _ague proof_.' 'T is A LIE'--that is, what is called in other places a '_negative_.'

In this systematic exposure of 'the particular and private nature' in the human kind, and those SPECIAL susceptibilities and liabilities which qualify its relations.h.i.+ps; in this scientific exhibition of its _special_ liability to suffering from the violation of the higher law of those relations.h.i.+ps--its _special_ liability to injury, moral, mental, and physical--a liability from which the very one who usurps the place of that law has himself no exemption in this exhibition,-- which requires that the king himself should represent that liability in chief--it was not to be expected that this particular ill, this ill in which the human wrong in its extreme capes is so wont to exhibit its consummations, should be omitted. In this exhibition, which was designed to be scientifically inclusive, it would have been a fault to omit it. But that the Poet should have dared to think of exhibiting it dramatically in this instance, and that, too, in its most hopeless form--that he should have dared to think of exhibiting the personality which was then 'the state' to the eye of 'the subject' labouring under that personal disability, in the very act, too, of boasting of its kingly terrors--this only goes to show what large prerogatives, what boundless freedoms and immunities, the resources of this particular department of art could be made to yield, when it fell into the hands of the new Masters of Arts, when it came to be selected by the Art-king himself as his instrument.

But we are prepared for this spectacle, and with the Poet's wonted skill; for it is _Cordelia_, her heart bursting with its stormy pa.s.sion of filial love and grief, that, REBEL-LIKE, seeks to be QUEEN o'er her, though she queens it still, and 'the smiles on her ripe lips seem not to know what tears are in her eyes,' for she has had her hour with her subject grief, and 'dealt with it alone,'--it is this child of truth and duty, this true Queen, this impersonated sovereignty, whom her Poet crowns with his choicest graces, on whom he devolves the task of prefacing this so critical, and, one might think, perhaps, perilous exhibition. But her description does not disguise the matter, or palliate its extremity.

'Why, he was met even now, Mad as the _vexed sea_, singing aloud;'

_Crowned_--.

'Crowned with _rank fumiter_, and _furrow weeds_, With hardocks, _hemlock_, _nettles_, cuckow flowers, _Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow In our sustaining corn_.'

That is the crown; and a very extraordinary symbol of sovereignty it is, one cannot help thinking, for the divine right to get on its head by any accident just then. Surely that symbol of power is getting somewhat rudely handled here, in the course of the movements which the 'necessary questions of this Play' involve, as the critical mind might begin to think. In the botanical a.n.a.lysis of that then so dazzling, and potent, and compelling instrument in human affairs, a very careful observer might perhaps take notice that the decidedly hurtful and noxious influences in nature appear to have a prominent place; and, for the rest, that the qualities of _wildness_ and idleness, and encroaching good-for-nothingness, appear to be the common and predominating elements. It is when the Tragedy reaches its height that this _crown_ comes out.

A hundred men are sent out to pursue this majesty; not now to wait on him in idle ceremony, and to give him the 'addition of a king'; but--to catch him--to search every acre in the high-grown field, and bring him in. He has evaded his pursuers: he comes on to the stage full of self-congratulation and royal glee, chuckling over his _prerogative_:--

'No; they cannot touch _me_ for COINING. _I am the king himself_.'

'O thou side-piercing sight!' [Collateral meaning.]

'_Nature's above Art_ in that respect.' ['So _o'er_ that art which you say adds to nature, is an art that Nature makes.'] 'There's your press money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: draw me a clothier's yard.--Look, look, a mouse! _Peace, peace_; this piece of toasted cheese will do't.--There's my gauntlet; I'll prove it on a giant_.'

But the messengers, who were sent out for him, are on his track.

_Enter a Gentleman, with Attendants_.

_Gent_. O here he is, lay hand upon him. Sir, Your most dear daughter--

_Lear_. No rescue? What, a _prisoner_? I am even _The natural fool of fortune_! Use me well; You shall have ransom. Let me have a surgeon, I am cut to the brains.

_Gent_. You shall have anything.

_Lear_. No seconds? All myself?

_Gent_. Good Sir,--

_Lear_. I will die bravely, like a bridegroom: What?

I will be _jovial_. Come, come; _I am a king, My masters_; know you _that_?

_Gent_. _You are_, a royal one, _and we obey you_.

_Lear_. Then _there's life in it_. Nay, an you get it, you shall get it by running. Sa, sa, sa, sa. [_Exit, running; Attendants_ FOLLOW.] ['Transient hieroglyphic.']

_Gent_. A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch; _Past speaking of, in_ A KING!

[not past exhibiting, it seems, however.]

But, of course, there was nothing that a king, whose mind was in such a state, could not be permitted to say with impunity; and it is in this very scene that the Poet puts into his mouth the boldest of those philosophical suggestions which the first attempt to find a theory for the art and practical part of life, gave birth to: he skilfully reserves for this scene some of the most startling of those social criticisms which the action this play is everywhere throwing out.

For it is in this scene, that the outcast king encounters the victim of tyranny, whose eyes have been plucked out, and who has been turned out to beggary, as the penalty of having come athwart that disposition in 'the duke,' that 'all the world well knows will not be rubbed or stopped';--it is in this scene that Lear finds him smelling his way to _Dover_, for that is the name in the play--the play name--for the place towards which men's hopes appear to be turning; and that conversation as to how the world goes, to which allusion has been already made, comes off, without appearing to suggest to any mind, that it is other than accidental on the part of the Poet, or that the action of the play might possibly be connected with it! For notwithstanding this great stress, which he lays everywhere on _forethought_ and a deliberative _rational_ intelligent procedure, as _the distinctive human mark_,--the characteristic feature of _a man_,--the poor poet himself, does not appear to have gained much credit hitherto for the possession of this human quality.--

_Lear_. Thou seest how this world goes?

_Gloster_. I see it feelingly.

_Lear_. What, art mad?--

[have you not the use of your reason, then? Can you not _see_ with that? _That_ is the kind of sight we talk of here. It's the want of that which makes these falls. We have eyes with which to foresee effects,--eyes which outgo all the senses with their range of observation, with their range of certainty and foresight.]

'What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine--_ears: see_ how yon justice rails upon yon _simple thief_.

Hark, in thine ear: Change _places_, and, handy-dandy, _which is the justice, and which is_ THE THIEF?' [Searching social questions, as before. 'Thou robed man of _justice_ (to the Bedlamite), take thy place; and thou, his yoke-fellow of _equity_ (to the Fool), _bench by his side_. Thou, _sapient_ sir, sit here.']

So that it would seem, perhaps, as if wisdom, as well as honesty, might be wanting there--the searching subtle wisdom, that is matched in subtlety, with nature's forces, that sees true differences, and effects true reformations. '_Change places. Hark, in thine ear_.'

Truly this is a player who knows how to suit the word to the action, and the action to the word; for there has been a revolution going on in this play which has made as complete a social overturning--which has shaken kings, and dukes, and lordlings out of their 'places,' as completely as some later revolutions have done. 'Change places!' With one duke in the stocks, and another wandering blind in the streets--with a dukeling, in the form of mad Tom, to lead him, with a king in a hovel, calling for the straw, and a queen hung by the neck till she is dead--with mad Tom on the bench, and the Fool, with his cap and bells, at his side--with Tom at the council-table, and occupying the position of chief favourite and adviser to the king, and a distinct proposal now that the thief and the justice shall change places on the spot--with the inquiry as to which is _the justice_, and which is the _thief_, openly started--one would almost fancy that the subject had been exhausted here, or would be, if these indications should be followed up. What is it in the way of social alterations which the player's imagination could conceive of, which his scruples have prevented him from suggesting here?

But the mad king goes on with those new and unheard-of political and social suggestions, which his madness appears to have had the effect of inspiring in him--

_Lear_. Thou hast seen a farmer's _dog_ bark at a _beggar_?

_Gloster_. Ay, sir.

_Lear_. And the _creature_ run from the _cur? There_ might'st thou behold _the great image of_ AUTHORITY: _a dog's obeyed in office_.

Through tattered robes _small vices_ do appear; _Robes_, and _furred gowns, hide all_.

[_Robes,--robes_, and _furred gowns_!]

Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it with rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it.

But that was before Tom got his seat on the bench--that was before Tom got his place at the council-table.

'None does offend,--_none_--'

[unless you will begin your reform at the beginning, and hunt down the great rogues as well as the little ones; or, rather, unless you will go to the source of the evil, and take away the evils, of which these crimes, that you are awarding penalties to, are the result, let it all alone, I say. Let's have no more legislation, and no more of _this_ JUSTICE, _this_ EQUITY, that takes the vices which come through the tattered robes, and leaves the great _thief_ in his purple untouched.

Let us have no more of this mockery. Let us be impartial in our justice, at least.] 'None does offend. _I say none. I'll_ able 'em.'

[I'll show you the way. Soft. _Hark, in thine ear_.] 'Take that of _me_, my friend, _who have the power_ TO SEAL THE ACCUSER'S LIPS.'

[Soft, _in thine ear_.]--

'Get thee _gla.s.s_ eyes, And like a scurvy _politician_, seem To see the things thou dost not.--_Now, now, now_, NOW.

I know thee well enough. Thy name is--Gloster.

_Thou must be patient_; we came crying hither.

Thou know'st the first time that we smell the air We wawl and cry. I will _preach_ to thee; _mark me_.

_Gloster. Alack, alack, the day!_

_Lear_. When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of--_Fools_.

[Mark me, for I _preach_ to thee--of _Fools_.

I am even the _natural fool of fortune_.]

--'O matter and impertinency, mixed Reason in madness.'--

--is the Poet's concluding comment on this regal boldness, a safe and saving explanation; 'for to define true madness,' as Polonius says, 'what is it but to _be_ nothing else but mad.' If the 'all licensed fool,' as Goneril peevishly calls him, under cover of his a.s.sumed imbecility, could carry his traditional privilege to such dangerous extremes, and carp and philosophize, and fling his bitter jests about at his pleasure, surely downright madness might claim to be invested with a privilege as large. But madness, when conjoined with royalty, makes a _double_ privilege, one which this Poet finds, however, at times, none too large for his purposes.