at once, but never to be forgotten; and the vision, in its reality to our feelings, abides with us more as a remembrance than an imagination, instructing and inspiring us that of a friend whom we had known and loved in our youth. Superior, perhaps, to all the rest of Shakspeare's women in beauty of character, she is inferior to none of them as a living and breathing reality; nor should I, taking even her as a specimen, accuse the poet of making any better women than nature makes. Such beings are, among their sex, what diamonds are among jewels; the best indeed, but no less real than the poorest; and diamonds, as well as Cordelias, require the artit's hand to make their virtues appear; did we meet them, we probably should not know them unless some Shakspeare were by to lend us his eyes.

We see Cordelia only in the relation of daughter, and scarcely see her even there; yet we know what she is or would be throughout the whole circle of human relations, just as well as if we had seen her in them all. She is just such a creature, like some we may have known, as it makes one feel safer and happier to live in the same town with; to walk the same streets that she walks in; to kneel in the same church where she hath knelt: such an one, the knowledge of whose being in the same house with us renders our room more comfortable, our outlook more beautiful; puts peace into our pillow, and a soft religious life and joy into our thoughts; makes the night calmer, the day cheerfuler, the air sweeter and softer and balmier about us: at thought of whom the objects that were looking black upon us brighten up into smiles; the consciousness of whose presence brings consecration of the place and

sanctification of the feelings; and the knowing of whom regenerates and purifies the heart, because she can be truly known only in proportion as the heart is pure. And finally, Cordelia, so rich in mild, sweet, gentle austerities, belongs to that class of beings, of whom there are probably more to be found than there are to find them, who seem born to give happiness or something better than happiness to others, and yet to know little of it themselves: unless, peradventure, they have the unseen and unprized gift of sharing the happiness they create; so that while they seem no less pitiable, they really are no less enviable, than admirable.

And the woe of it is, that Cordelia's holiness should have turned traitor to her; that her perfect truth, the thing we most love her for, should have proved her greatest enemy; and that she and her father should have been torn asunder to their mutual sorrow by the very thing that ought to have bound them together. But so it has ever been, and perhaps ever will be, in this world of ours, that loud pretence must snatch away the prize while silent worth is toiling to deserve it: yet both gain their ends; for the one looks to the reward, the other to the desert; and thus does virtue always triumph; for she always

"Plays in the many games of life that one,

Where what she most doth value must be won."

But truly, in the present atheism of human virtue I fear it may seem unwise to speak thus of tragic heroines, as though the study of them had any thing to do with a knowledge of what is about us. And perhaps it were vain to expect that people generally should take a seri

ous interest in characters which do not come in a shape to tickle their senses or stir their passions. Even the best of us are used to speak of the vast inferiority of all real to certain imaginary beings, not choosing, perhaps, to remember, that the reason why we find no such characters in real life, may be because we have nothing to find them with; for swine of course never know whether they be pearls or pebbles that lie before them. We, indeed, in our pride of wisdom, sneer at old chivalry for bending the knee to womanhood; forgetting, apparently, that men cease to be as gods, when they get to thinking, we will be as gods.

It is an interesting feature in this representation, that Lear's faith in filial piety is justified by the event, though not his judgment as to the persons in whom it was to be found. Wiser in heart than in understanding he mistook the object, but was right in the feeling. Thinking, in his pride of sovereignty, to command the gratitude of his children by his bounty to them, and to be himself the author of the love on which he is to depend, he is at last compelled to rest in a love which thrives in spite of himself, a gratitude which no injustice of his could extinguish. Thus the confirmation of his faith grows by the ruin and decay of his pride, and he becomes indebted to the unbought grace of nature for that comfort which he would fain owe entirely to himself. Such is the frequent lesson of human life; for if the fall has greatly marred the beauty of human character, it has equally marred our perception of what remains : and perhaps the greatest punishment of our own vices, is, that they take from us the power to discern the virtue of others. Hoping well but seeing ill, we often go

blundering along, with too little judgment to perceive our want thereof, mistaking persons and things because mistaken as to ourselves, and missing the good we seek, because we lack the goodness to discern it; and perhaps by much experience, many trials, great sufferings, we are finally disciplined into humility and happiness, and brought to know and feel and confess at once the weakness of our reason and the wisdom of faith.

KENT AND EDGAR.

Ir the best happiness of life consist in forgetting of self and living for others, Kent and Edgar are those of Shakspeare's men whom one should most wish to resemble. Strikingly similar in virtues and in situation, these two persons are, however, widely different in character. Brothers in magnanimity and in misfortune; equally invincible in fidelity, the one to his king, the other to his father; both driven to disguise themselves, and in their disguise both serving where they stand condemned;— Kent, too generous to control himself, is always quick, fiery and impetuous; Edgar, controlling himself even because of his generosity, is always calm, collected and deliberate. Yet it is difficult which of them to prefer. For if Edgar be the more judicious and prudent, Kent is the more unselfish, of the two; the former disguising himself for his own safety, and then turning his disguise into an opportunity of service; the latter disguising himself merely in order to serve, and periling his life in the self-same act whereby the other seeks to preserve it. Nor is Edgar so lost to himself, and so

absorbed in others, but that he can and does survive them; whereas Kent's life is so bound up in love and loyalty, he lives so entirely for others, that he cannot outlive them, and their death must inevitably "pluck him after." Nevertheless, I know not whether it were better to be the subject or the author of Edgar's tale :—

"Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man,
Who, having seen me in my worst estate,
Shunned my abhorred society; but then, finding
Who 'twas that so endured, with his strong arms
He fastened on my neck, and bellowed out
As he'd burst heaven: threw him on my father;
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him,
That ever ear received: which in recounting

His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life
Began to crack."

Kent is continually getting himself into trouble in trying to get others out. Blunt, downright, impassioned alike in his sympathies and his antipathies, he pushes right on as regardless of times and occasions as of himself; is as intemperate and reckless in virtue as others are in crime indefatigable in loyalty and affection, he is present whenever there is suffering to be relieved, or treachery to be defeated; and, while rivalling the worst in endowments of mind, he at the same time rivals the best in a noble use of them: for they have read history to little purpose, who know not that true loyalty is a sentiment that leads a multitude of virtues and nobilities in its train. In his impulsiveness, however, Kent can hardly help doing too much rash, reckless, I might almost say, fanatical in honesty, he often mars what he would mend, hinders where he would help, injures whom