From this and many other wild speeches which he uttered, Caius perceived that he was not in his perfect mind, but that his daughters' ill-usage had really made him mad. And now the loyalty of this worthy Earl of Kent showed itself in more essential services than he had hitherto found opportunity to perform. He placed his master in safe keeping in Dover Castle, and embarking for France,

hastened to the court of Cordelia. To this lady he represented in such moving terms the pitiful condition of her royal father, and painted in such lively colours the inhumanity of her sisters, that she besought her husband with tears to permit her to embark for England with means to subdue her cruel sisters, and restore her father to his throne. Her request being granted, she set forth, and with a royal army landed at Dover.

Lear, having by some chance escaped from the guardians which the Earl of Kent had put over him, was found by some of Cordelia's train wandering in the fields near Dover, in a pitiable condition, stark mad, with a crown upon his head, which he had made of straw and nettles and other wild weeds. By the advice of the physicians, Cordelia, though earnestly desirous of seeing her father, was prevailed upon to put off the meeting, till, by sleep and medicine, he should be restored to greater composure.

A tender sight it was to see the meeting between father and daughter, to see the struggles between the joy of the poor old king at beholding again his once darling child, and his shame at receiving such filial kindness from her whom he had cast off for so small a fault. These passions struggling with his malady in his half-crazed brain, made him scarcely remember where he was, or who it was that so kindly kissed him and spoke to him. He begged the standers-by not to laugh at him, if he was mistaken in thinking this lady to be his daughter Cordelia. And then he fell on his knees to beg pardon of his child, and she knelt to ask a blessing of him, and told him that it did not become him to kneel, but it was her duty, for she was his child, Cordelia. Then she kissed him to kiss away all her sisters' unkindness, and told him how she had come from France to bring him assistance.

So we leave the old king under the protection of this loving child, and return to say a word or two about Regan and Goneril.

They who had been so false to their old father could not be expected to prove faithful to their husbands. They soon grew tired of paying even the appearance of duty and affection, and in an open way showed they had fixed their affections on another, and the object of their regard was the same person, 5viz., Edmund, Earl of

Gloucester. About this time, the Duke of Cornwall, Regan's husband, died, and Regan immediately declared her intention of wedding the Earl of Gloucester. This roused the jealousy of her sister, to whom, as well as to Regan, this wicked earl had at sundry times professed love, and Goneril found means to make away with her sister by poison. Being detected and imprisoned by her husband, the Duke of Albany, for this deed, she in a fit of disappointed rage put an end to her own

life. Thus the justice of Heaven overtook these wicked daughters.

While the eyes of all were upon this event, they were suddenly called on to wonder at the mysterious ways of Providence, as shown in the melancholy fate of the young and virtuous Cordelia, whose good deeds seemed to deserve a more fortunate conclusion. But, alas! innocence and piety are not always successful in this world. The forces which Goneril and Regan had levied under the command of the bad Earl of Gloucester were victorious, and

Cordelia ended her life in prison. Thus Heaven took this innocent lady away while still young, after showing her to the world as an illustrious example of filial duty. Lear did not long survive his beloved daughter.

Before he died, the good Earl of Kent, who had never left his master, tried to make him understand that it was he who had followed him under the name of Caius ; but Lear's care-crazed brain could not comprehend how that could be, or how Kent and Caius could be the same person. Then Lear died, and this faithful servant, worn out with age and grief for his old master, did not long survive him.

1 omen, a sign of some event which seems likely to happen. 2 unfilial, not filial. Filial means belonging to a son or daughter. from Latin filius, a son; filia, a daughter. Unfilial behaviour is such as a son or daughter ought not to show towards a parent. 3 elements, fire, earth, air, and water are popularly called the "four elements." An element is properly a simple substance, not compounded or made up of other substances. Fire, earth, air, and water were formerly supposed to be substances of this kind. malady, disease, disorder. 5 viz., a short mode of writing the Latin word videlicet, that is, namely. It is generally read "namely."

4

MANKIND, says a Chinese manuscript which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. The manuscript goes on to say that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take

to be the elder brother), was accidentally discovered in the manner following. The swineherd Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect 2mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who, being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are,

let some

of their

To

sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. gether with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian make-shift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less