Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/152

Rh the cold snow strikes down from the head and checks the

glow of feeling,” in others, is the occasion of stronger passion and hotter temper. A sad state, one of labour and sorrow, and dangerous to happiness, honour, and sanity. The natural state of old age is, that the judgment matures as the passions cool; but a tendency of equal force is, that the prevailing habitudes of the mind strengthen as years advance ; and a man who, in “the best and soundest of his time hath been but rash,” feels himself,

and makes those around him feel, “not alone the imper fections of engrafted condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them ;” a maxim not less true because it is the heartless observation of a thankless child, and one capable of being ex

tended to almost all the prevailing emotions and tendencies of man.

In old age, the greedy man becomes a miser; in

old age, the immoral man becomes the shameless repro bate; in old age, the unchecked passions of manhood tend to develop thomselves into the exaggerated proportions of insanity. How stern a lesson is the folly, the extravagance, and the vice of old men, that while it is yet time, passion should be brought into subjection, and the proportions and balance of the mind habitually submitted to the ordinances of the moral law

It is worthy of remark that Lear's age is physically

strong and vigorous; he has been a warrior as well as a king.

“I’ve seen the day with my good biting falchion I would have made them skip.” Even at the last he has vigour enough to kill the slave who was hanging Cordelia. He is a keen hardy hunts man, and he rides from the house of one daughter to that of another with such speed, that his strong willing mes senger can scarcely arrive before him by riding night and -