Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/153

138 day. Physically, therefore, he is a strong, hale, vigorous

man ; and the desire he expresses to confer his cares on

younger strengths, that he may “unburthened crawl to wards death,” is either a specious reason for his abdication, or one which has sole reference to the consciousness of that

failing judgment which is obvious to others, and probably not unfelt by himself; and which his daughter so cruelly insinuates when he claims her gratitude. This state of hale bodily strength in senile mania is true to nature; it is observed, both in second childhood, that is, in the dementia of old age, and in the insanity of old age,

that the physical powers are commonly great—the body out lives the mind—or to speak more physiologically and truth fully, some functions of the body remain regular and vigorous,

while others suffer morbid excitement or decay; general nutrition retains its power, while the nutrition of the brain becomes irregular or defective. Coleridge justly observes, that “it was not without fore thought, nor is it without its due significance, that the division of Lear's kingdom is, in the first six lines of the play, stated as a thing determined in all its particulars previously to the trial of professions, as the relative rewards of which the daughters were to be made to consider their

several portions.” “They let us know that the trial is a silly trick, and that the grossness of the old king's rage is in part the result of a silly trick suddenly and most unexpectedly baffled and disappointed.” (That the trial is a mere trick is unquestionable; but is not the significance of this fact greater than Coleridge sus pected Does it not lead us to conclude, that from the first the king's mind is off its balance; that the partition of his kingdom, involving inevitable feuds and wars, is the first act of his developing insanity; and that the man ner of its partition, the mock-trial of his daughters' affec