Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/201

186 some would call it, a thought of simple suggestion, which, is the last kind of thought the dying brain can entertain, just as involuntary muscular action endures after voluntary power of movement is lost.

The new idea, that Caius and Kent are

one, cannot be entertained : this requires comparison and a greater power of cerebration than the feeble tide of blood, which is now percolating the brain can provide for. I am old now,

“Lear.

And these same crosses spoil me—Who are you ? Mine eyes are not o' the best:—I'll tell you straight. Kent. If fortune brag of two she lov’d and hated, One of them we behold.

Lear. This is a dull sight: Are you not Kent The same ;

Kent.

Your servant Kent: Where is your servant Caius 2 Lear. He's a good fellow, I can tell you that ; He'll strike, and quickly too: He's dead and rotten. Kent. No, my good lord ; I am the very man;– Lear. I’ll see that straight.

Kent. That, from your first of difference and decay, Have follow'd your sad steps. Lear.

You are welcome hither.

Kent. Nor no man else; all's cheerless, dark, and deadly.— Your eldest daughters have fore-done themselves, And desperately are dead. Lear.

Ay, so I think.

Alb. He knows not what he says; and vain it is That we present us to him. Edg. Very bootless.”

Very bootless—and yet stupified by dire mischance, they are blind to the near approach of the “veiled shadow with the keys,” who is at hand to release this loved and hated one of fortune

from his eminence of care. Albany proceeds to make state arrangements, to promise the wages of virtue and the cup of deservings to friends and foes, and to resign his own absolute power to the old majesty, whose heart is beating slower and fainter, whose face is blanching, and whose

features are pinching as the life current passes on its way